She tried hard, but in no way could she imagine herself in Madrid. She couldn’t picture anything about Madrid, a place that seemed so far away; a place she had never seen. She blocked out all anticipation and allowed herself no expectations. She reminded herself to live only in the present and opened her letter to Grandma.
Dear Grandma,
I’ve met a lot of interesting “ships” (short for friendships) this summer. It is good to anchor, every so often, in life. Eventually, anchorage spots become comfort zones, where we fill up on wisdom, stories and interesting relationships. We need to rest in one place before we can fuel ourselves to move onward again.
Yes, we’re all like ships coming and going, and we’re all propelled through life by different things. Some make their way by oar and sails, and others by paddles and poles. Some have steam engines and boilers, and some internal-combustion engines or outboard motors. Some go through life in a purely recreational manner while others stay practical. If a vessel is determined enough to stay on course, it will be strong enough to resist the waves banging against it. Some of us take on water and sink from time to time, while others constantly work to stay afloat. I’ve met all of these vessels.
It doesn’t matter where they come from, or where they are going. The waters of the lakes can be as unpredictable as the waters of the sea, and both have caused many shipwrecks.
I haven’t begun to prepare for my journey to Spain. Why should I? I’d rather live the moment, and the moment is still anchored at Tarpon Key. I’ll think about Spain when the time comes to set sail.
That night during dinner, Ruth called her into the office. “Vicki, I’m sorry. This letter came for you today, and I forgot to give it to you. Please forgive me. It’s been so busy around here.”
“Thank you.”
Vicki delivered a basket of warm lemon poppy seed muffins to a couple, then took a seat at a table in the empty front room. She tore open the letter and held it close to the flame of the lantern.
Dearest Vicki,
I wanted this to arrive romantically, as a letter in a bottle, but the post office wouldn’t deliver it that way, and I can’t control the currents of nature. Who knows where the bottle would have ended up if I just tossed it in the water and wished it toward Tarpon Key? Anyway, right now, I’m sitting at the marina writing this to you. I know you’re a few miles out there, but without a boat, it feels further. This fact has frustrated me many nights. Once I woke up in a sweat. In my dream I held on to a log and tried making my way out to see you, but the log broke, and I woke up choking for air.
Anyway, I got a call from my father telling me my mother is not well, and it would be wise if I came home to see her. I think it might be serious, so I’m taking off right away. My flight leaves in two hours.
This is not a letter of good-bye. I know I won’t see you again before your trip to Spain, but still, I am not writing to say good- bye. I can’t bring myself to do that. I love you and always will. You know where to find me if the currents in your future lead you back here.
If ever I decide to travel again, I will certainly let you know. Perhaps, someday, we can cruise the seas together on a floating hut. They’re really cozy!
Love,
Ben
P.S. I tried calling you, but I know that darn pay phone on the dock is the only phone you’re supposed to use for personal calls. I left a couple messages in the bar, but you never called. Maybe you never got my messages.
She wiped her eyes with the letter, smearing the ink on a few words. She ran outside and stared up at the sky, spinning around for a moment, searching for the moon. Sure enough, the moon and its fullness stood above, controlling the night. She looked out across the water and tried imagining Ben sitting on the dock, miles away at the marina, but the night was black and she could only see the flickering white of a few sailboats anchored past the island. She glanced at her watch and knew he had already landed in Mississippi. She looked back at the restaurant windows, warmly glowing in the light from lanterns inside, and remembered she had customers waiting for their dinners. She reminded herself his letter did not mean good-bye. They were merely moving on with their lives. She stepped into the ice-cream freezer in her mind. She had to. She had customers who were hungry and paying a lot of money for their once-in- a-lifetime dinner on a remote island in the middle of nowhere.
Her stomach felt funny again, as it did that day on Captiva when she thought about summer nearing its end. But this time, it was as if there were a caterpillar in her stomach and it was wandering around in search of a sheltered area where it could rest and cocoon. The letter from Ben made her want to do that now, to rest and cocoon. But she had to keep going.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
VICKI AWOKE EXTRA EARLY to the sound of rain beating down on the staff house roof. It had never rained in the morning before, so she intended to enjoy this downpour. Ignoring the sudden rush of blood to her head, she bolted upright and bounded out of bed, only to feel dizzy and almost fall to the ground. All summer she had wanted to shower in the rain. Now was her chance. She forced herself up and squeezed into her bathing suit, then grabbed her bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and a bar of soap.
Outside, despite the cloudburst, a miraculous slice of sunshine streamed through the green fronds of the palm trees, producing a tiny rainbow. She knew exactly where she wanted to shower, but it was way off the beaten path. She had to close her eyes because the rain was coming down hard. After she made her way to the special, secret spot, she raised her arms in triumph and, laughing with joy, began doing an imitation of a rain dance in honor of the Native Americans who had once inhabited this land. No one could see her. She had made sure to look around. Besides, who woke up this early in the morning? This was an island of night people and late sleepers. She lathered her hair and rinsed it. The rain provided ample water. She looked down, and her imprints in the mound started to flood. She looked up, but the force of the rain pounding on her tender eyelids hurt. Rain in Michigan would have to pound for forty days and forty nights to equal one day of rainfall in this tropical area of Florida.
She opened her mouth and gulped from the torrents of water streaming down her body. The rain was hitting so hard that she couldn’t tell that she was actually crying for the young woman who would never feel the accomplishment of standing as a professor before her first class of students, or bake another batch of chocolate-chip cookies, or kiss another man, or walk down the aisle arm in arm with her father. Rebecca would never be a grandmother rocking in her chair, reminiscing about things of the past. She would never be a mother either. Her tears joined the rain drenching her.
The pain washed down Vicki’s face and joined the mud now burying her feet.
Had she made the most of her summer at Tarpon Key? Did she appreciate the songbirds that proudly sang every morning? Did she truly listen to the strangers around her? Did she convert them into friends? Did she touch their lives as much as they did hers? Did she learn from them?
She felt as if a doctor had granted her one more day to live, and she wanted to savor everything—the saltwater air that so often blew her hair into her eyes, the afternoon wind, the squirrels running down the sandy trail in front of her, the view from the top of the lighthouse tower—all these things and more. Time ticked by too quickly, and she felt frantic—frantic because she would never be this age again. That time had come and gone; nothing would be the same and nothing could match it, ever. She already envied her younger self, just starting her adventure on the island three months ago.
It was then that she had left behind the comforts of her hometown, her family business, and her friend. She left on an adventurous journey through dark, wavy, unfamiliar waters. But worse than the mystery of the waters, she didn’t know herself or what class of vessel she was. It took Denver to tell her that. As she rinsed the conditioner from her hair, she remembered those dark days of not knowing how to grieve or handle death or deal with loss or change or new things to come, whatever they mi
ght be. She also realized she had moved on.
The sand dollars were no longer found along the warmer, shallow shores of the beaches. Instead they returned to the deeper waters, as they do in early fall, and later that day she would be leaving on the three o’clock staff boat. She looked around as the downpour switched to dribbles and shadows fluttering about her caught her attention. She looked up to find five white doves flying overhead. Their feathers were as smooth as the petals of white tulips as they nestled on higher ground, away from the mud. She had never seen doves around the island and felt her spirits soar as she listened to them cooing, one to the other. She thanked God for lending her Rebecca’s angels for the summer. Perhaps they might now help someone else in need.
The doves lifted their wings and, in the twinkling of an eye, disappeared behind a palm tree.
Before the lunch crowds arrived, she had piled her suitcases in a closet in the restaurant. Now, in the bar, she took the picture of Holland’s lighthouse from her purse, grabbed a black magic marker, and wrote on the back: Ships come and go, anchoring for a moment—Vicki Brightman. She handed it to the new bartender and ordered a beer. He laughed as he taped it to the ceiling of the bar. Next, she signed the guest book at the hostess stand: Tarpon Key, a magnificent place, definitely worth a second visit.
Once her last table of customers was gone, she gathered her suitcases and said farewell to the bartender, the cooks, then Ruth, standing at the hostess stand by the front door.
“I’ll be back to visit,” said Vicki.
“I won’t be here,” answered Ruth.
“Why not? Where will you be?”
“New York. I’m headed back home.”
“You’re leaving paradise?” asked Vicki.
“No, I’m taking it with me. I’m ready to return home again.”
“Then this really is good-bye.” Vicki put her arms out.
“Go! Don’t even think about getting a hug from me. Get out of here, Vicki.”
She walked out, letting the screen door slam shut gently behind her. Like a dragonfly, with its legs attached just behind its head, walking felt nearly impossible to her.
“Remember, Vicki, if you budget your time,” Ruth called after her, “you’ll be able to afford a castle well beyond your expectations.”
Without looking behind her, Vicki kissed two of her fingers, then extended her arm behind and waved just as Grandma always did at the airport in the fall. It was the authentic good-bye wave. The only thing missing was Grandma’s tinted black sunglasses, which she always put on first thing in the morning on the days of Vicki’s departures. She made her way slowly down the sandy trail to the boathouse, where she had once arrived on the island and where she would now leave the island.
Simon started the staff boat and, for a minute, Vicki could feel the eyes of the dock master on her. Ignoring his compassionate regard, she sat, tearfully savoring the smell of the salty air. One of the nation’s bald eagles swept above her in search of a channel marker to land on. For a moment, she felt sure she saw the national bird, endangered or threatened, she didn’t know which, flying in sync with its cousin, the osprey. Donning her sunglasses, she watched Tarpon Key grow smaller and smaller as the boat sped away at top speed. She didn’t think for very long about the pelicans and laughing gulls following the boat. Instead, she found herself already mourning the tropical mangrove located at a channel marker in the Intra-coastal Waterway, several miles south of Charlotte Harbor. She didn’t know which she loved more, the people or the place.
She noticed the boat slowing down sooner than usual.
“Dear, you must read some of Hemingway’s works,” said Simon. “Please, I can’t stress enough how magnificent you will find them. Especially now that you’ve lived in the tropics and you’re off to Spain. You will appreciate his magnificent writing. Death in the Afternoon can help prepare you for a bullfight. Do be open-minded when you go.”
“I will. When Simon says to read Hemingway, I’ll do it, just for you, Simon. You’ve helped me understand a lot this summer, and I promise I’ll try to be open-minded at a bullfight.”
“Dear, it’s been magnificent having you on Tarpon Key. I know you’ll move on with your life.” He had a sparkle in his eye. “But I also know this place will remain in your heart forever. Do come back and visit. You owe that to yourself.”
“Thank you for that first boat ride to the island. I didn’t know if I should take the job or not, but you convinced me. Thank you.”
After a moment of silence, she asked him, “What if my life gets busy again, and I live in a place that has no islands?”
“The island is symbolic. I told you that when you first called for directions. I tell that to everyone, dear.”
“I think I understand now.”
“You’ll understand it better someday when you do live far away from a Tarpon Key or a Sanibel or Captiva. You’ll realize it when you create your own island, when you take time out for yourself and go somewhere by yourself, and do nothing but stop and think. Often we keep ourselves so busy that we never allow ourselves to sit and think. Sometimes errands only bury the things we don’t want to think about. That is why we must find islands, moments without errands.”
“Maybe I should stay a bit longer.”
“Vicki, you have such a bittersweet look on your face right now. What do you think that means?”
“I don’t want to leave but I’m ready,” she answered. “Yes, Spain. It’s time to think of Spain now.”
He nodded. “You’ll do well, dear. Just remember what Simon says.” It took all her willpower not to hug him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE MUCH-SOUGHT-AFTER mangrove cuckoos, easiest to find in late spring and summer, were nowhere to be seen, and they too probably looked bittersweet when fall gave them the hint to leave.
“I feel like a mangrove cuckoo,” she whispered softly in the reflection of a window at the airport in Fort Myers. “But just as there is a time for everything, well, it’s time to move onward. Yes, you’ve got to think Spain now,” she told herself.
It had been raining off and on since she woke that morning, but now the rain was pouring down as if the angels above were tossing water balloons. Suddenly, like a child standing on the tip of the high diving board, she changed her mind and didn’t want to jump. The water below looked dark, and the journey there quite long.
She wanted another day on Sanibel Island with her family. Her mother was thinking the same. “I wish we had had time for coffee,” she said, just as a bolt of lightning lit up the window and an explosion of thunder blasted from a heavenly microphone. There was a line of people behind her, waiting to board.
“I wish I had decided on the later flight. I wish we had ten more minutes.”
Her father didn’t offer the many fatherly cautions typical of him. “What can I say? You’re going to another country today. At this point, I can only tell you to use your common sense, and I know you will,” he said. “Oh, and perhaps most importantly, do not carry luggage or anything on the plane for anyone else.”
“I’ve got too much of my own luggage, Dad.” Now she envied those who backpacked through Europe with nothing but a pair of Levis and a white T-shirt. She wasn’t that type. Packing for the trip had become Operation Pack for Spain. She began drafting her plan, her list of items she would bring, way back on her first days off the island. She then edited and added to the list throughout the entire summer. Packing enough clothes for a semester in Madrid used a special portion of the brain, the same area one tapped into in times of crisis, when trying to fit thousands of passengers into lifeboats that could only hold hundreds while the ship was quickly sinking.
“Women and children first. Underwear and bras first,” she had decided.
“Get out of there,” she told her oversized, royal blue robe. “You’re too big and heavy. You can’t go.”
“We need you,” she had said to her pair of brown hiking shoes. “Yes, you will be of much help.”
“Okay. I did say women go first, so hop right in,” she had said to her sexy black high-heeled sandals.
“Well, I can’t separate the two of you,” she had said as she threw the sexy black cocktail dress in. “I’ll do my best to keep dresses and matching shoes together.”
“Me, me, me,” shouted her slippers. “Forget it. A pair of socks takes up less room.”
“Enough. I can’t fit anything else in this lifeboat. Hey, Dad, can you help me close this suitcase?” she had called out. “There’s only two lifeboats left. I wonder who should be the ones to go,” she said as she looked around her room at the piles of blue jeans, sweaters, shorts and dresses. Suddenly something came over her like a wool sweater on a cold night, and she remembered Rebecca’s team of angels.
“You’re lightweight and don’t take up much room. Would you all come with me? Please come with me,” she had whispered softly as she sat on her bed for a moment’s rest. “I was supposed to return you to Rebecca once we met up at the airport, but why don’t you stick around with me? I’ll show you all a nice time.”
She heard the last call for boarding the plane and knew her moment to jump from the high dive had come. She walked to the tip of the board and mentally prepared herself, ready to perform the infamous backward good-bye wave. It would take both coordination and confidence to twist her right arm backward, wave her fingers, and look straight ahead. Not many people could successfully pull this move off, but she would try.
Something went wrong in midair. She glanced behind her, failing the backward good-bye wave, and spotted her mother in tears, arm in arm with her father. Her eyes filled up quickly, and once she could find a moment to catch her breath, she said, “I’m not sure I want to go. I was starting to feel comfortable on that island. I could stay and work longer.”
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