Page 75 of Island Girl

She stared at the words, her throat tight. She wanted to call him. She wanted to hear his voice, steady and calm, telling her everything would be okay. But she couldn't bring herself to admit what had happened. Not yet. Not until she knew how bad the damage was.

She typed back: Good. Busy with work. Will call soon.

It was a lie, but it was an easier lie than the truth.

That night, she didn't play at Shorebirds. She told Justin she was sick, and maybe she was. Sick with guilt, sick with worry, sick with the weight of her own good intentions. She stayed home and sat on the deck and watched the stars come out, one by one, until the sky was full of them.

Somewhere out there, Ray was alone. Somewhere out there, Gregory was dying. And somewhere inside her, the girl who had sacrificed her life trying to save her mother was wondering if she'd ever learn to stop making the same mistakes.

The waves rolled in. The wind chime sang. And Merritt sat in the darkness, alone, suddenly wishing she wasn’t.

Friday morning, the call came.

She was making coffee when her phone rang, Paula's name on the screen.

“Hello?”

“It's Gregory.” Paula's voice was soft. “He passed about an hour ago. Peacefully, in his sleep. They said he just…let go.”

Merritt set down her coffee cup. The kitchen was bright with morning light, the painted bunting already at the feeder, the Gulf sparkling blue and endless beyond the French doors.

“Was he at peace?” she asked. “At the end. Did he remember about the birds?”

“I think so. The nurses said he was talking about birds in his sleep. Cardinals and pelicans and a girl who told him stories.” Paula paused. “I think he knew, Merritt. I think he was ready.”

She thanked Paula and hung up the phone. Then she walked out onto the deck and stood in the morning sun, looking at the water where she'd stood on her first morning here, her white sundress rippling in the breeze, her arm outstretched toward the endless turquoise blue.

Gregory was gone. The man who had trusted her with sixty years of memories, the man who had asked her to tell him about the birds, the man who had made this home possible. Gone.

And Ray was still missing. And her guilt was still crushing her. And the world kept turning, indifferent to grief, indifferent to loss, indifferent to the small human dramas playing out on its surface.

She didn't cry. She'd expected to, but the tears wouldn't come. Instead, she felt hollow. Scraped out. Like someone had reached inside her and removed everything that made her feel.

She stood there for a long time, watching the pelican dive for fish, watching the ospreys circle above their nest, watching the painted bunting flit from branch to branch near the feeder. All the birds she'd described to Gregory in his final days. All the stories she'd brought him when he couldn't come to the stories himself.

He'd asked her to keep looking. Keep seeing. The world needs people who notice.

She noticed everything now. The way the light hit the water. The sound of the wind chime. The warmth of the sun on her face. She noticed it all, and she held it, and she promised herself she would keep noticing, keep seeing, keep telling stories to anyone who needed to hear them.

It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was something.

She went back inside and called her father.

It was time to tell him the truth.

CHAPTER 24

The funeral was small.

Gregory had outlived most of his friends and all of his family except the nephew in Ohio, who flew down for the service but had to leave immediately after. He stood at the front of the small chapel at the funeral home, looking uncomfortable in his suit, and spoke briefly about an uncle he'd barely known. He mentioned the bungalow, the birds, the wife who had died twelve years before. He said Gregory had been a good man, and that he would be missed.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. But Merritt supposed it never was.

She sat in the second row with Paula on one side and Justin on the other. Crocker sat at the end of their pew, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance. A handful of staff from Seaside Gardens filled the rows behind them, nurses and aides who had cared for Gregory in his final months. The chapel felt too big for such a small gathering, the empty pews stretching back like an accusation.

The minister spoke about eternal rest and the promise of reunion. Merritt listened without hearing. She was thinkingabout Gregory's voice, thin and papery, asking her to tell him about the birds. She was thinking about his hand tightening on hers as she described the ospreys and the pelicans and the painted bunting that came every morning. She was thinking about all the stories she'd told him, and all the stories she would never get to tell.

When the service ended, they filed out into the Florida sunshine. The day was bright and warm, mockingly beautiful, the kind of day Gregory would have spent at his window watching Harold and Mildred at the feeder. Merritt stood on the sidewalk, blinking in the light, feeling untethered from her own body.