“What do my instincts tell me?”
“Well, do you ever hear a voice in your head that tells you to stop doing something? Or a funny feeling that something’s off and you should be careful?”
“You mean like the ‘uh-oh’ feeling?”
“Yes, exactly. Intuition guides us and the wise person listens.”
“So the turtle listens to her instinct to go back to the sea.”
“That’s her home. Her shell is very heavy and she has to drag it across the beach to lay her eggs. But once she’s back in the water, she’s free of gravity and can swim fast and quite gracefully.”
“Would she die if she stayed on the beach?”
“She would. So would her hatchlings. This is why we try to help their chances to get to the sea as fast as possible.”
Linnea was silent for a while. She finally worked up the courage to ask the question that had been niggling in her heart for weeks.
“Grandmama Lovie, are you going to die?”
Lovie turned her head to look into Linnea’s eyes. Her gaze was thoughtful. Loving.
“Yes, dear girl. I am. We all will die someday, of course. But my time is coming soon.”
Linnea felt her heart break at hearing from her grandmother’s lips what had seemed impossible to believe when her mother had told her.
“Oh, Linnea, don’t cry!” Lovie said and bent to wrap her arms around Linnea and draw her close to her breast.
“But I don’t want you to die.”
Lovie rocked her and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t be sad. A part of me will always be with you. You have my genes. My goodness, you look just like I did at your age.”
Linnea sniffed. “Really?”
“It’s quite remarkable.”
“And I love turtles like you do.”
Lovie laughed lightly and rocked her again. Linnea caught the scent of Lovie’s perfume and felt the bones of her chest against her cheek. Even though she was frail, Linnea felt her grandmother was still strong.
“Yes, you do,” Lovie replied with affection. “You know,” she added, “my going away is like the mother turtle going into the sea.”
Linnea looked at her doubtfully. “How?”
“You could say I’ve spent a long time on the beach. I’ve had my babies, and I’ve been blessed to see my grandbabies. Oh, Linnea, it’s been a good life. And now it’s time for me to crawl back to the sea. I’ll huff and puff a bit,” she added with a slight cough that Linnea knew was from the cancer. “But when I get to the sea, I’ll welcome it. I’ll take a breath, and slip under a wave, and I’ll be home again.”
“You mean heaven?”
“Yes,” Lovie replied on a sigh. “So you see, it’s not sad at all.”
“But I’ll still miss you,” Linnea said with a pout.
“Oh, precious.” Lovie held her tighter. “See those eggs that Cara’s putting into the nest? In about sixty days those eggs will hatch and the hatchlings will scramble out and hurry to the sea. In thirty years, one of the females will come back here to lay her nest. And you can be here to take care of her babies. You see? You’ll be doing my job for me. Around and around the cycle of life goes. It’s really quite beautiful.”
“I’ll be here waiting, Grandmama Lovie. I promise.” Linnea hugged her grandmother with a child’s fervency. “I’ll be here for you. . . .”
LINNEA HELD THE small T-shirt to her chest and felt a rush of love for her grandmother. She’d slipped away at the summer’s end. But every summer since, when the sea turtles returned, Linnea thought of Lovie.
“I’m coming back to Isle of Palms, Grandmama,” she whispered. “Like I promised.”
LINNEA AWOKE AT the sound of shouting. She blinked heavily, rousing further. Oh, yes . . . She recognized the voice with a yawn. It was her father. Annoying, she thought. It sounded like he was really riled. She rubbed her fingertips over her eyes, yawning again, then pushed back her covers and rose to investigate. She opened her bedroom door and peered out. The volume heightened, and she could hear how truly angry her father was. The lights were all on downstairs, and shadows stretched out across the floor. Whatever was happening was a big deal. Her fingertips grazed the cool staircase railing as she scurried down to the main floor.
Clutching the newel, she paused at the bottom of the staircase where she could see her parents. They were standing side by side just inside the living room doorway, looking at someone she couldn’t see but knew was Cooper. He must’ve done something really bad this time. Her father’s face was red, he was jabbing his finger, and she could almost see the spittle flying across the room.
“You need the discipline of the Citadel, boy. Now more than ever. It’ll make you a man!”
“I don’ wanna . . .” The words slid into unrecognizable muffling.
Linnea’s hand flew to her mouth. Her brother was slurring his words badly.
“You’re so drunk I can hardly understand what you’re saying,” his father roared. “Stand straight, son, and look at me, hear?”
“Palmer . . .” her mother countered in her low, soft voice, and reached out to put her hand on his arm. Palmer rudely brushed it off.
Her mother ignored him and stepped out of sight, presumably closer to Cooper. “It’s late,” she said in a calm voice. “Let’s go to bed. We’re all overtired, and tempers are short. We can talk about this in the morning.”
“I want this settled now,” Palmer ground out. “This isn’t one of his pranks. The boy got a DUI. That’s major. It’s on his record. This could ruin his chances of getting into the Citadel.” He took a step closer to Cooper, almost out of view. “How could you do this to me? To your family?” He swayed slightly as he stretched out his arm and pointed at his son again. “I’m going to have to pull in a lot of favors for you.”
Linnea leaned forward to catch Cooper’s muttered words. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he said, “I’m not asking you to.” Linnea willed her brother to just be quiet. Not to fan her father’s flames of fury.
But Palmer heard and it sent him off on another rant.
Linnea put her hands over her ears and climbed back up the stairs. She couldn’t listen to any more. Her stomach was roiling, and her heart was beating fast. Cooper had really blown it this time, and her father had a right to be angry. How could Cooper be so stupid and careless? But she couldn’t muster any anger. This went beyond that. All she felt was a bone-chilling fear.
She slipped back into her room, closed the door softly, and leaned against it, absorbing the dark, soothing quiet. She was deeply shaken. Sure, there’d been lots of arguments in their house. Most families shouted at one another from time to time. It was nothing to be proud of but still in the realm of normal. But tonight, her father’s fury had reached a new level of intensity. It had frightened her. And tonight, Cooper had reached a new low. That frightened her more.
She pressed her ear against the door. The shouting had stopped downstairs. She closed her eyes, weary, and pressed her forehead against the door. She hoped everyone had just gone to bed like her mama had suggested. These family dramas were draining. She didn’t wait long before she heard heavy footfalls coming up the stairs, then Cooper’s low, drunken voice.
“I’m sorry. . . .”
Her mother’s soft voice followed wearily: “I know you are, honey. Come on, now. Oh, Cooper,” she said, her voice shaking with heartbreak. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Let’s just get you in bed so you can sleep it off.”
Linnea heard the bedroom door close. She sighed, then padded across the dark room and climbed back into her bed. She felt bone-weary and heavyhearted. She laid her head against the soft, cool pillow and closed her eyes. The tears felt hot on her face.
She was the older sibling. She’d defended Cooper, made excuses for him, was his champion, and picked him up when he fell down. And then she’d grown up and moved away, leaving him to fend for himself. She’d neve
r worried about him. He always seemed to roll with the punches. He was popular and laid-back. She’d thought he was happy.
The young man she’d come home to was a different person. His smile was there, but his usual good humor was missing. He was drinking a lot too. Way too much. Her parents were right to be upset, but yelling at him wasn’t going to help. They had to loosen up on the pressure. They had to listen to him.
Linnea squeezed her hands into fists. She wanted to help but felt powerless. It reminded her of when Cooper was little and got sick. She’d hung around his room and worried. There wasn’t anything she could do. Except watch and wait.
She would watch and wait now too. She wouldn’t leave him. She made the only decision she could. She wouldn’t go to the beach house tomorrow. She’d call Cara and tell her she’d come when she could.
Chapter Seven
Loggerheads are found all around the world. They are the most abundant of all sea turtle species in U.S. waters and nest on the southeastern coast of the United States, mostly Florida. But their numbers worldwide are decreasing. Pollution, trawling, and development have kept this ancient mariner on the threatened species list since 1978.
WHERE DID THE week go? Cara wondered as she ran her hand through her hair. She stood staring at a wall calendar made by a member of the turtle team. Each month featured a color photograph of the loggerhead turtle season. For June it was a photo of a woman’s cherry-red-painted toes in the sand beside two tiny hatchlings as they scrambled to the sea. And Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island already had nineteen nests. It gave her hope that the loggerheads were trending upward. She paused, thinking again of the irony that nothing made her feel more like she’d arrived home than the sea turtles. As a girl, she’d been jealous of her mother’s devotion to the turtles. As a woman, she’d taken her mother’s place on the team.
The sea turtle nesting season heralded summer on Isle of Palms. Across the marshes, schools had released the children. Teachers and parents both sighed in collective relief that another year was done. Colleges were out, and families from across the country—the world—were planning vacations to the lowcountry. The floodgates were open, and already the bridges to the islands were jam-packed with traffic. Colorful towels lay scattered on the beach like confetti.
When Linnea had called and said she’d begin working the following week instead of immediately, Cara was disappointed. She’d been so eager to start the new routine. She had so much work to do. On reflection, however, she’d decided to take this gift of a week as vacation time with Hope. She’d been so frazzled when she’d arrived: the move, the drive . . . all while learning to be a mother. Yet day by day, she’d fallen into island time and felt more relaxed. Plus, she’d discovered that when she was relaxed, Hope was too. She wasn’t as clingy now as she had been those first days.
“You’re going on your first turtle duty,” she’d told Hope when she lifted her from the crib that morning. The sun was barely up, but Cara had volunteered for today’s walk to help a fellow turtle team member who was ill. She applied a heavy dose of baby suntan lotion on Hope’s body, put on a broad-brimmed sun hat, and packed up a beach bag with lotion, water, sippy cup, towels, and snacks.
Cara made her way down the narrow beach path as nimble as a pack mule. All around her the dunes were cloaked with colorful wildflowers and vines. When she was young, these dunes had stretched far back to her beach house and she would be able to see the great expanses of the ocean from the street. After Hurricane Hugo in 1989, new mansions had formed a glamorous wall along the street and nary a peek of blue ocean could be spied between them. It seemed to her that constructing the houses even closer to the water was a dare from the builders to the ocean to strike again. She chuckled to herself. She knew who’d win that contest.
Which was another reason she was so grateful to Russell Bennett for purchasing the plots of land in front of her beach house. She pushed the stroller along the beach path that traversed the property. Russell Bennett had cleverly, deliberately set aside two plots on the island for conservation. No one could build on them. He’d done it to set an example for others. The fact that he’d purchased them in front of her beach house wasn’t lost on her. Russell Bennett had been the love of her mother’s life. And she was his. She liked to believe that, had he lived, they would have found a way to be together. Fate was against them. As were the constraints of their time. They were both married to others when they fell in love, and divorce was a scandal. That he loved her, there could be no doubt.
For he’d left a third plot of land in Lovie’s name with enough money in an offshore trust to provide for it. It was all very neatly done. Very hush-hush. And it was her mother’s greatest secret. One she’d kept all her life for fear of scandal. She wouldn’t allow her love affair with Russell to appear tawdry. The only ones who knew of the land were Cara, Flo, and the offshore bank. After Lovie’s death, that plot of oceanfront land had been inherited by Cara. Along with the beach house.
Cara reached the beginning of the beach path and paused to catch her breath before hiking the sandy path with Hope in her arms. She looked back over her shoulder. Across the lot she could see the beach house, sitting prettily in the distance, surrounded by waving sea oats and wildflowers. She chuckled. If her brother ever found out about the land she’d inherited, he’d split a gut. Palmer had been searching for ways to buy the land given to conservation for decades, and failing that, he’d been angling for Cara to sell the beach house. His plan was to build a house on the site and make big profits for both of them.
Cara would never do that, of course. For her the beach house was a sacred place, just as much as it had been to her mother. There was no amount of money that would tempt her to sell it. She’d traveled off, true. But her name was Caretta. And like the sea turtle she was named after, she came home to nest. And this time, she wasn’t going to leave.
Her muscles burned as her heels dug into the soft sand while carrying the added twenty-three pounds of Hope. Shame on me for not walking more, she chided herself. There was no excuse for being a hermit while living on the beach! At last she reached the end of the path and stood at the top of the dune. She lifted her chin, breathed deep the salty air, and stared out at the water. Sky and sea blended together at the horizon line to create a seamless blue so vivid she heard her breath release as a sigh. Cara had always come to the sea to relieve stress, to gather her thoughts, to recharge her batteries. It was a great peace she felt in every cell of her body.
Hope felt it too. She was smiling, her eyes dancing with happiness. Buoyed with joy, Cara hoisted her up higher in her arms and continued down the dunes to the beach. This early in the morning, there were only an older woman in a pink jogging suit walking her chocolate Lab off-leash and a young man jogging close to the surf. She carried Hope to the shoreline and set her down, expecting her to balk at the strange feel of the sand. But this child was a little turtle. Hope didn’t hesitate at all. She crawled straight for the sea. Cara was right behind her, laughing, as Hope scrambled like any hatchling into the waves. When a gentle wave slapped her face, she didn’t cry; she laughed! Cara scooped her up in her arms and twirled her around, relishing the sound of her laughter.
Brett would have loved this, she thought, then squeezed Hope tighter.
THE FOLLOWING DAY Cara took Hope to the park. She sprayed insect repellent on both herself and Hope. The mosquitoes were so fierce and big this summer she was sure one could carry Hope off. She loaded up the stroller with the bag of bottles, biscuits, and diapers, and they were off on another adventure.
The traffic on the island wasn’t too bad midweek. She cruised along Palm Boulevard, seeing neighbors planting flowers and crews mowing. She took the S turn by the church and soon turned inland into the shade of towering live oak trees lining the street. At the end of the road young boys were clustered around a baseball diamond in the grass. The tennis courts were filled too. She heard the muffled grunts of serving. It was a perfect morning to be outdoors. T
he sky was blue, the humidity low, and the temperature not too hot. She lifted Hope from the stroller and made her way across the soft playground mulch to buckle her into a swing. She gave a hearty push and was rewarded with a gurgling laugh from Hope.
A sweet-faced girl no older than five walked up to the bigger swing. With her long pigtails slipping out of their elastics, a smattering of freckles, and the scab on her knee, she looked like Pippi Longstocking. She climbed onto the seat and kicked her legs mightily, but the swing barely budged. Cara looked to the other side of the park where a young mother was strapping an infant into a carrier.
“Want some help?” Cara asked the girl.
The little girl nodded gratefully. Cara walked behind her and gave her a couple of good pushes to get her going. She smiled, listening to the young girl’s laughter as she flew high into the sky.
“Are you having a good time?” Cara called out to the little girl.
“Yes!” she called back.
“What’s your name?”
“Maddie.”
Looking over again, she caught the mother’s eye. The woman smiled and waved gratefully. Cara felt a first flush of inclusion into the motherhood club.
“Is that your mama over there?”
Jessica looked to where Cara pointed, and nodded. “Yeah. She’s with my baby brother. He cries a lot.”
She pushed the girl a few more times and then returned to Hope. When the girl’s swing slowed once more, she climbed down, already bored. Jessica hung around a few minutes longer, hanging on the poles, watching them. Then she pointed to Hope. “Is that your baby?”
“Yes. Her name is Hope.”
“Are you the baby’s grandma?”
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