Page 62 of Island Girl

“You're good at this,” she told him one morning, watching himrefill the bird feeder Gregory's wife had hung outside the kitchen window.

“Good at what?”

“Being somewhere new. Not fighting it. It feels like you belong. Don’t you think?”

Richard considered this, his hands still working the feeder. “Your mother taught me to always be ready with a Plan B when Plan A didn’t work out. She used to say home wasn't a place, it was a feeling. If you carried the right things inside you, you could be home anywhere.”

“I remember her saying that.”

“She was right. She usually was.” He finished with the feeder and brushed the seeds from his hands. “This place feels like it could be home. For you now, and maybe for me someday.”

“When the Maine house sells.”

“When the Maine house sells.” He smiled. “No rush. These things take time.”

On Tuesday evening, Merritt played her regular set at Shorebirds.

Richard sat at the bar with Crocker, both of them nursing beers and watching her perform. The room had that familiar hush, conversations softening as her voice carried through the space. She was playing something slow, something melancholy, her eyes half-closed as her fingers moved across the strings.

“She's good,” Crocker said. Not a question.

“She is.” Richard took a long pull from his beer. “She gets it from her mother. Laura had a voice that could stop a room.”

“Did Merritt always play?”

“Since she was a kid. Guitar, piano, sang in the school choir. She studied music education in college and taught elementary school music for several years.” Richard paused, watching his daughter's face as she sang. “But when her mother got sick, she stopped. Just…stopped. Gave it all up.”

Crocker was quiet for a moment. “That's a lot to give up.”

“It wasn't just the music.” Richard set his beer down on the table. “She gave up everything. Her friends, her hobbies, her whole life outside our house. Merritt was sixteen when Laura was diagnosed. Thirty when she died. fourteen years, and Merritt refused to live any of them.”

“She was taking care of her mother.”

“No.” Richard's voice was firm but tired. “I was taking care of her mother. I was Laura's husband. I was capable, I was present, I handled the medications and the appointments and the hard days. Merritt didn't have to do what she did. She chose to cut off any kind of life for herself.”

Crocker turned to look at him, something shifting in his expression.

“I told her,” Richard continued. “Over and over. Go out with your friends. Play your music. Live your life. But she wouldn't. She'd come home from teaching and sit by her mother's bed. She'd cancel plans, skip events, turn down opportunities. The only thing she kept was Weston.”

“Weston?”

“Her boyfriend. They'd been together since they were kids. Everyone assumed they'd get married someday, including Laura. When he proposed, Merritt said yes.” Richard shook his head slowly. “Not because she wanted to. Because she thought it would make her mother happy.”

On stage, Merritt finished one song and moved into another. Something lighter this time, a folk tune about the ocean. She had no idea what her father was saying about her, no idea of the conversation unfolding just twenty feet away.

“What happened?” Crocker asked.

“The wedding got closer. The pressure built. And one day, Merritt just…ran. Got in her car and drove until she ended up here. Captiva, actually. A woman named Maggie took her in, helped her see that running wasn't the answer.”

“So she went back.”

“She went back, said a proper goodbye to Weston, and stayed with her mother until the end.” Richard's voice roughened. “Laura died six months later. And then Merritt came back here to start over.”

Crocker was silent, his eyes on Merritt across the room. The string lights caught the silver in his hair, the deep lines around his eyes.

“Why do you think she did it?” he asked finally. “Gave up everything when she didn't have to?”

Richard was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.