Gordon sat for a moment, gazing at the sky. Then he looked at her with sadness lurking in his eyes. He leaned toward her, and she raised her face to kiss him. But he went higher and kissed the top of her head.

“I wish you great happiness, Linnea.” He rose, then looked at the bunch of roses on the table. “I suppose I should have given you chrysanthemums.” His gaze was tender, his smile brief. “They mean good-bye.”

chapter nineteen

Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Yet in this year of 2020, there is no hindsight to be had!

THEY GATHERED AT the small dune where years earlier they had scattered Lovie’s ashes. The dune was directly across from the beach house, a spot on the beach where many memories had been forged. As Lovie liked to say, only the good ones. Cara, Hope, and David, Emmi and John, Palmer and Julia, Anna and Cooper, and, standing alone with her dog, Linnea formed a semicircle on the dune, each carrying a rose from Flo’s bushes.

Dawn held special meaning for this group. For Emmi, Cara, Linnea, and especially Flo, it was the early hour of beach walking when the sun broke the shroud of night and the strident calls of birds sang out with hope.

Emmi lowered to her knees and, using a large whelk shell, dug a hole twenty-four inches deep in the sand, the same depth and circumference as a sea turtle nest. When she was done, Cara stepped forward holding the nondescript black box that carried the ashes of the woman they’d known as Florence Prescott. Cara kissed the box, then handed it to Emmi.

Emmi was calm as she pried open the box and, without words, tilted it to let the ashes fall down into the nest-like hole. When the last of the ashes were poured, Emmi moved aside as, one by one, each member of the group tossed her or his rose into the trench.

Linnea was the last. She took a shuddering breath and released the flower, whispering, “Good-bye dear Flo.” Then she too stepped back to join the circle. She watched as Emmi and Cara knelt side by side in the sand to fill in the hole as they would a turtle nest, handful after handful, patting the sand firm when finished. Emmi placed the large seashell, one that Flo had used to dig her nests as a “Turtle Lady,” atop the grave.

Linnea knew that Flo wasn’t in that hole in the sand. She remembered vividly that frightening night when Flo was in John’s arms and looked out at the sea, her face lit up with joy, and waved to Lovie. Linnea absolutely believed that her grandmother had come to guide Flo to the other side. She could feel both of them here now, on this dune with the people they’d loved. And she knew in her heart she would always find them whenever she looked out at the restless sea, or at the clicking sea oats on the dunes, or at every hatchling that eagerly raced home to the sea.