Page 69 of Island Girl

“You're a good storyteller,” Gregory said when she finished. “Like your father.”

“He taught me to pay attention. To really see things.”

“That's a gift. Most people look but don't see.” Gregory's eyes drifted to the window, where his own bird feeders hung empty. The staff kept them filled, but he couldn't see them from his bed anymore. “You keep looking, Merritt. Keep seeing. The world needs people who notice.”

She held his hand until he fell asleep, then sat with him a while longer, watching his chest rise and fall. He seemed smaller than he had a week ago. Frailer. She tried not to think about what that meant.

On the drive back to the bungalow, she thought about Ray again.

She understood him now, in a way she hadn't before. The silence, the withdrawal, the way he'd amputated a part of himself to survive. She'd done the same thing with her music. For years, she'd cut herself off from the thing that made her feel most alive, because feeling alive felt like a betrayal.

But she'd found her way back. The guitar was in her hands again. The songs were coming. Every time she played at Shorebirds, she felt more like herself.

What if Ray could find his way back too?

The thought wouldn't leave her alone. It followed her through dinner, through her evening walk on the beach, through the quiethours before sleep. She lay in bed listening to the waves and imagined what it would be like if Ray picked up a guitar again. If he sat down at a piano and let his fingers remember what his mind had tried to forget. If he sang, that voice Paula had described, gravel and honey, filling a room the way it used to.

She could help him. She felt it in her bones. Not fix him. Paula had been clear that no one could fix him. But maybe she could open a door. The way her music had already started to open something in him. What if she just nudged a little? What if she let him know she understood?

By Thursday afternoon, she'd convinced herself it was worth trying.

She was setting up for her evening set when Justin found her adjusting her microphone stand.

“You okay?” he asked. “You've seemed distracted the last few days.”

“I'm fine. Just thinking.”

“About anything in particular?”

She hesitated. Part of her wanted to tell him everything. What Paula had shared, the ideas that had been churning in her mind. But something held her back. Maybe she knew, on some level, what he would say. What anyone sensible would say.

“Just settling into the bungalow,” she said instead. “Getting used to living alone.”

Justin studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

But she wouldn't. Not for this. This was something she needed to figure out on her own.

Ray came in at his usual time, took his usual seat. Justin brought him his usual Jameson that he wouldn't drink. Merritt watched him from the corner of her eye as she tuned her guitar. His face was impassive, his posture closed, but she saw his fingers twitch against his thigh when she played a test chord.

He was in there. She knew it. The musician was still in there, buried under years of silence and pain.

She could reach him. She was sure of it.

During her set, she chose songs carefully. Ones with simple chord progressions he might remember. Ones with lyrics about loss and redemption, about finding your way home after being lost for a long time. She didn't look at him directly. She never did. But she was aware of him the whole time, a presence in her peripheral vision.

When she finished, the room applauded and she smiled and thanked everyone, the same as always. But her heart was beating faster than usual.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe she'd find the right moment, the right words. Something gentle, something that wouldn't spook him. She just wanted him to know she understood. That she'd been lost too. That music had saved her, and maybe it could save him.

Paula had said to be patient. To let him be.

But Merritt had never been good at standing by when she thought she could help.

That night, alone in the bungalow, she sat on the deck with her guitar and played the lullaby she'd written for her mother. The one that always brought Richard to tears. She played it slowly, feeling each note, thinking about the people she'd loved and lost and found again.

She thought about her mother, wasting away while Merritt sacrificed everything trying to save her.