came often to this sacred spot—to think, to remember, to find solace. She felt closer to Olivia Rutledge here—Miss Lovie to everyone she’d met. This dune had been Miss Lovie’s favorite spot, and on some nights, especially when the sun lowered and the birds quieted, as now, Toy imagined she heard Miss Lovie’s voice in the sweet-scented offshore breezes.
It had been five years since old Miss Lovie had passed. Five years spanned a good chunk of her life, she thought, considering she’d only lived twenty-three. After Olivia Rutledge died, Toy had worked hard every day of those five years to make a better life for herself and for Little Lovie, her daughter. That had been a vow made at Miss Lovie’s gravesite and a promise to her infant daughter.
“I did my best to keep my vow,” she said aloud to Lovie Rutledge, feeling her spirit hovering close tonight. “I finished college, got a good job and I’ve made a nice home for Little Lovie. All tidy and cheery, with flowers on the table, like you taught me. I want so much to be a good mother.” She rested her chin on her knee with a ragged sigh as the longing from the dream resurfaced.
“So, tell me, Miss Lovie. Why don’t I feel that I am? Or content? I’m still like that turtle in my dream, swimming toward someplace I can’t seem to get to.”
A high pitched cry shattered her thoughts. “Mama!”
Toy’s gaze darted toward the call. Her young daughter sat a distance from the shoreline surrounded by colorful plastic buckets and spades. Her long blond hair fell in salt-stiff streaks down her back as she bent over on hands and knees before the crude beginning of a sand castle.
“What do you want, Little Lovie?”
“Mama, come help me with my castle!”
Toy sighed, sorely tempted. “I’m working, honey.”
“You’re always working.”
She saw a scowl flash across Little Lovie’s face before she ducked her head and went back to her digging. Mingled in the muffled roar of the ocean she heard Olivia Rutledge’s voice in her mind. Stop what you’re doing and play with your child!
Toy desperately wanted to play with her and enjoy each precious, fleeting moment with Little Lovie. She felt an all too familiar twinge of guilt and paused to allow her gaze to linger on her daughter. Little Lovie was carefully molding another tower with her chubby hands.
That child was happiest when she was at the seaside, Toy thought, her heart pumping with affection. Whether collecting shells, digging castles or rollicking in waves, as long as she had her toes in the sand she was content. She was only five years of age, yet Little Lovie was so much like Miss Lovie Rutledge that Toy sometimes believed the old woman’s spirit had returned to settle in her namesake. For Toy, the sun rose and set on her child. And it was for her child’s future that she gathered her discipline.
“Let me finish this report,” she called back. “Then I’ll come help you finish that sand castle.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, okay?”
Her daughter nodded and Toy resolutely brushed away grains of sand from her notebook and returned to the report that was due by morning. She was an Aquarist and had been placed in charge of her own gallery at the South Carolina Aquarium. It was her first break and she needed to prove that she was capable of the responsibility.
The noseeums and mosquitoes were biting in the sticky humidity and blown sand stuck to her moist skin but she worked a while longer, determined to finish in the last of the day’s light. A short while later she closed her notebook and raised her gaze toward her daughter. Another lopsided tower had been added to the castle.
But her daughter was gone.
Toy’s breath caught in her throat as her eyes wildly scanned the beach. “Lovie!” she cried out, leaping to her feet.
“Mama, look!”
Toy swung her head around toward her daughter’s voice. Little Lovie was arched on tiptoe at the water’s edge. The bottom of her pink swimsuit was coated with a thick layer of damp sand and she was pointing excitedly toward the sea.
Toy ran across the beach to grasp hold of her daughter’s slender shoulders. “You know you’re not supposed to go near the water,” she scolded, even as her eyes devoured her child and her hands gently wiped sand from her face. “You scared me half to death.”
The five-year-old was oblivious to her mother’s concern. Instead, her large blue eyes were riveted to something in the surf.
“It’s right there,” she cried, wiggling her pointed finger urgently. “I see it!”
“What do you see, a dolphin?” Toy turned her head back toward the Atlantic to peer into the rolling surf. Then she saw it. A large dark object floated at the surface not more than fifty feet out.
It wasn’t a dolphin. She squinted and moved a step closer. Could it be a turtle? The dark hulk appeared lifeless in the waves. “You stay right here,” she ordered in a no nonsense tone, and this time, Little Lovie didn’t argue.
Toy rolled her pants higher up on her slender legs, coiled her shoulder length blond hair in a twist at the top of her head, then walked into the sea for a closer look. She felt the chilly spring water swirl at her ankles, calves and then dampen the hem of her shorts as she waded forward, intrigued by the shadowy object bobbing on the waves.
It was a turtle! It had to be at least two hundred pounds—and it looked dead. What a pity, she thought and she wondered if this was a nesting female holding eggs. It was always a shame to lose an adult turtle, but to lose a nesting female was a tragedy. The loss was one of generations.
A wave carried the turtle closer and Toy’s stomach clenched at the sight. It looked like she’d been floating for a long time. She was badly emaciated and the shell was dried and covered from tip to tip with barnacles.
“Poor Mama,” she muttered. There’d been too many dead turtles washing ashore in the past few years. “Barnacle Bills” the turtle team called them, and this was another to add to the list. She’d call and have DNR pick the carcass up in the morning. Toy was about to turn back when she saw a flipper move.
“She can’t be…” Toy bent forward, squinting. A breaker smacked her legs but she kept her eyes peeled on the turtle. A flipper moved again.
“She’s alive!” she called out to Little Lovie.
The child jumped up and down, clapping her hands. Toy hurriedly waded closer to Little Lovie to be heard. “Honey, I’m going to need some help. Run up to Flo’s house and tell her to come right quick, hear? Can you do that?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The child took off like a shot for the dunes. Just beyond was the white frame house of Florence Prescott, the leader of the island’s turtle team. Flo was very active in the community and always out doing something for someone, but she was usually home at the dinner hour. At least Toy hoped she was today.
She turned back toward the turtle. The inert creature was floating with her posterior up, like a lopsided rubber raft. She’d have to haul her in. She sighed and looked at her clothes. Well, they were halfsoaked anyway, she thought as she began wading toward the turtle.
The
