Swimming Lessons

2

Primrose Cottage was a quaint yellow beach house with mullioned windows and a welcoming veranda. It sat on a high dune across from the ocean and was surrounded by sweetgrass, sea oats and wildflowers that grew in a riotous display. Modest but comfortable, it was one of the few remaining original cottages left on Isle of Palms. Primrose Cottage was once the summer home of Olivia Rutledge. After her death, the beach house was passed on to Lovie’s daughter, Cara, who then rented the house to Toy for a fraction of its worth. It was the kind of generous arrangement that a family member would make for another.

It was to this beach house that the turtle team decided to bring the sick sea turtle for the night. With Brett’s strong back, the four of them managed to carry the enormous sea turtle up the beach, over the dunes, and along the narrow beach path to the house.

The sky was dusky and the yellow light streaming from the cottage windows was welcoming as they approached. Cara was panting hard and her arms strained like they were breaking by the time they set the huge sea turtle down on the sand and gravel in front of the beach house.

“I have a whole new understanding of what it takes for those mamas to crawl out from the sea under all that weight,” Cara said, bent with her hands on her knees. “Look at my knees, they’re shaking!”

“You think this was tough?” Brett asked her with a short laugh. He wiped his hands on his shirt. “Giving you a piggyback ride through the pluff mud makes this seem like a walk in the park.”

While the others guffawed, Cara twisted her mouth into a smirk. “Ha ha ha, very funny,” she replied. “Just for that I think I’ll add a few pounds for the next jaunt to the hammock.”

His brows rose. “I think my dreamboat has already taken on a little extra cargo.”

This set off another round of laughs from Toy and Flo as Cara sauntered up to slap his arms, already raised in mock self-defense. Toy watched the teasing banter between husband and wife and wondered what it was like to have that kind of relationship with a man. The kind where slapping could be playful rather than hurtful.

“Save your energy. We’re far from done,” Flo called out, heading to the underbelly of the beach house’s raised porch.

Primrose Cottage had endured years of salt air, blustery wind and blazing sun, and the old house was showing its age. It was an endless battle to keep the paint from peeling, the mold from peppering the wood, and any gravel on the driveway. The small area under the front porch was closed in on two sides by a wall of a wobbly, faded white wooden trellis weighed down with jasmine vines. This confined area was so stuffed, Toy could barely see the cement slab.

“We’ll have to clean out this place if we aim to put this turtle here for the night,” said Flo. She surveyed the area and muttered, “And I thought I had a lot of stuff.”

“It’s not all mine,” Toy said defensively. “Most of it was Miss Lovie’s and I don’t figure we should move it.”

“Why not?” Flo replied. “She won’t miss it.”

Toy looked dismayed at the comment but Flo only shrugged then moved a pink bicycle with training wheels and plastic streamers stemming from the handles. “If you ask me—and you didn’t—I’d say both the elder and the younger Lovies have accumulated a mountain of stuff.”

“Okay, okay,” Cara called out as she surveyed the wall to wall clutter. “I admit, I’m not the best landlady, but you should’ve seen the mountain of junk I threw out already. You know what a pack rat my mother was. She couldn’t bear to let go of anything. Every rusted tool and each cracked flower pot still had some life left in it. Every time I threw something out she was at the trash bin pulling it out again.”

“That’s just a reaction to the Depression years, child,” Flo replied, rolling the tricycle out. “All of us tainted by it hang on to stuff longer than we should.”

“Whatever… Because of her I hate to hold on to anything. Stuff just accumulates!” She shook her head and put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the assorted garden tools, turtle supplies, toys and pots crammed in the space under the porch. “See what I mean? In just five years all this stuff gathers. I guess I should’ve come over to clear this place out for you, Toy. It’s mine to figure out what to do with.”

“I don’t mind,” Toy replied honestly. “I hate to get rid of anything that belonged to Miss Lovie.”

“Puhlease…” Cara said, raising her hands. “I had to fight with my mother to throw anything out, don’t make me fight with you.”

“Well, let’s just clear it out for now,” said Flo. “Y’all can decide what to do about it later.”

“I’ll grab the car keys and move it out to the driveway,” Toy said. “That’ll clear a big space.” She patted the gold, 1972 VW bug with affection before she opened the door. It creaked on its hinges. “This old girl has a few lapses, but this is one piece that I’ll never toss away.”

The VW Bug was once the pride and joy of Olivia Rutledge. Everyone who lived on the island knew that if they spotted “the Goldbug” parked along Palm Boulevard, the Turtle Lady was out on the beach tending to a turtle nest. Miss Lovie had left the car to Toy in her will, and at 103,000 miles, the Gold Bug was still going strong.

While Toy moved the car, the others worked together to shove the clutter to the lawn, leaving only Little Lovie’s blue plastic kiddie pool. This was scrubbed, rinsed then filled to the half way point with water.

“I reckon this is as good as it’s going to get,” Cara said, surveying the cleared and swept space. “Let’s bring her in.”

“Easy now,” Flo said as they each took hold of the turtle and carried her under the porch. Gently, they slipped the enormous turtle into the kiddie pool. She landed with a soft splash, filling every inch.

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” Brett said, rising.

“You ain’t kidding,” Flo added, drying her hands on her shorts. “She barely squeezed in. If that loggerhead was healthy, she’d use those powerful flippers to climb out from that ridiculous plastic bin and stopping her would be like trying to stop a tank.” She clucked her tongue. “Poor thing. She’s so weak and sick, she doesn’t even try.”

Toy crouched closer to the sea turtle that lay dull and limp in the pool. She looked more like one of Little Lovie’s inflatable toys than a real loggerhead. She knew this noble turtle had survived against daunting odds to reach maturity. She’d traveled countless miles to the beach of her birth to lay her eggs. She didn’t deserve to be in such a pitiful condition.

“I’m going to scrub her down,” she said, rolling up her sleeves.

“Are you sure you’re supposed to do that?” Flo asked. “Maybe we should just leave her be.”

“Flo,” she said, rising to a stand. “May I remind you that I work at the Aquarium and I’ve handled lots of sick sea turtles when I interned at the turtle hospital in Topsail. So, yes. I am sure we’re supposed to wash her down.” Her expression shifted to reveal the hurt exasperation she felt with the other woman.

Flo’s brows rose in surprise at Toy’s reaction. Then her shoulders lowered and her lips lifted to a thoughtful smile. “I reckon I can get pretty fixed in my ways at times.”

Cara guffawed from behind them. “Who, you?”

Toy breathed easier and met Flo’s smile.

“Well, kiddos,” Flo said, slapping her hands together. “It looks like this turtle is in good hands. It’s getting dark and I’m already late for my date. If you don’t need me, I gotta go.”

“Who is the lucky guy this time?” Cara asked.

Flo just waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You’ll be fine without me for a while. I’ll come back tomorrow morning to help with whatever you need done. What time do you think we’ll be shoving off for the Aquarium?”

“Jason is getting there early to set up a tank for her. He said to bring her in around eight,” replied Toy.

“Then I’ll be here at seven. I’ll bring coffee.”

She leaned forward to give a quick kiss on Little Lovie’s cheek then offered a wave to the others. “Take good care of our girl,” she said as she walked off, her flip flops clapping against her heels. She disappeared around a gangly oleander.

The small space beneath the porch seemed suddenly quieter without her energy.

“So then,” said Cara, breaking the silence. Her eyes turned toward Toy. “What should we do first?”

Toy scratched behind her ear, surprised to suddenly find herself in charge. She caught sight of Little Lovie standing by the steps of the porch wrapped tight in her beach towel, shivering. Her damp hair lay in clumps around her head. She was slight with no meat on her bones, as her mama would say. “The first thing I’ve got to do is warm up the little bug over there before she chatters away her teeth.”

“Let me do that,” Brett offered, walking toward Little Lovie. “I know you two ladies can’t wait to get your hands on that turtle. While you scrub to your heart’s content, I’ll scrounge around the kitchen and fix up some hot dinner for all of us.” He turned to the child. “What do you say to that?”

Little Lovie looked up at him with limpid eyes and her teeth biting the towel. She nodded.

“Come on then, before your lips turn any bluer,” he said.

“Hey, darlin’,” Cara called out to him. “While you’re at it, I’d like a vodka martini with three olives.” She winked when he glanced back at her with a smirk.

Toy enjoyed their banter and watched Brett place his big hand against Little Lovie’s back, nudging her toward the door. They were so like what she thought a father and daughter should be. And she felt again a stabbing guilt that somehow she’d failed her daughter because there was no father for her.

“He’s a pretty remarkable guy,” she said to Cara.

“Don’t I know it.”

“He’ll make a great father someday.”

Cara’s smile slipped. “God willing.”

Toy caught the sudden shift in emotion and let the topic drop. Miss Lovie used to say that the island breezes softened the bones. In Cara’s case, Toy saw that it was true. Marriage had sweetened Cara. And for sure, no one could have been nicer or more supportive of her and Little Lovie than Cara and Brett. They were like family—the only family Toy and Little Lovie could count on.

“Let’s get this show rolling,” Cara said in an upbeat voice, wiping sand from her hands. “You’re the boss here. You’ll have to tell me how this is done.”

“There’s not a whole lot we can do here,” Toy replied, unrolling the hose. “All the medical treatments will be done tomorrow at the Aquarium. But at least we can get all that slime and those leeches off. Even if she doesn’t make it, I reckon she’ll be happier for a bath.”

“I hear that,” Cara said, walking to the faucet. “Fresh water okay?”

“Yep. It’s even better than sea water for cleaning her off. Kills those ol’ barnacles.”

“Well, here’s a nice fresh water shower, baby,” said Cara. Water gurgled from the hose and splashed onto the turtle’s shell.

While Cara hosed down the turtle, Toy brought over a bucket filled with soft scrub brushes. Her stomach clenched as she knelt by the turtle. It was covered with stubborn barnacles and hundreds of thread-like, wiggly leeches.

“God, I hate leeches,” she muttered with a shudder.

“You and me both,” Cara said as she knelt beside her. Her mouth was a tight grimace. Their eyes met, then with a mutual sigh of resignation, they both dove in and began to scrub.

They scrubbed and picked and rinsed until it seemed to Toy that she’d removed acres of the ocean’s slimy bottom from the turtle. The bigger, gray, crusty barnacles were tenacious but the smaller ones were easily plucked off. Dozens more clung stubbornly to every inch of the turtle like boils. At least the horrible leeches were off and she had to admit the loggerhead did look better. The shell was spongy to the touch, but bits of its rich brown coloring could be seen between the dried, flaky bits.

The gentle turtle remained still and uncomplaining. She rolled her eyes back to stare at Toy with an almost human expression.

“Bless her heart. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was saying thank you.”

“You’re welcome, baby,” Cara replied, patting her shell.

“I think we should name her.”

“I thought you biologists didn’t like to get personal with wild animals.” Cara said the word biologists with a gentle tease.

Toy made a face, but secretly she thrilled to the title. It was hard earned. “It’s true, but I confess I like to give names to the ones I work with every day. It helps me remember one from the next and it’s more personal. Besides, I have a hard enough time remembering names. Who can remember a number?” She paused to look with scrutiny at the loggerhead. “How about Caretta?”

Cara barked out a laugh and pretended to squirt Toy with the hose. It had long been a tender point between Cara and her mother that she’d been named after the Latin name for loggerheads, Caretta caretta. She’d spent a lifetime insisting on being called Cara.

“Don’t even think about it. Besides, doesn’t the Aquarium already have a turtle named Caretta? We have to come up with something more original for this big girl.”

Toy sat back on her heels. “That’s it! Big Girl.”

Cara nodded with approval. “Big Girl it is.”

“Well, Big Girl,” Toy said, tossing her scrub brush in the bucket. “I think that’s about as clean as we can get you tonight. Let’s wrap her up in wet towels, and then all that’s left is to wait until morning.”

“And pray she makes it.” Cara added. “I don’t know if turtles have expressions, but this poor girl even looks sick.” Night was falling fast and in the dim gray light, the shabbiness of the under-porch area was apparent. “We can’t just leave her out here by herself. What if she wanders off? Or some animal gets her?”

“No, of course not. I’ll stay with her.”

“Are you sure?”

Toy rose and put her hands to her lower back, aching from bending over the kiddie pool for so long. Her khaki pants were soaked and muddied, and her aching knees had dozens of tiny dents in the skin from kneeling on sand and grit.

“Yeah,” she replied, stifling a yawn. “No problem. I’ll just drag down the lounge chair from the porch. It’ll be like camping.” She snorted. “Kind of.”

Cara grimaced. “I hate camping.”

“Me, too.”

They burst out laughing.

“I’ll take the second shift,” Cara offered. She stretched her long arms over her head, yawning loudly. “It’s hotter ’n Hades down here. Lord help us.” Then without saying more, she began rolling up the hose.

Toy began gathering up the brushes and emptying the bucket. They both moved with the silent, slow movements of exhaustion.

“One thing, though,” Toy said in afterthought. “If I’m down here with the turtle, will you help get Little Lovie to bed?”

Cara’s eyes lit up. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

Later that evening, they all headed for bed. While Cara and Brett settled Lovie, Toy dragged the old wooden lounge chair from the porch down the stairs to the cement slab, then went back up for a sleeping bag, a flashlight, a bottle of insect repellent and a bottle of chilled white wine. She slathered the contents of one bottle on her body and poured the contents of the other into a glass.

A vine of jasmine as thick as a python snaked in and out of the rickety lattice. Any breeze that might waft in from the ocean was blocked by the heavy foliage, but it provided a heady scent that helped overpower the dank smell of mildew and the fishy odor of turtle. Toy used the last of her energy to set the lounge chair at the edge of the concrete slab where the space opened up to the ocean’s breeze. Then, without removing her clothes, she crawled into the flannel folds of the sleeping bag and lay facing the stars.

It was a steamy night on the island. From the darkness the insects were singing their lullaby. The moon was rising and from deep in the blackness came the soothing, omnipresent roar of the ocean.

Not an evening passed that she didn’t give thanks to the Lord for being able to live here with her daughter in this cottage near the beach. Primrose Cottage was the only place in her entire life where she’d felt safe and truly happy.

The old wood lounge creaked as she shifted her weight. From somewhere a night bird called, and close to her ear she heard the high hum of a mosquito. Slapping her neck with a curse on all mosquitoes, Toy wrapped herself mummy-like in the sleeping bag and lay in her cocoon for several minutes while the heat sweltered.

It wasn’t long before she couldn’t breathe. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered as she kicked off the sleeping bag. Instantly the breeze cooled her moist skin, and just as quickly, the pesky mosquitoes hummed closer. It was going to be a long night, she thought. She shifted on the creaking lounge chair to grab more repellent. Across the floor, the turtle remained unmoving under the towels. Often these turtles hung on to life by a thin thread. Toy sat very still, waiting for several minutes in the silence to hear a breath. None came.

Worried, Toy unwrapped herself from the sleeping bag to brave the mosquitoes and check on the loggerhead. She removed the towel from over its big head. The turtle was lying perfectly still.

“How are you doing, Big Girl?” she asked, squinting in the dark. She bent to gently touch the turtle’s eyelids, seeking some response.

The turtle blinked and released a long exhale.

Toy exhaled, too, in great relief. “You had me worried there, old girl,” she said, reaching out to place her palm on the turtle’s roughened shell. She felt a strong bond with the mother sea turtle. “We single mothers have to stick together,” she said and, though she had no logical reason for it, she acted on instinct and began to pat the shell.

She thought again of her recurring dream of the sea turtle. Of how Big Girl had traveled long and far to reach this bit of beach she called home.

“You made it home,” she crooned softly. “All that way, through all those dangers. How many seasons have you survived out there in the ocean, huh? Are you forty years old? Fifty? More?”

No one knew for sure how long loggerheads lived. Some thought they lived to one hundred years or more.

“Don’t you worry, Big Girl. You’re not alone. I’m here for you.”

Upstairs, Cara closed the storybook and glanced over at the little girl on the bed beside her. Pale lashes rested on cherubic cheeks while soft puffs of air came out evenly through her rosy lips.

Cara’s heart pumped with affection for the little girl she’d helped raise since she was born. Toy liked to say that the spirit of Miss Lovie came to rest in the heart of this child, and though it was Cara’s nature to pooh-pooh such sentiment, in her heart she believed it was true. She caught glimpses of her mother’s gentle spirit in Little Lovie. And certainly in her love of nature, the sea turtles especially.

Cara reached up to softly stroke the blond hairs away from Little Lovie’s forehead, still damp from her bath. It was a gesture she remembered her own mother making. A surge of emotion moistened her eyes.

“You’re thinking of your mother, aren’t you?”

Cara turned toward the voice at the door. Leaning against the frame she saw the tall, broad form of her husband, his arms crossed at his chest, his eyes soft with concern. Brett’s keen ability to observe even small details was what made him both a great wildlife guide and a great husband.

She nodded and let her gaze wander. “I always feel her presence keenly here at the beach house.”

“It’s not surprising. She loved it here more than anywhere else.”

“Wouldn’t she just love having a turtle under her porch?” She laughed lightly at the thought. “She sure loved the turtles.”

“She loved you. Are you sure you won’t be happier living in this house? She left it to you, after all. Maybe she wanted you to live here. I wouldn’t mind moving.”

“Someday, perhaps. But the memories are still too strong. Even after five years, the pain’s too fresh.” She shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe because she died so soon after our reconciliation. For so long we barely ever talked. And then when we finally started, she had to up and die. Hardly seems fair.”

“At least you cleared the air. You had the chance a lot of other people miss.”

“I know. I’m grateful for that, I really am.” Cara reached up to tuck the pink sheet under Little Lovie’s chin. “It’s just, there’s still so much I want to tell her. So much I would have liked to share with her. I feel robbed.”

Cara rose from the bed and wrapped her arms across her chest. She gazed around the room. This was once her bedroom, the room of a girl’s dreams and heartaches.

“After she died, I tried sleeping in Mama’s bed. The scent of her gardenia perfume hung in the air like a ghost. It was pervasive—in the closet, the curtains. It was like she was everywhere. I know it’s crazy, but I missed her so much, I resorted to wearing her bathrobe to bed. I used to pretend that her arms were wrapped around me while I cried like a baby. Me!” She sniffed. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“You never told me that.”

Cara leaned back against him. “It’s pretty silly, isn’t it?”

“Not at all.”

He slid his arms around her waist. They felt strong and secure, and closing her eyes, she caught the scent of the sea in his clothes. “I’d much rather sleep in our own bed, in our own house and have your arms around me.”

He bent and she felt his cheek against hers and his muscle move into a grin. “That sounds good to me.”

“Besides,” she said, straightening. “It’s been good for Toy to live here. She finds comfort in being surrounded by Mama’s things.”

“She loved her like a mother.”

“In a lot of ways, she was her mother, the mother Toy never had. Remember the way she cried at Mama’s funeral? Made me look like I didn’t care as much. I got some strange looks, I recall.”

“It’s not your way to cry.”