Page 18 of Island Girl

Then she saw it.

A small community garden, set back from the road behind a low wooden fence. It wasn't much. A few raised beds, some fruit trees, a bench under a sprawling banyan. And most importantly, it was empty.

She parked on the side of the road and grabbed her guitar case. A sign on the fence read, “Sanibel Community Garden - All Welcome.” She pushed through the gate and walked toward the banyan tree.

The shade was cool and deep, the air heavy with the smell of jasmine and something citrusy. She sat down on the bench and set the case beside her. For a long moment, she just looked at it.

The case was old, covered in stickers from places she'd been. A lighthouse in Portland. A coffee shop in Boston. A music festival in Vermont she'd gone to with friends the summer before her mother got sick. Before everything changed.

She unlatched the case and lifted the lid.

The guitar was a Martin. Her mother had given it to her for her twenty-first birthday. It was the nicest thing Merritt owned, and she'd almost sold it twice during the hard years, when money was tight and her mother's medical bills kept climbing. But she couldn't do it. It was the one thing she couldn't let go.

She lifted it out of the case and held it in her lap. The wood was warm, the strings slightly out of tune. She adjusted them by ear, the familiar motions coming back to her without thought.

Then she played.

Nothing complicated. Just simple chords, a melody she'd written years ago and never finished. Her fingers moved slowly at first, remembering, then faster as the music came back to her. She hummed along, not singing, just feeling the sound in her chest and a breeze on her face.

She'd missed this. She hadn't realized how much until right now.

Music had always been her refuge. When her mother was too tired to talk, Merritt would sit by her bed and play. Soft songs, quiet songs. Songs that filled the silence without demanding anything. Her mother would close her eyes and listen, and sometimes, when the pain wasn't too bad, she'd smile.

After her mother died, Merritt couldn't play. Every time she picked up the guitar, she heard those bedside songs, and the grief was too much. So she'd put it away. Told herself she'd come back to it when she was ready.

Maybe she was ready now.

She played for almost an hour, alone in the garden with the jasmine and the banyan tree and the distant sound of birds. No one came. No one heard. It was just her and the music and the warm island air.

When she finally stopped, her fingers ached and her eyes were wet. But something inside her felt lighter. Like a knot she'd been carrying had loosened, just a little.

She put the guitar back in its case and closed the lid. She sat for a few more minutes, watching the light filter through the banyan leaves, listening to the rustle of the wind.

Then she stood, picked up her case, and walked back to her car.

As she drove toward Shorebirds, she made herself a promise.

She would play again tomorrow. And the day after that. She would find her way back to the music, one quiet afternoon at a time.

The guitar rode beside her in the passenger seat, no longer hidden in the back.

It was a start.

CHAPTER 6

Merritt didn't have to go back to Shorebirds that evening. It was her day off. She could have stayed in her apartment, ordered takeout, watched something on her laptop. She could have called her father again, or texted Maggie, or just gone to bed early.

Instead, she showered, changed into a sundress, and walked downstairs.

The bar was busy but not packed. The dinner rush was in full swing, and she recognized a few faces from her shifts. Ed and Margie at their usual table. The fishermen holding court at the corner of the bar. Dottie Hutchins and her friend by the window, sharing a bottle of wine.

Justin was behind the bar, moving with the easy rhythm she was starting to recognize. He looked up when she came in and raised an eyebrow.

“Day off and you're still here?”

“I got hungry. I have a microwave and half a bag of stale pretzels.” She slid onto a stool at the bar. “This seemed like a better option.”

Justin grinned and set a menu in front of her. “What'll it be?”