by that's me
Big sister has been taken care of.
In time, when all the fuss has subsided, little sister will be, too.
Or maybe not.
Maybe Joseph should try to learn to live with Lianna after all. For a while, at least.
Maybe he should spare his wife the loss of another child.
Because he does love Charlotte. He really does.
And now he has it all. Everything he ever wanted With the exception of Lianna.
Oh, well, there's always boarding school-or Vince. Let Daddy's little girl go live with him for a while.
I can talk Charlotte into it. I can talk her into anything.
Outside, it's still raining steadily, but the savage gusts have subsided.
The worst of the storm is over.
Isn't that the truth, Joseph thinks wryly.
He limps painstakingly around the clump of shrug that lead to where he left Charlotte- Only to find that she's vanished.
A wave of panic sweeps through him.
Then a voice commands, "Stop right there and pu up your hands."
Charlotte's voice.
She's on her feet-and she's pointing a gun…
At him.
As Charlotte watches the taillights of the police c disappear through a curtain of rain down the winding drive, she sinks onto the top slate step of the portico.
Handcuffed in the backseat is the man she knew Royce Maitland.
In time, she might find out exactly who he really is or was.
Maybe she never will.
It doesn't really matter now.
It's over.
Their universe shattered, she and Lianna are never nevertheless alive.
That's something.
No.
It's everything.
"Mom?"
She looks up to see Lianna behind her, still pale, still quivering, still covered in mud.
"Is he gone?" she asks in a little-girl voice that wrings the last bit of emotion from Charlotte's heart.
"Yes, Lianna," she manages to say, "he's gone."
"Mom… You saved my life."
Charlotte shakes her head, remembering what happened back there in the treacherous sea.
If it wasn't for her daughter, she would have readily joined her son.
‘’You saved my life, Lianna. Twice."
Her voice gives way then, and she raises her arms in mute invitation.
Not so long ago, Charlotte had told herself that when it comes to her daughter, all she can do is hold her breath and let go.
I was wrong, she thinks now, as she gathers Lianna into her arms at last. Dead wrong.
All I can do is breathe a tremendous sigh of relief… and hold on tight.
EPILOGUE
The beach is postcard-perfection on this, the first official weekend of summer.
Down beyond the dunes, where sea oats sway in the warm salt breeze, bright-colored blankets and umbrellas dot powdery sand. Crisp white sails skim the horizon. The ocean air is rife with the sounds of gleeful children splashing in the surf, the incessant roar of the waves, the squawking of circling gulls, the hum of banner-toting planes cruising the coast.
Charlotte sits in her blue and white canvas chair, protected from the midday sun by her cotton cover-up and the umbrella's shade. Romance novel in hand, woven sweetgrass hat on her head, she smiles, watching a little boy splash, shirtless, in the surf.
On his shoulder is a telltale birthmark.
Charlotte told him it's an angel's kiss, just as she told little Adam years ago.
Adam would have graduated from college last month, had he lived-another unreached milestone to join the others in Charlotte's mental scrapbook. If she closes her eyes, she can see her lost son: proud teenager in cap and gown, dashing groom in a wedding boutonniere, tender new father cradling an infant.
Milestones…
Next month, Charlotte will kiss her daughter goodbye and send her off to her freshman year at Princeton.
Initially, Lianna didn't want to go that far from Oakgate. She likes to stay close to home. And Charlotte would secretly love to keep her there, safely tucked under her wing.
Yes, it's tempting to just hang on tight, forever.
But I can't.
It's time to let go at last.
Milestones…
The little boy in the water will be starting first grade in September at Telfair Academy, just as his mother did almost three decades ago.
He, too, will be on a scholarship-of sorts.
Charlotte has arranged to pay little Cameron Johnston's private school tuition. She'll send him to college, too, when the time comes.
For his mother, Mimi, one more semester at Georgia Southern will yield that elusive degree in international studies at last. But she's already been to Europe. Many, many times. Not on business, or pleasure, but a mission.
Mission accomplished.
"How can I ever repay you for all you’ve done for us, Charlotte?’’ Mimi asks, often.
Charlotte simply tells her that payback isn't necessary.
She never mentions what she figured out on a July day three years ago, the first time she joined the Johnstons at the beach…
That little Cameron is family.
Nor does she ever remove her swimsuit cover-up when Jed is around. If he ever noticed the identical angel's kiss on her shoulder, he would realize that his son has Remington blood in his veins.
Devoted, loving Jed is Cameron's father in every way that counts.
Gib Remington, sentenced to a long prison term on drug-smuggling charges, will never have to know that his long-ago one-night stand with Mimi Gaspar resulted in a pregnancy. She and Jed were married soon after she found out she was expecting, and she had opted never to tell him the truth.
"It's better this way," Mimi had said when Charlotte confronted her and she admitted that Gib had indeed fathered her son. "Jed's suffered enough pain. He'll never have to know."
Charlotte may not necessarily agree with Mimi's decision, but who is she to judge?
She herself has made mistakes.
Everyone does. It took three years of therapy for Charlotte and Lianna to come to terms with their own, to forgive themselves-and each other.
To learn to communicate, to trust, to take chances again.
So Lianna will go off to college next month.
As for Charlotte…
If she hadn't gotten to know Mimi and Jed, hadn't seen the strength of their love in the face of death-defying odds, she might never have dared to take the biggest chance of all.
A young child's sudden squeal reaches Charlotte's ears, and her heart skips a beat.
She darts an anxious glance at the shoreline to see Cameron, gleeful as his robust father swings him into a wave, holding tight to those capable hands.
Don't let go, she thinks, watching as the wave washes over father and son. Not yet.
/> "Don't worry, Charlotte. Jed's got him."
In the next chair, Mimi is smiling reassuringly.
"I know he does… I just…" She trails off.
There are some wounds that never fully heal.
Some you carry with you forever, with only time- and love-as balm.
Mimi touches Charlotte's arm gently. Mimi knows. She came harrowingly close to losing someone she loves desperately.
But that didn't happen. Charlotte paid for the trips to Europe, for the experimental treatment that saved Jed's life and has since saved countless others.
The only thing that makes Grandaddy's crime bearable is the final irony that his secret, sizable contributions funded Dr. Petra Von Cave's research for all those years-and ultimately provided the cure for Kepton-Manning disease.
Grandaddy's estate covered the vast, ongoing cost of cleaning up the former chemical waste dump on Achoco Island. Tidewater Meadow was torn down; it will be years before the site is safe for habitation. Its residents have scattered, most to other islands.
Maude Gaspar is one of the few who stayed. She lives with her daughter and son-in-law now, in the little canal-side cottage that's bursting at the seams. She's content to care for Cameron and his baby sister, Jeannie, while their parents work, and study-and labor on the new four-bedroom home they're building near the beach.
But it's slow going. Jed is busy with another job, one with good pay and benefits: overseeing the ongoing renovation of Oakgate.
The brick slave cabins have been torn down, that patch of marsh filled in. A memorial garden marks the spot where Phyllida Remington Harper's remains were found, along with those of Odette's sister, Pammy Sue Krupp. Brian came from California with his son for the garden's dedication. Charlotte was glad they came, and glad Phyllida's life insurance policy paid off the Harpers's debts.
Charlotte created a trust fund for little Wills, who has no memory of his mother or Oakgate, no comprehension of the Remington legacy. Perhaps in the end, he's better off.
Inside the mansion, beyond the enduring brick facade, countless walls have come down.
There are more windows, to banish the shadows and let in the sunlight.
Central air-conditioning was added, the duct-work filling what was once a secret passageway from the second floor to the basement.
The entire third floor has been reclaimed as attic space for countless antiques: Remington relics Charlotte can't bring herself to part with.
Maybe someday she'll go through them.
But this isn't a time to revisit the past; it's a time to look ahead.
On the second floor of the old plantation house is a brand-new master suite: the honeymoon suite, Phil insists on calling it, though the newlywed period officially ended with their first wedding anniversary last month.
A year already.
It took longer than that for Charlotte to agree to their first date. Gradually, she learned to trust the handsome detective, to recognize that his concern for her and Lianna had shifted from professional to personal.
Their wedding last June was in the fragrant rose garden behind Oakgate, with Lianna crying happy tears as maid of honor and Williamson at his partner's side, as always, grinning proudly as best man.
Who would have imagined that behind the crusty facade was a human teddy bear?
It just proves what Charlotte learned in the most tragic way possible: that no book should ever be judged by its cover.
In her life, the chapter involving Joseph Borger is closed. He'll be in prison long after her cousin Gib is released-most likely for the rest of his life.
For Charlotte and Lianna and the Johnstons, a new chapter has begun.
Survivors need a fresh start, just as houses sometimes do.
Adjoining the master suite at Oakgate, the cozy room that was once Gilbert Remington's study has been done over in shades of pastel blue.
Baby blue.
With luck, the white nursery furniture will be delivered by the Fourth of July, as promised…
A long shadow falls over the sand.
Charlotte looks up to see her husband standing over her, his brown skin glistening with droplets of seawater, mocha-colored eyes twinkling down at her. "Hey, how's the beach ball?" 'Just fine." She smiles as he gently pats her enormous stomach and is met with a reassuring kick from their son's tiny foot.
"It's a boy, Mr. and Mrs. Dorado," the obstetrician said the day she gave them the amniocentesis results.
It's a boy.
A son.
A son who will one day soon be rocked in his mother's embrace, and swung high above the surf in his father's hands, and who will ask his big sister a million curious questions when she comes home to visit.
But for now, for one last summer, Lianna is home- and soon, the baby will be, too.
Home at Oakgate.
Pressing her thumb to her eyebrows, Charlotte shields her eyes to cast a reassuring gaze out over the ocean.
Yes, Lianna is there, just beyond the breakers, floating serenely in the sparkling blue sea beneath the golden summer sun.
And above her, a lone white gull soars to the heavens.
