Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
He gasped as he figured it out. “This is where Mama and Daddy met!”
“Well, hallelujah, the boy’s got some brain cells!” She opened her picnic basket and took out a small blanket. “Here, help me spread this.”
They spread the blanket on the beach and sat down together. Aunt Gert had brought fried grouper sandwiches, hush puppies, French fries, and fudge brownies from the restaurant, along with a cooler full of Cokes. Peyton hadn’t realized how hungry he was till they started eating.
“This is the best sandwich I ever had,” he said, reminding himself to use a napkin now and then.
Aunt Gert took a sip of her Coke. “You’re just hungry. But Davy does fry a mean grouper. It’s the homemade mayonnaise that really sets off the fish. Look out there. See that?”
Peyton followed her finger to a spit of sand out in the ocean. He remembered his mother’s story about collecting shells on a sandbar in St. Augustine. “That can’t be the same sandbar—is it?” he asked Aunt Gert.
“No, but that’s about where it was. At high tide, it’ll disappear.”
The two of them ate their supper and sipped their Cokes as the sky slowly washed out to a pale robin’s-egg blue with faint streaks of pink and coral. After all his time in hospitals, Peyton couldn’t believe how great it felt to be on the ocean. What had it been like for his parents?
“Could you tell me what they were like—back then, I mean?” he asked, turning to his aunt.
“Well, let’s see. Your mother was always kind and sweet. But make no mistake, Katie’s got plenty o’ moxie—and a sharp, curious mind. Marshall wasn’t much different back then than he is now. Your daddy was the strong, silent type even as a boy. Over the years, he became a much more lovin’ person. Katie did that for him. If it wasn’t for her, he mighta ended up a cold fish like the rest o’ the Cabots.”
“You don’t care much for Daddy’s people?”
“Can’t stand ’em. Never could. George was pretty decent, as rich old planters go—may he rest in peace—but his lovely wife Celia’s got a cold streak a mile long. Marshall’s sisters never had to turn their hand, so they pretty much treat anybody outside the family like the hired help. And as for the brothers, the youngest one’s kinda giddy-headed, and that Julian thinks he could ride a mule around the moon backwards, but the truth is, he ain’t even got sense enough to saddle it up.”
“How do you know ’em all, Aunt Gert?”
She sighed as she took off her sandals and slid her feet into the sand. “When Katie first married, she used to call down here and beg me to come up and give her a little moral support durin’ that dreadful spring picnic, which I did, till you came along. I figured a baby’d give her an excuse to get away from ’em, and I just really couldn’t take it anymore. It’s like those people were all born with somethin’ missin’. All of ’em ’cept your daddy.”