by Mary Monroe
She glanced over to look at Lovie. Her mother’s high cheekbones caught the shadows of the twilight making her appear regal and serene. What was running through her mind as she looked out at the sunset, Cara wondered to herself? What did a woman who faced the sunset of her life think about? Cara knew that one day her own death would be imminent. How would she handle it? The uncertainty caused her to shiver.
“Are you cold?” Lovie asked.
“No,” she replied softly.
“There’s a crispness in the air.”
“Must be you, Mama. I’m sweltering in this heat. The bugs have been nasty on the beach.”
Lovie sighed. “Hope I’m still here to see the butterflies as they come through.”
“Hmm…” Cara uttered, unable to reply.
They rocked back and forth in their chairs as the ocean roared loudly in the distance.
“What are you thinking?” Cara asked after a while.
“Me? Nothing profound, I assure you. Nothing much at all. I was simply looking out and thinking how very long the pink fingers of this sunset are tonight. See? They stretch across the whole sky, embracing it.” She sighed and rocked. “Most comforting.”
“How is it comforting?”
“Why, it makes me think of God, dear.”
Cara stared out as the pink slowly deepened to rose, then purple and then slipped soundlessly into the thin black line of the horizon.
“I’m not certain I believe there is a God,” Cara said at last.
“How can you say that? You were raised to believe in God.”
“It was easier to just say, ‘Yes, I believe,’ whenever anyone asked. But inside, I’ve always wondered.”
“I would find that very frightening.”
“I find the thought of hell very frightening. There’s the rub.”
“The solution is simple, dear. You just have to love God more than you fear hell. My faith has been my solace and my strength through some pretty rough times. I can’t get to church often these days but working in the garden is a form of prayer, as is listening to music, arranging flowers, sewing a seam or just humming.”
“But what if you don’t have faith?”
“Faith isn’t something you wait to happen to you, Cara. Nor is it something you can study for, or work for or negotiate for at some bargaining table. Paul wrote that faith doesn’t come to you. It is a gift from God.”
“We’re back to square one. How can you be so certain there is a God?”
Lovie offered an old-soul smile. “Cara, dear, look at the sky! Sunsets are daily proof that God exists.”
The August moon rose high and the ocean shimmered. On shore, the porch lights from a few houses shone as bright and clear as the twinkling stars.
And the Turtle Ladies were ticked off.
“I’m going to bean those people with their darn porch lights burning so bright,” Flo said with a disgusted snarl.
The Turtle Team was baby-sitting another nest. The offshore breezes were still and the mosquitoes and no-see-ums were wicked. They all had bites around their ankles and bottles of repellent were passing hands.
“It’s the same house I went to the other night,” Flo went on, slapping lotion on her legs. “I smiled and told them, in as nice a way as I knew how, to please turn off those outside lights facing the beach. But look at it! Still all lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“The baby turtles will head straight for it.”
“Whose house it it?” asked Emmi.
“There are renters in there now.”
Emmi took her turn with the repellent. “Most of the renters I’ve talked to about the lights are excited by the possibility of seeing hatchlings while on vacation. They’re happy to do anything they can to help out. They just need to be told.”
“My dander is up after yesterday,” Cara snapped.
“Were the hatchlings really crawling up to the street?”
“It was a disaster. The police got a call about 5:00 a.m. from someone saying there were hatchlings getting smashed in the street. Then the police called Lovie, who woke me and Flo up, and we raced right over. It was pitiful. We searched for hours—way back in the dunes in all the grass clear up to the street. We picked up fifteen dead hatchlings and twenty or so live ones.”
“Barely alive,” Flo said, clearly upset. “The poor things had been scrambling for hours when they should have been swimming. We brought the live ones to the ocean but they were pretty tired and I doubt they’ll make it. I hate to think how many more got snatched by ghost crabs or just died from exposure.”
“So forgive me if I’m mad,” Cara said, slapping another mosquito.
“Okay, I’ll go up one more time and ask them to turn off their outside lights,” said Flo with a groan, climbing to her feet. “We don’t want to appear inhospitable. You stay here, Mother, and keep an eye on the nest for me. I’ll be right back.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Miranda replied.
Cara chuckled at Miranda’s tenacity. This was the fourth hatching on “her” stretch of beach and she’d not missed one of them.
“The stars are real bright tonight, Aunt Cara.” Linnea leaned against her shoulder. “I think the baby turtles will find their way no matter what. Don’t you?”
Cara smiled down at her sweet, expectant face. Linnea had come for several visits and they’d bonded. Cooper had grown bored with sitting quietly by a nest with a bunch of ladies and opted to stay home, but Linnea liked sitting by the nests with her aunt. They’d also gone shopping together, painted their nails, baked cookies and just cuddled with Lovie at night on the cushy sofa reading their favorite books. Cara hadn’t known that holding a child in her arms was one of the most fulfilling feelings in the world. Nor had she suspected that she could love a little girl so much.
“Do you think they’ll come out tonight?”
Cara chuckled at hearing the question for the tenth time. “Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll just have to see,” she replied, stroking Linnea’s silky hair.
Linnea wriggled away and crawled near the nest. She lowered her face close to the sand. “Come out, baby turtles. Everything is ready for you. Please come out.” Turning her head she asked, “What time do you think they’ll come out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow night.”
“They’re coming out all right,” Linnea said categorically, then came back to Cara’s side and tucked her coltish legs under her sweatshirt out of range of the pesty mosquitoes. “How did you learn so much about turtles?”
“I learned a lot from your grandmama Lovie. She taught most of us everything we know.”
Linnea’s expression grew serious and she traced squiggles in the sand with her forefinger. “Is Grandmama Lovie going to die?”
The question caught Cara by surprise; she didn’t know what to say. She had no experience with this kind of thing. She looked around for help but everyone’s eyes were averted. It seemed no one wanted to pursue this taboo topic. Cara looked at her niece’s expectant face and waved her closer, putting her arm around the child’s shoulders.
“Yes,” she replied honestly. “Your grandmama is dying.”
“I thought so. I heard Mama and Daddy talking about it. Except Daddy says she’s not. Are you sure she is?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but yes. I’m sure.”
Linnea thought about this for a moment. “Then why does Daddy say she isn’t?”
Cara sighed, wondering why herself. “Some people have a hard time accepting it.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Why is she dying?”
“She has cancer.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes, but not too much.” Yet, she thought with a shiver.
“When will she die?”
“I don’t know exactly. It’s like with the turtle nest. It happens when it’s supposed to happen.”
“Oh.”
“Honey, didn’t your mama talk to you about this?”
“No.�
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“I see.” Julia was apparently skirting the issue as well. Cara didn’t want to overstep her bounds but it was clear Linnea had questions that needed answering. “Do you understand what it means to die?”
“Of course I do,” Linnea replied with preadolescent pique. “It means she’s going to Heaven.”
The children went to church every week so Cara assumed that at nine Linnea had a pretty good concept of God and Heaven. But death was often a gray area in children’s minds. And adult minds, as well.
“Yes, but Heaven can be very hard to understand, can’t it? I’m not at all sure I’ve got it right even at my age.”
“It’s not hard,” she disagreed. “Heaven is where you go after you die. Everyone knows that. Of course, we don’t know exactly what it’s like. I know it’s nice. Mama told me that God’s up there in the clouds and he has all these beautiful houses for us to live in. If we’re good on earth we get a bigger house ‘cause we’ve earned it. I expect Grandmama will have a great, big mansion. And there are angels, of course.”
“Of course,” Cara replied, envying her her child’s faith.
“Do you think the turtles go to Heaven when they die?”
Cara looked to Emmi and Miranda for help, but they only smiled in that way adults do when children ask such questions. “I don’t know, never having been there.”
“I think they do. Grandmama would be lonely without them.”
Cara was alerted by the hitch in Linnea’s voice. “You’ll be lonely for Grandmama after she’s gone, won’t you?” she asked carefully.
Linnea looked down and nodded.
Cara felt a rush of love for the girl. “Oh, sweetie, me too,” she replied softly, gathering Linnea in her arms. She held her and rocked her gently and kissed the top of her head. “We have to stick together, you and me. We’ll be Mutt and Jeff. You can be on our Turtle Team. How’s that?”
“Could I?” she asked, her spirits shooting up.
“Of course,” she replied. “We’ll need you on the team.” She looked over to Emmi and Miranda, and knew they were all sharing the thought that Linnea would be taking her grandmother’s place on the team. Cara was passing the torch. Lovie had taught her, and now it was her turn to teach Linnea.
Linnea began to rattle off the various duties she’d observed over the summer and felt she could do all by herself now. Cara half listened, amused, paying more attention to the enthusiasm in her voice and the excitement in her eyes. Such confidence. And how quickly she could shift her emotions. Nine was a glorious age to be.
“Who’s that coming?” Emmi asked, sitting up.
Cara squinted in the darkness to see the small red beam of a flashlight bobbing in the distance. Just by the color of light she knew it was likely someone on the Turtle Team. Emmi dug into her beach bag to pull out her own flashlight, then made a small wave in the air with her beam to let the newcomers know where they were. The flashlight responded with a wave. All eyes were on the two shadowy figures, one very tall, one quite small.
“It’s Toy and Brett,” said Emmi, nudging Cara.
She smiled indulgently, but secretly she was pleased. Brett had been so busy with the business as the tourist season reached its peak that she’d hardly seen him lately.
They welcomed the newcomers warmly, scooting over on the sand dune to make room and offering repellent. Linnea—such a flirt—leaped into Brett’s arms. He swung her around like a rag doll while she let out a squeal of delight. Next he went to Miranda, who preened like a schoolgirl as he paid his respects. Cara could see that young and old alike were completely won over by him.
At last he came to sit down on the dune beside her. She loved that all he had to do was rest his big hand on her knee and look into her eyes for her to know that she was the one he came for. No public show of a big hug or a kiss. That was all—and it was enough to send her heart spinning and make her dizzy as though he’d just twirled her around, too.
“Any action yet?” Toy asked as she did a funny maneuvering act to settle down in the sand. Her belly was so big now she landed with a graceless grunt and a sigh.
Cara was glad to see Toy down at the nests again. She’d missed the last several hatchings and Cara had wondered if she’d lost interest, what with her own baby due to hatch soon.
“There’s a small depression in the sand but it hasn’t changed in a while.”
Linnea crawled close to inspect the nest for the hundredth time. “Could you check it again? Please?”
Cara obliged the child, flashing the red light on the nest. A gasp of surprise escaped on seeing that the little concave hole had indeed grown bigger. They all crowded close for a look. Even as they watched they saw grains of sand slip away.
Linnea squeezed her fingers tight in a prayer and said fervently, “Come on, come on, come on!”
“Looks like they might come tonight after all,” Emmi said.
“They’ll come,” said Miranda with a definite nod of her snowy-white head.
“Oh goodie,” Linnea squealed, excitement oozing from her pores.
Way up the beach, the offending bright lights on the rental house suddenly went out. There was a muffled cheer from the gang at the nest.
“Good for Flo!” Emmi said in a whispered cheer. “Just in time.”
“How many do you think are in there?” Linnea wanted to know.
“We moved this nest so we know exactly how many. There are one hundred and six eggs.”
“How come the mother turtle leaves the eggs?” asked Linnea.
“Turtles have done it that way for millions of years.”
“I think that’s so sad,” the little girl said with a sigh. “Leaving all those little babies by themselves.”
Toy sidled closer. “It is kind of sad when you think about it. I mean, not just for the babies but for the mother, too. She has to leave her babies and never see them again.”
“I doubt she thinks about it much, frankly,” Emmi said. “She just follows the old call of the wild.”
“It’s not natural for a mother to leave her babies,” Toy argued.
“It’s perfectly natural,” Brett explained in his easy voice. “In nature there are two types of reproducers. One is the maximum investment group. In this group a lot of time and effort is spent on a small number of offspring. Like elephants and dolphins. Then there is the minimal investment group. They have lots of offspring, then leave. It’s called predator glut. The purpose is to overfeed your predators so the species will survive. Frogs, fish and turtles are in this group. In biology, the individual’s worth is nothing. The species is everything.”
Cara gave him a pretend sock in the arm. “I can’t take him anywhere.”
“What?” he asked her. “I’m just answering her question.”
They all started laughing and Brett said, “What?” again with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
“But what about humans?” Toy asked with persistence.
“Humans fit into both strategies,” he replied. “For them it’s a matter of choice.”
“Isn’t that what got Adam and Eve tossed out of the Garden?” Emmi quipped.
Toy didn’t smile. She looked down and scratched the sand with her finger, chewing her lip. “I think it would be better if the mother stayed with her babies. Don’t you?”
Cara searched her face, tuned in to the urgency in Toy’s voice. She looked to Brett.
“I really couldn’t say,” he replied evenly. “Turtles have survived a long time in this scheme.”
Toy stilled her hand, then scraped the sand clean with a single swipe.
“There’s an ancient myth that says the earth rests on the back of an old turtle and this ancient turtle mama takes care of the eggs while the other mother turtle waddles off. I find that beautiful,” said Emmi.
“It’s kind of like the mother turtle leaves her eggs to the Turtle Ladies’ care, too,” Toy said, latching on to this idea. “I guess she knows her babies will be well taken care of after she’
s gone.”
Cara shivered in the sweltering night. She was afraid for Toy as she caught a glimpse at where the young woman’s train of thought was leading.
The turtle season moved into its final phase. Cara could sleep later in the morning since no one was calling to report turtle tracks. Altogether, forty nests had been laid on the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island.
The mornings may have grown quiet, but the nights were jumping. Cara and the rest of the Turtle Team were baby-sitting nests most nights, checking for crab holes, managing small crowds of tourists, often divvying up the nests due between them. Even still, some wily turtles slipped past them unnoticed, sometimes emerging en masse after an early-morning rain or, at other times, waiting until everyone had grown weary and left for home to sneak out of the nest and make their dash to the sea. Only their tiny little tracks found in the morning—dozens of them fanning out toward the sea—gave a clue to their great escape.
For Cara, it was the summer she’d always dreamed of. She loved her routine of rising early to birdsong and all the activity on the beach. She looked forward to her solitary time along the ocean as she searched for turtle tracks. She’d never felt so at peace with herself. She loved, too, the camaraderie she felt with the other ladies as they sat on the cool sand together under the different phases of the moon and just talked about anything and everything. The sea turtles may have given the group structure and focus—there were rules to follow and problems to solve—but the real strength of the group came from the bond of mutual care and trust that grew between them. Sitting under the moonshine around the nest, Cara at last felt part of a close-knit circle of friends.
Most of all, she loved the stolen moments with Brett. Over the past few months he’d taught her to be spontaneous. They held hands and jumped into the ocean when the whim struck. They laughed until tears filled their eyes. They threw back their heads to sing out loud to a favorite song. And sometimes, while walking the beach, his eyes would gleam in the moonlight and he’d lead her far back in the dunes to a spot hidden by the sea oats. Then he’d blanket her with his body under a wide-open sky.