Page 16 of Island Girl

She'd been here four days now. It felt like longer, but more importantly, like she belonged.

She got out of bed and padded to the window. The Gulf stretched out before her, flat and calm, the color of pale glass. A pelican flew low over the water, scanning for breakfast. She watched it dive, come up empty, and try again.

Today was her day off. Justin had insisted. “Take some time to see the island. You can't live somewhere you've never explored.”

He was right. She'd been so focused on learning the job, on settling into the apartment, on finding her footing, that she hadn't taken time to actually see Sanibel. Today, that would change.

She smiled thinking she’d start out as a tourist but returnhome an islander. She figured a true islander would disagree with her assertion, but she didn’t care.

She showered and dressed in shorts and a tank top, pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and grabbed her keys. Then she paused, looking at the guitar case leaning against the wall.

She hadn't played since she got here. Hadn't even opened the case. The guitar had traveled with her from Maine, wedged between boxes in the back seat, but she'd left it untouched since she arrived. Playing felt like too much. Too personal. Too connected to who she used to be.

But today felt different. Today felt like a day for remembering.

She picked up the case and headed downstairs.

The bar was quiet when she slipped through. She could hear someone in the kitchen, pots clanking, water running. She left through the front door before anyone could ask questions and stepped into the warm morning air.

Her car sat in the crushed shell lot, looking tired and old. She'd had it since college. A blue Subaru with a dent in the back bumper and an air conditioner that only worked sometimes. It had carried her from Maine to Florida without complaint, and she patted the hood as she walked by.

“Good job,” she told it. “We made it.”

She set the guitar case in the back seat and drove slowly down Periwinkle Way, the main road that wound through the center of the island. The shops were just starting to open, employees setting out signs and arranging displays.

She followed the signs for the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Her father had talked about this place several times since she’d returned from Captiva Island. It was named after a political cartoonist who became a conservationist, he'd told her. The kind of man who used his influence for something that mattered.

The entrance appeared on her right, a modest sign markingthe turn. She paid the small fee at the booth and drove through the gates onto Wildlife Drive.

The world changed.

The road was narrow and winding, bordered on both sides by mangroves and shallow water. Birds were everywhere. Wading in the shallows, perched in the trees, flying overhead. She'd never seen so many birds in one place.

She pulled over at the first observation point and got out of the car. The air was different here. Thicker. Wilder. It smelled like mud and salt.

A great blue heron stood motionless in the water, its long neck curved like a question mark. She watched it for a full minute before it moved, striking at something below the surface with lightning speed. When it lifted its head, a small fish wriggled in its beak.

“Got one,” she whispered.

She walked along the boardwalk that extended over the water. The wood was warm under her sandals, weathered smooth by years of sun and salt. Interpretive signs lined the path, explaining the ecosystem, the birds, the delicate balance of fresh and salt water.

Her father would love this. He'd probably stop at every sign and read it aloud, adding his own commentary. He'd point out birds she couldn't see and name plants she'd never heard of. He'd turn the whole walk into a lesson, and she wouldn't mind at all.

She took out her phone and snapped a few pictures. The heron. The mangroves. A cluster of white ibises picking through the mud with their curved orange bills. She'd send them to him later.

She kept walking, kept watching. The sun climbed higher, and the air grew warmer. Sweat trickled down her back, but she didn't mind. There was something peaceful about this place. Something that slowed her thoughts and quieted the noise in her head.

She rounded a bend in the boardwalk and stopped.

There, standing in the shallows maybe twenty feet away, was a bird unlike any she'd seen before. It was tall and elegant, with long pink legs and feathers that shifted from pale blush to deep rose. Its bill was flat and wide, shaped like a spoon, sweeping back and forth through the water.

A roseate spoonbill.

Merritt held her breath. She'd seen pictures, of course. Her father had shown her dozens over the years, pointing out the distinctive bill, the pink coloring that came from their diet of shrimp and crustaceans. But seeing one in person was something else entirely.

It was beautiful. Strange and beautiful.

She raised her phone slowly, carefully, not wanting to startle it. The bird didn't seem to notice or care. It just kept sweeping its bill through the water, searching for food.