She was still there. Maybe not flipping her tail as much. I knelt down next to her. “Hi, honey. I’m going to try to help you.” I stuck out my hand, in case she wanted to sniff it, like a dog, and she lifted her head up a little bit, and I swore to God she looked at me and knew I was one of the good guys. You could touch dolphins and not hurt them, right? Of course. They let you swim with them at those resort places in Florida. I touched her just south of her blowhole, and she was cold and firm and smooth. “I’ll do my best, honey. Stay with me.”

She flapped again, utterly helpless on the sand. I ran down the river to where the water was deeper and got a bucketful to pour over her. She did seem to like that, flipping and wriggling with more energy. Then I started digging the trench, which filled up with water immediately. Maybe if I could position her toward the river, she could sort of flop her way down . . .

“I’m going to touch you now, honey,” I said. “Okay? I’m going to try to turn you.”

She was, as best I knew, a bottlenose dolphin, and a little one. Maybe half-grown? I loved nature documentaries, but I was just guessing here. I knew dolphins were smart, maybe smarter than humans. And they traveled in groups—pods?—so maybe her family was waiting for her in the deeper water. Stoningham was the only town in Connecticut that had a little bit of oceanfront; most of the town hugged the very end of Long Island Sound. But out here, where I was, it was possible (if you were a dolphin, for example) to swim straight from the Atlantic, past Fishers Island to the east, and right here to the tidal river.

Taking a deep breath, I put my hands on either side of her and moved her so she faced the trench. She flapped her tail up and down, seeming to know that she had to do her part. A foot. Two feet. I dug some more, moved her a few inches in the inch or two of water, dug some more. I tried to pick her up, then abandoned the plan, afraid I would drop her. She was awkward and heavy, maybe seventy-five or a hundred pounds.

The tidal river was just too shallow, and getting more so every minute. Honey—I’d named her now—seemed to be getting tired. Her breathing wasn’t as loud or frequent, and her efforts weren’t as strong. The tide was going out too fast for my plan.