Beach House Memories

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “You went up in a plane?”

  “I did. A small propeller plane. I’ll tell you all about it later. I’m in a hurry now. Should be back in an hour or so. Are you okay until then?”

  “I guess,” she replied, her gaze returning to Dr. Bennett.

  “I’ll just grab the supplies,” she told Dr. Bennett, and hurried to the back porch. Her supplies were neatly organized and stashed in a red plastic bucket. She grabbed that and made a beeline back to the kitchen, only to find Palmer staggering from his room, scratching his head and yawning. He was naked except for his boxer shorts. Lovie rolled her eyes and wondered if her children could have planned a worse impression.

  “Who’s that?” Palmer asked sleepily. He pointed to Dr. Bennett in the kitchen.

  Lovie reached out to lower his hand from midair. “Don’t point,” she admonished him. “That’s Dr. Bennett of the turtle project. We’ll be back in an hour. I’ll introduce you then. And I hope by then you’ll have some clothes on.”

  “I won’t be here,” he told her, eyes on the strange man in khaki pants talking to Cara in the kitchen. “Where are you going with him?”

  “To check a nest, what do you think?” she replied, rustling his hair. He ducked from her hand, obstinately. Lovie walked past him into the living room, wondering whether Palmer’s frown was from the mussed hair or the fact that she was going off with a man he didn’t know.

  “All set!” Lovie called out.

  Dr. Bennett said good-bye to Cara and promptly joined Lovie in the living room, pursing his lips and delivering to her a quick roll of the eyes. He took the bucket from her arm and held open the front door for her. Lovie turned to call out good-bye to the kids. Her voice was caught with surprise to find both Palmer and Cara, standing beside one another, watching her leave with scrutiny.

  Back in the Jeep, Lovie felt compelled to say, “I apologize for my children’s manners. They’ve been taught better.”

  “No matter,” he replied.

  “But it does matter. At least to me.”

  He didn’t respond. She studied his face as he fired up the engine, then her gaze shifted to his hand as he jerked the gear into first. It was tanned and long fingered with a few scratches crisscrossed against the skin. He hit the gas and they took off once again. Her floppy hat flew from her head to land in the backseat. She laughed and climbed over the seat to fetch it. As she held her hat with one hand and the doorframe with the other, they bumped along Palm Boulevard. She loved the way the wind washed over her in the open car and how she felt more connected to the landscape. So different from the elegant smoothness of Stratton’s Mercedes. And the rugged truck made her feel young again. Palmer would love this big ol’ Jeep. He’d probably call it “cool.” She saw again in her mind his suspicious scowl and thought with a giggle, If he could see me now.

  Thinking of the children, she turned to ask him, “So, what did she say to you?”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Cara, of course.”

  “She gave me the third degree,” he replied with a light laugh.

  “The third degree?”

  “Ah, yes. Let’s see . . . She wanted to know what kind of a doctor I was.” He turned to look at her with a sly grin. “I told her I was a turtle doctor.”

  Lovie laughed. “She won’t be impressed by that,” she chided him.

  “She wasn’t. Said something about how I wasn’t a real doctor.”

  “Oh, no . . .” Lovie suppressed her laugh.

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded, chuckling. “Then she proceeded to ask what the inside of a turtle looked like, where did I live when I wasn’t on the Isle of Palms, if I was married, how many children I had, and, oh, yes, she wanted to know if I’d take her up in the plane, too.”

  Lovie shook her head, thinking that Cara already had more information on the elusive Dr. Bennett than she did. “She is inquisitive.”

  “I liked her. I’m not sure I can say the same for her.”

  “I don’t think she can figure you out. I don’t usually bring strange men into the house.”

  His brows rose. “I shouldn’t think so.”

  The plane ride seemed to have brought back his humor. She was relieved he wasn’t driving like a madman any longer, though he did still push the speed limits.

  “So you have two children?” he asked. “No more hiding in the rafters? Off at boarding school? Half brothers, half sisters . . .”

  “No, just the two.” She glanced at him, glad for the opening. “And you?”

  His face tightened slightly, and for a moment she wasn’t sure he would answer.

  “A daughter,” he replied. Then quickly, “How old are yours?”

  “Palmer is thirteen and Caretta is ten.”

  He turned to look at her, one brow up in surprise. “Caretta?”

  She chuckled and nodded feebly. “Yes, I admit it. I named my daughter after the loggerhead species—Caretta caretta.”

  “Don’t tell me her middle name is Caretta, too?”

  Lovie laughed and shook her head. “No, but I thought about it.”

  “You are a fanatic, aren’t you?”

  “I suppose I am. But honestly, I simply liked the sound of the name. I had a hard time talking my husband into agreeing to it. And my mother.” She paused, remembering Dee Dee’s hysterics when Lovie could not be dissuaded from the name. Her expression softened. “I’d thought . . . hoped . . . that she would come to love the turtles for which she’d been named. I had dreams that we’d be walking the beaches together, that she’d take over for me when I was old and doddering. But,” she added matter-of-factly to avoid slipping into the maudlin, “she’s not the least interested in sea turtles. Neither is Palmer. And,” she said with chagrin, “she hates her name.”

  “Just wait. She’ll change her mind someday. Kids like to be the same, you know. Especially at her age. My daughter’s name is Philippa. It’s an old family name. But she hated it. Insisted everyone call her by her nickname, Pippi.”

  “Like Pippi Longstocking?”

  “Exactly. She lived for those books. Collected them all.”

  “Cara likes them, too. Please tell me your little girl doesn’t have those crazy red braids.”

  “No, thank God. She’s blond, blue eyed . . . a real beauty. Just like her mother.” His voice sounded tight and his hand clenched and unclenched again on the gearshift, as it had that morning.

  Lovie looked out the window and wondered about the tension that suddenly spiked his voice. She’d thought he’d finished talking about family, but he spoke again, his voice having resumed its pleasant tone.

  “Pippi is thirteen now and suddenly she likes having a unique name. Young girls can be quixotic. So give Cara time to grow into her name. Though I, for one, am a fan of the name Caretta. I only wish I’d thought of it.”

  They’d come to the end of the paved road where the maritime forest began. Dr. Bennett slowed to a stop in front of a wide makeshift metal gate. Likewise, conversation ended.

  “I’ll get the gate,” he said, leaping out with effortless grace and trotting to the gate. He opened the combination lock and swung wide the gate. After he drove through, Lovie didn’t wait to be asked and jumped from the Jeep to close the gate.

  They drove a short distance. Lovie looked at the woods, or what was left of it, shocked and devastated by the changes already carved by the developers.

  “Oh, Dr. Bennett,” she said, remorse ringing her voice. “Look at what they’ve done.”

  Eight

  It looked like a hurricane had ripped through the maritime forest. Tall palmettos and huge branches of ancient live oaks littered the earth like matchsticks along a wide swath of roads that crisscrossed the property.

  But the wildlife endured. She saw deer tracks along the muddy road, and birds called from the trees. Here and there great shafts of light broke through the intense foliage to shimmer on drops of water on leaves.

  “This used to be a wild jungle,” Lovie said
. “So magnificent. There was only a single gutted dirt road that led to the Sand Dollar Campground. Now look at it. It’s really changing, isn’t it?” she said, envisioning what the sale of the forest truly meant.

  “I’ve seen this kind of thing happen all over the world. Coastal property has become hot real estate. Did you come here often?”

  “No, sadly. Not as an adult, anyway. When we were children it was always the big challenge to hike through it. The oaks, palms, and brush being so thick, you could get lost in here. But the real scare was the ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?”

  She gave a short laugh. “Oh, yes. Ghosts, haints, ghouls . . . This is the Lowcountry. There are ghost stories everywhere. Didn’t you know?”

  “I knew Poe lived here for a while.”

  “On Sullivan’s Island as a young man. There’s also Blackbeard’s Ghost and Osceola, the great Indian chief who died in Fort Moultrie. But before them were the spirits of the slaves whose bodies washed ashore after being unceremoniously dumped from the ships as they made their way into the harbor. The Gullah claim the spirits roam these islands. But these woods . . . these woods are haunted by ol’ Nicodemus.”

  Dr. Bennett chuckled. “Okay, tell me. I’m a sucker for a good ghost story.”

  Lovie warmed to the task. “Legend has it that Nicodemus was a root doctor who knew the voodoo. While he was alive, he used to hold secret ceremonies in this forest. When he died, he was buried at the foot of the great old live oak where he used to hold meetings. His ghost is said to roam the forest to capture children who dared to come into his woods after nightfall. He cuts off their fingers and toes and sends them to their parents as a warning.”

  “I bet the kids love that story.”

  “They do, in a love-hate kind of way. Generations of Low-country kids have earned their badge of courage here.”

  “Including you?”

  “Of course, including me. I’m one of the few girls who signed the book. The challenge was to hike through the woods to the Point at the northern tip of the island.”

  He smiled again. “Dare, double dare kind of thing?”

  “Exactly.”

  He looked at her face. “I can just imagine you, all pigtails and scraped knees, hiking fearlessly through the forest.” He shifted in his seat and faced forward. “Well, if you’re game, let’s try our luck and see if we make it.”

  “You’re on.”

  Dr. Bennett pushed the Jeep into gear. “Hold on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride,” he said, and once again the big wheels spun in the dirt. He wore an expression of intense concentration as they began the arduous trek across the rough sandy, wooded terrain.

  Dr. Bennett was skilled at maneuvering the growling, rumbling big Jeep through the rutted path. Lovie held on to the door, yelping when they hit a big bump and she went tumbling, all the while sporting a wide grin. Once again her hat went flying. This time she was lucky and caught it midair.

  “You okay?” he shouted over the roar of the engine.

  “Yeah,” she called back. “It’s like riding a motorboat in a choppy current.”

  She loved the adventure of it all. Missed it. Her daddy used to have a beat-up truck he called Mighty Moe. Lord, he loved that ol’ truck, and he’d take her and Mickey all over on what he called an “island crawl.” He’d ride on the beach, along the forest’s rutted road, anywhere. Once they camped out at the Sand Dollar Campground. Those were the best times.

  Lovie felt a sense of wonder that she hadn’t thought about that in so long. Both her daddy and Mickey were gone now, and this adventure today brought back that part of her that loved things wild. She glanced over at Dr. Bennett, his muscles straining as he guided the Jeep like a bucking bronco. Her daddy would have liked him, she thought.

  She inhaled the pungent scent of the earth mingled with a hint of honeysuckle and cedar. She was surrounded by green—giant loblolly pines, tall and straight palmettos, and the thick tangles of vines. She truly could be in a jungle, she thought. Certainly, it was hot enough. Insects hummed near her ear. In shafts of light she saw hazes of winged bugs, countless. She swatted a mosquito at her neck, then wiped her brow with her sleeve. At last the road opened up, and they lurched from the deep shade into the sunshine of the dune field. A welcoming breeze cooled the sweat along her brow.

  Dr. Bennett stopped the Jeep and wiped his brow. “This is as far as the Jeep can go. We can take the rest of the way on foot.” He put on a battered brown baseball cap with UNIV. OF FLORIDA embroidered in dark brown. Then he went to the back to pull out his backpack and gear.

  Lovie couldn’t wait to get out on the beach. Having seen the turtle tracks on the northern beach from the sky, she wondered how many nests she’d missed over the years. And she was eager to explore this area of the island. She grabbed her backpack, put her hat on her head, and followed Dr. Bennett. The red bucket filled with small wooden stakes batted against his thigh as he walked. Their feet dug into the soft, dry sand.

  “There.” Dr. Bennett pointed to a set of tracks barely visible across the sand.

  Lovie’s practiced eye saw them, too. Her gaze followed the double tracks to a circular disturbance. It was just below the tide line, marked by wrack and shells.

  “Looks like a body pit,” she said, feeling excitement as they drew near. “She laid eggs, I’d bet on it.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Look at the difference in the length of the incoming and outgoing tracks. She was up here for a long time. She had to have laid eggs.”

  “Good observation,” he said. They reached the body pit and set down their backpacks and gear.

  Lovie studied the circle of disturbed sand and smiled. “Yep, there are eggs here . . . somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I think so, too. What would you normally do now?” he asked her.

  “Well, after I’d located the egg chamber, I’d place a stick at the nest to mark it. I measure two feet from the center, so I don’t hit any eggs. Then I’d record the location in my journal. Later, I’d check on the nest as I made my rounds, to look for any changes.”

  “You’d leave the nest there?” he asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “Doesn’t it concern you that the nest is below the tide line?”

  “It’s only just below,” she replied hesitantly. She knew a lesson was coming and that he was baiting her. “And no, it doesn’t bother me. It’s where she laid it.”

  “How many nests have you witnessed hatching below the tide line?”

  The question surprised her, and she paused, resting her hand on the backpack to think about it. “Hatching? It’s hard to say. I don’t see all the nests hatch, of course. And usually the nests are laid above the high tide line, along the dunes.” She shook her head. “I’d guess very few.”

  “I’d guess none.”

  She was rattled by his certainty. “Why do you say that?”

  “Simple. Because if the nest is left here, below the tide line, then at high tide, the seawater will wash over the nest. Repeatedly. That kills the eggs.”

  “What else could I do?”

  “When I discover a nest below the tide line, I move it to a safe location higher on a dune.”

  “Won’t that hurt the eggs?”

  “Not if it’s done within hours of being laid. After twelve hours in the sand, the embryo within the egg becomes increasingly susceptible to damage. That’s why I rushed to get here. I never move a nest after nine a.m.” He looked at his watch. “We have to hustle. Come close. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Lovie licked her dry lips, feeling like a novice. She’d never dared to disturb a nest, much less move it. She’d never had the authority.

  Dr. Bennett walked around the nest, chin in his palm, studying it. “First you study the field signs. Look there,” he said, pointing. “See the sprayed sand? That’s what she does when she’s covering her nest. A sure sign.”

  Lovie bent to one knee and plucked up broken vines and up
rooted sea oats. “Here’s broken vegetation,” she called out. “I’ve always seen this as a sign she dug a nest.”

  “Right. Good,” he said, obviously pleased with his student. “Then check out the mounds. The nest is often in the biggest one and nearest to the end of the incoming track. I usually use a canvas bag, but if you’ll bring over that bucket of yours, I think it’ll be perfect for this job.”

  Pleased, she went for the bucket while he knelt at the mound. Lovie knelt beside him, hawking his every move.

  “This is where I think the eggs are,” he began. “Sometimes those turtles are good at fooling you, and you can be stuck out here for a long time hunting for eggs. Now, before I begin,” he said, and his voice became more insistent, “this is not something we want all the volunteers to be doing. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably best not to talk much about this either. The fewer people who know we move nests, the better.”

  “What about Flo? She’s experienced. We might need more help.”

  “Maybe. We can talk about that later. For now, though. It’s just you and me. Okay?”

  Being singled out made her feel that she really was sharing the responsibility of the project with Dr. Bennett. Always a good student, Lovie watched carefully as he dug with his hands deep into the sand, scooping out one handful after another. A foot deep, she caught a pungent, fishy scent and knew he was near. Dr. Bennett stopped digging and, instead, used his fingers to probe cautiously deeper into the sand.

  He turned his head and his blue eyes sparkled with discovery, inches from her own. “I’ve found eggs!” he exclaimed. “Look.” He moved back.

  Lovie bent closer and peered in the nest, then gasped at her first sight of the pearly white tops of two turtle eggs. It felt like Christmas. In all the years she’d done this, she’d never dug into a nest, never saw an egg unless it had been ravaged by a raccoon or a dog. Dr. Bennett covered the bottom of the bucket with some of the sand from the nest.