I pet my cats as they crowded onto my lap and then started to fall asleep one by one. I can’t get anything done with a pile of cats on my lap, so I pretended to sigh and think of all the things I should be doing like cleaning my house, which is so boring. Or trying to get in shape, which is so painful. I picked up a book and happily began to read as they slept.

Then I daydreamed about making love to my love, Marco.

* * *

That night the singing sailors all converged for dinner on the deck at Rose Bloom Cottage, the red and pink roses pouring over the outdoor trellis. The women all wore sailor gear or sailor hats, with flowers my mother and aunts added. They were loud, funny, and sang on full blast.

When I watch my mother and aunts I don’t fear getting older. After all, if one is allowed to get older or old, you are lucky, indeed.

Plus, my mother and aunts feel grateful to be in their seventies. They have been through the beauties of life. They have been through the hardships of life. They have lost and loved. They have worked hard all their lives. They know what they value the most: Family. Us. Friends. The island. Helping other people.

They laugh, they drink, they grow flowers and run a shop and hang with their friends. They do nice things for people all the time and bring joy to others and to this whole town with their wild shenanigans.

They are gifts. They are living life.

I admire them. I respect them. I love them, funny hats and all.

The sailor songs, which my Aunt Camellia printed out, had a lot of salty language and swear words. They were hilarious. I needed songs to lift my heart, and it was lifted on the sometimes poorly but enthusiastically sung musical notes in Rose Bloom Cottage, a sailor hat with daisies and delphinium on my head.

Sundance howled, joining in. What a cool friend he is to all of us.

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Serafina kept doing kind things for others. She told her parents that she couldn’t be who she wanted to be if she stopped, so she didn’t. One row of rainbow-colored scales was soon gone, then another, then another, from her waist to the end of her tail. She grew greener and greener, but she found that she liked having a shiny green tail.”

“Like her whole family.”