“Brett?” she said in a weak, tremulous voice.
Linnea brought her hand to cover her mouth. Brett. Flo thought John was Brett Beauchamps, Cara’s first husband.
Brett had been Flo’s knight in shining armor, as he had been Lovie’s before her. He was always on call for the old woman living alone, to run an errand, fix a broken pipe, lift anything heavy, and to bring home a pound of shrimp from the dock when asked. It dawned on Linnea: that was why Flo had always asked for John, preferring him to help her over Emmi. In her dementia, Flo had mistaken John for Brett.
Linnea watched John reach out and gently remove the soggy sandwich from Flo’s hand, tossing it behind him into the darkness. He began speaking so softly Linnea couldn’t make out the words, but she watched him reach out once again, and this time Flo let him take hold of her hand. He gently guided the old woman away from the graffiti-covered wall.
Tears filled Linnea’s eyes as she kept a light on the pair. John was very much like Brett, she thought. Both were tall and broad-shouldered, and their hair was tawny brown. But they didn’t look alike. It was more their gentlemanly manner that was similar, their kindness, and their lowcountry charm that gave them an ease in the landscape they were born and raised in. Flo, for all that she’d lost in her mental faculties, saw the truth clearly.
Linnea had loved her uncle Brett. He’d been her teacher when she’d come as a child to Isle of Palms in the summers with Cooper to spend weeks in the sun and surf. And later he’d been her mentor, when Linnea was a teenager and worked summers on his tour boats that cruised the Intracoastal. Brett had shared with her his love of all things wild, not just the popular dolphins and sea turtles. He’d revealed to her the beauty of the cordgrass waving in the last rays of sunlight on any given day; the history and medical importance of horseshoe crabs, calling them our living dinosaurs; the humor in a fiddler crab waving his one oversize claw to impress a mate.
John lifted Flo into his arms as gently and easily as he would a child. Linnea realized she probably weighed as little. She followed with the light as he carried Flo out from the shelter of the bridge, smiling down at her with kindly affection. The rain had mercifully slowed to a drizzly mist and the worst of the wind had already blown offshore.
Suddenly Flo looked out toward the sea, and a beautiful smile transformed her face. She arched in John’s arms and reached out to wave enthusiastically. Linnea turned, but there was nothing there but the pitch black of sea and sky.
“Hello! Hello, Lovie!” Flo called out. Her face was filled with childlike joy as she waved.
John’s and Linnea’s gazes met, first with worry, then with wonder as they realized they were witnessing something neither of them could understand.
Other voices called out, this time coming from behind them along the beach path. “Linnea? John?”
“Over here!” Linnea called out, and ran to the edge of the bridge. She waved her flashlight to guide them. Figures made their way down the beach path from the parking lot in single file. David was first, carrying a large lantern that lit up the area. He was followed closely by Cara carrying blankets, and then Emmi.
Flo saw them and clutched John in fear, burying her head in his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Flo,” he said softly. “Look. It’s Emmi. And Cara. They’ve come to take you home.”
chapter sixteen
Every day is meant to be lived. Fully. With our eyes wide open.
Our senses on full alert. Not wasted. Or squandered in doubt or self-pity.
THE FAST-MOVING STORM had left the coast drenched. The sand was deep and soft and difficult for walking as John carried Florence up the steep incline over the dunes to the parking lot. Emmi and Cara guided Flo into the backseat of David’s Range Rover. Her eyes had closed and her head fell on Emmi’s shoulder.
Linnea and John, wrapped in blankets, stood quietly watching. From this distance, Linnea couldn’t tell if Flo was resting, had fallen asleep, or passed out. The old woman was still trembling, even under her blanket. Linnea whipped off her blanket and handed it to Cara.
“Cover her with this one too. She’s still cold.”
Cara’s eyes gleamed with gratitude. “Darling girl,” she murmured as she took it and placed it over Flo.
“There’s room for one more,” David called from the front seat.
“You take it,” John told Linnea.
“I’m not going without you.”
“You go ahead,” John called out to David. “It’s only a few blocks. Get Flo home. We’ll walk.”
The big car pulled away from the curb and Linnea watched the red taillights disappear into the mist. John moved his blanket so that it covered both their heads. Under the blanket it smelled of wet wool, which was oddly comforting. They walked hip to hip, her arm around his waist, in lockstep.
“Thank God we found her,” John said. “If you hadn’t insisted, we’d still be looking.”
“She doesn’t look well,” she said.
“No.”
Linnea turned her head to look at him. “John, that sandwich,” she said with disgust just remembering it. “My God, do you think she ate it?”
“Yeah. I could smell it on her breath.”
“Oh God,” Linnea moaned. “It looked rotten.”
“I’m more worried about contagion.”
“Covid? You don’t think she’ll catch it?”
“It’s possible. She was out with all those people, not wearing a mask,” he said, his fatigue cutting his voice. “She’s so fragile… she weighed next to nothing. When I think of Florence Prescott, I think of this strong, invincible woman. She’d challenge Peter at the Pearly Gates.” He wiped his nose. “I held her in my arms like she was a child.”
A car passed them on the road, splashing them with water. They were so wet already, neither of them cared.
Linnea had to ask. “Did you hear her calling Lovie?”
John walked a few steps. “Yeah.”
“She was waving to her. Like she was seeing her.”
“I saw it myself, or I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Do you… do you think she really saw her?”
“I don’t know…” he said with sincerity.
After the night they’d had, walking together under the shelter of the blanket, hip to hip, step in step, there was a raw honesty in the air.
“She seemed so happy. Like… like she was letting her know she was coming.” Linnea turned her head. “Do you think it’s possible that Lovie was coming for her?”
John sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe. Yeah.”
“I think she was,” Linnea confessed. “You know,” she added, “Cara has seen Lovie a couple of times.”
“Her ghost?”
“Yes,” she replied fervently. “And you know Cara’s not the kind of woman who’d make that up. She swears by it. And my father saw her too.”
“That I find hard to believe.”
“Which is why I believe it. If Cara and Daddy saw Lovie…”
“This is giving me the creeps,” John said as they turned down the street toward the beach house.