I chuckled. Rob was referring to an ongoing team joke, of course, started by Timmy. When the guides set up the lunch table on the beach with all the fixings for sandwiches, Lonnie and I would line up with the team, our hands probing over the table. From a sighted perspective, I could understand how our fingers might have looked like little wriggling snakes as they explored the bread, cheese, ham, pickles, and onions. Once, my hand landed on the rim of an unknown jar, opened on the table. I did the natural thing, which was to lick my finger, discovering that it was mayonnaise, but after that, Timmy had begun calling it “Braille lunch.”

“Since there’s no mayonnaise in this museum,” Timmy said, “you can Braille to your heart’s content.”

I dropped to my knees to explore the first object. It was placed artfully on a large, flat pedestal of rock. The item was made of wood, thin and curvy, and widening toward one end into a round dish. I traced my finger around the circular hollow where the dish part had been perfectly carved by the elements.

“Maybe some kind of horn, like a saxophone?” I said. Then Lonnie, who was kneeling right behind me, agreed with my guess.

Each piece was so beautiful; if I hadn’t had an audience, I could have touched them forever. It was hard to believe these chunks of wood had been shaped through years of being tumbled about and scoured by water, sand, and wind until they became hard, almost like they’d been petrified, and as burnished as porcelain. One of them was channeled by dozens of tiny worms boring their way through. Another felt like a head complete with eyes, nose, and a squiggly mouth. Protruding from the top were knots of tangled roots, like dreadlocks. Resting on a flat rock sat a judge’s gavel, or maybe, I thought, a glossy peace pipe. Everyone passed it around, pretending to take puffs.

At the end of the line, I was bursting with appreciation. I’d never received a birthday gift quite like this one. I imagined Rob, over the last week, stealthily pulling off the river on various deserted beaches, combing the nooks and crannies, his bushy eyebrows lifting and his face lighting up as he discovered new specimens. Then he carefully placed them in his cockpit until it must have resembled a jungle of crisscrossing designs. Later, slipping away from camp, he exhaustively sorted and paired the objects into the most unique treasures and then displayed them in the most fluid and logical order—all for the Brailling pleasure of two blind friends.

I pulled my attention from the peace pipe in my hands and said, “I can’t believe you’ve been assembling this. I had no idea.”