Page 36 of Island Girl

When she hung up, she sat in the dark for a long time, listening to the waves.

Something had changed tonight. Something small but important.

She didn't know where it would lead. She didn't know if Ray would speak to her again, or if this was a one-time crack in the wall that would seal back up by morning.

But she knew one thing for certain.

The music had reached him. And that meant something.

Tomorrow, she'd play again. And she'd keep playing, as long as Crocker let her, as long as the songs kept coming.

Not to save Ray. Not to fix him. Just to be there, with the music, in case he wanted to listen.

That was all she could do. That was all she needed to do.

She got ready for bed and lay in the dark, the melody of the last song still humming in her chest until she fell asleep.

CHAPTER 11

Paula Maguire had learned to live with worry.

It sat in her chest like a second heartbeat, quiet most of the time but always there. She'd carried it for so long now that she barely noticed it anymore. It was just part of her, the way her brown eyes were part of her, the way her mother's laugh was part of her. Some things you couldn't put down no matter how heavy they got.

She was thinking about Ray as she pulled into the parking lot of Seaside Gardens Assisted Living, the way she thought about him most mornings. Wondering if he'd slept. Wondering if the nightmares had come again. Wondering if today would be the day he finally answered one of her calls instead of letting it go to voicemail.

It wouldn't be. She knew that. But she wondered anyway.

The morning was already warm, humidity thick in the air. Summer on the islands meant heat that wrapped around you like a wet blanket, and Paula had long since stopped fighting it. She gathered her bag from the passenger seat and headed inside, the automatic doors sliding open to release a blast of air conditioning.

“Morning, Paula.” Denise at the front desk waved without looking up from her computer. “Mr. Harrison's daughter is here. She's been waiting in the family room.”

“Thanks. I'll check in with her after rounds.”

Paula walked down the familiar hallway, her sneakers quiet on the tile floor. She'd worked here for eight years now, ever since she moved back to the area after her divorce. It wasn't the career she'd imagined when she was young. Back then, she'd dreamed of pediatric nursing, of helping children, of maybe having a few of her own someday. But life had other plans. It always did.

She stopped at the first room on her list. Mr. Gregory sat in his wheelchair by the window, watching the birds at the feeder outside. He was ninety-one years old and sharp as a tack, with a memory that stretched back to World War II and a sense of humor that kept the staff laughing.

“Morning, Gregory.”

He turned and smiled, his face creasing into familiar lines. “Paula. My favorite nurse.”

“You say that to all of us.”

“I mean it with you.” He gestured toward the window. “Cardinals this morning. Three of them. And a painted bunting, if you can believe it.”

Paula moved to the window and looked out. The feeder hung from a shepherd's hook just outside, surrounded by hibiscus bushes. A flash of green and red confirmed Gregory's sighting, a painted bunting, rare and beautiful, pecking at the seeds.

“Would you look at that,” she said softly. “My father used to say painted buntings were good luck.”

“Your father was a wise man.”

Paula smiled but didn't answer. Her father had been dead for twenty years. Heart attack, sudden and swift. Her mother had followed five years later, grief wearing her down the way waterwore down stone. Now it was just her and Ray. And Ray was barely there at all.

She checked Gregory's vitals, made notes in his chart, and promised to bring him a cup of that good coffee from the break room. Then she moved on to the next room, and the next, working her way through the morning the way she always did.

It was good work. Meaningful work. The residents here were at the end of their stories, and Paula considered it a privilege to be part of those final chapters. She'd held hands at bedsides, listened to life stories that spanned nearly a century, and helped families say goodbye when the time came. It was hard sometimes. Heartbreaking, even. But it mattered.

That was what she'd needed, after Joseph. After the fertility treatments that didn't work and the adoption applications that went nowhere and the marriage that finally crumbled under the weight of all that disappointment. She'd needed work that mattered, even if her personal life had become something small and quiet and mostly solitary.