“How did you even know Aunt Gert,” he asked, “with y’all in Mississippi and her down in Florida?”

“My folks never had enough money for vacations, but Aunt Gert would always invite us down there to spend a couple of weeks with her every summer. If Daddy could scrape together gas money once the cotton was planted, we’d go—all of us kids riding in the back of his old farm truck. He would pitch us a big tent by the river in Aunt Gert’s backyard, where the breezes were cool. Can you even imagine doing that now? People think they can’t go anywhere without a hotel room, but we sure did.”

His mother ran her fingers through her hair, as if she were remembering the riverfront winds of St. Augustine. “Anyway, Aunt Gert and I took a quick shine to each other. We were always close.”

“So you were actually living in St. Augustine when Daddy came through on his bike?”

She brushed a piece of lint from her skirt. “His Aunt Lily—she’s your granddaddy’s sister—lives down there, so he stopped to rest and wash his clothes before he set off again.”

“Where were you when the two of you met?”

“On Anastasia Island, near the lighthouse. You could bike there from Aunt Gert’s—it was just over the old wooden bridge that was there before they built the one with the lion statues. She’d let me go by myself as long as I promised not to wade out too far.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back for just a moment. “Oh, it was wonderful—that first taste of freedom for a teenage girl.”

“That’s where you met Daddy?”

She laughed as she held her hands over her heart and made a fluttering motion like a dove flapping its wings. “Yes, that’s where I met my sweetheart.”

“How?”

“I had walked out onto a sandbar to gather seashells, and I wasn’t paying attention when high tide started coming in. The next thing I knew, my sandbar was going under, and the surf between me and the shore was probably four feet deep. I was starting to panic when I looked up and saw this tall, tan boy waving at me from the beach. He called out to see if I needed help and then ran into the waves like he was born in the ocean. By the time he climbed onto the sliver of sand that was left, I was so scared that I was crying.” She stopped and stared out the window, as if she were hoping to see the image of that boy and girl, alone on their tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean.

“What did Daddy do?”

“He looked down at me and smiled,” she said, turning back to Peyton. “Then he took me by the hand and said, ‘It’s just a little water.’ Right away I trusted him, even as young as he was. He picked me up and carried me to the shore. We sat together on my beach quilt—it was an old one Aunt Gert had given me—and we just talked and talked for the longest time . . .”