She wiped up the coffee grinds with a sponge. She loved that everything was just so in this house and she actually enjoyed keeping things clean. Growing up, everything was always a mess, with clothes and papers lying all over the place, the laundry never done. She couldn’t ever remember having folded towels in the linen closet or flowers on the table. Living here was like another world. Opening the cabinet, she still got a shiver of pleasure just seeing the neatly stacked sets of matching china.
She’d hate to leave. Lovie wanted Cara to stay the whole summer, but Toy didn’t think Cara could last that long. For Lovie’s sake, she didn’t want to screw things up between them. She didn’t know why, but this time with her daughter was real important to Miss Lovie and Toy would do just about anything for Lovie Rutledge.
The scent of fresh brewed coffee filled the kitchen. She’d just laid out the doughnuts on a pretty plate when she heard steps on the front porch. She quickly wiped the sugar from her hands and hurried to greet Lovie at the door.
“Hey, Miss Lovie!” she called out, grabbing the red bucket from her arm. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to stay out there all morning.”
“It’s not that late, is it?” Lovie replied, pausing to catch her breath.
Toy’s brows gathered as she monitored Lovie’s level of exhaustion. “Why don’t you sit down for a spell? I’ll get you some water and a nice fresh cup of coffee.”
“My, that sounds nice,” Lovie replied breathlessly as she lowered herself into a chair at the small wood table just outside the kitchen.
With her eye trained on Lovie’s pale face, Toy brought a tray from the kitchen and set it before Lovie. “Did you find anything today?”
Lovie’s face immediately brightened. “Our third nest! Emmi and I probed and on only the third try the probe sunk right in. You should’ve seen Emmi’s face! One hundred and fifty-four eggs. Isn’t that wonderful? Unfortunately, the mother laid them directly in the middle of the beach access path. That big wide one on 17th Avenue.”
“That wasn’t too smart of her.”
“I’m sure the poor old girl had no idea it was a beach path. So we had to move the nest. The dunes are quite high between 16th and 17th Avenue so after Emmi and I checked around a bit, we found a nice place for the nest. All in all, a good day.”
“But a long one for you,” she amended with a serious look.
“Oh, I’m fine, really. A little out of breath, but not the least bit fagged out.”
“No pain?”
“None at all.”
“And you got that message from the volunteer about 6th Avenue?” she asked, bringing a small bowl filled with pills to Lovie.
“I did, thank you. Flo passed it on to me.” She looked down at the pills and wrinkled her nose.
“Come on, Miss Lovie, you know you got to. See? I bought you a doughnut to help with the swallowing. ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,’ just like the song says. Now, come on, don’t put it off.”
Lovie grimaced as she faced the mound of pills but Toy remained at her side, arms resolutely crossed over her chest as she waited. She hated to play the heavy but the doctor hadn’t been fooling around when he’d taken Toy aside and told her it was her job to make sure that Lovie swallowed each and every one of the pills. She tried to keep the conversation about turtles going to take Lovie’s mind off the swallowing.
“So, did that call about 6th Avenue turn out to be a nest?”
After a noisy swallow Lovie set the glass down and shook her head. “A false crawl. She came up the beach quite far, then wandered around a bit before turning back. We searched carefully but didn’t find a nest. I suspect she’s the same mother who laid the eggs a little farther down on 17th. The tracks were similar.” She stared at the remaining pills with dejection.
“Come on, now, just a few more,” Toy prodded. She watched as Lovie took a deep breath, grabbed the two final pink pills, then swallowed them with a shiver of disgust.
“There, that’s done.”
“Horrid things. I don’t know why I still bother.”
“Don’t say that. You know why. We want you around for a long time.”
Lovie’s face softened and she looked at Toy with a sad expression. “At least for the summer.”
“Oh, much longer than that. I’m already shopping for your Christmas present. But, yeah, summer is best. You’ve been so happy since the turtles came.”
“And now, my own Caretta is back.”
Toy’s smile fell.
Lovie tilted her head and gazed at Toy speculatively. “You’ve met?”
The legs of the chair scraped the pine wood floors as Toy joined Lovie at the table. She sat in a clumsy flop, leaving room for her growing belly.
“Sort of. She answered that phone call about the tracks and I walked in from the store while she was talking. I think we kinda surprised each other.”
“She fell asleep early last night. I thought we’d all have a chance to meet after you came home from the movies. As it turned out, I didn’t have a chance to tell her about you.”
“I figured that. She looked at me like…Well, let’s just say she wasn’t glad to see me.”
“Cara can be quite formidable.”
Toy snorted. “I swear, Lovie, I can’t believe that she’s your daughter. I never seen two women cut from such different pieces of cloth.”
Lovie chuckled, then said ruefully, “I’m sure she’d agree with you.”
Toy twisted her mouth and began picking at her nail. “I was thinking. Maybe I should go someplace else, just for this week or so while she’s here. Give you two a little time alone.”
“Where would you go?”
“I guess I could go back to Darryl’s for a week.”
“That’s out of the question.”
Lovie’s sharp tone brought Toy’s gaze to her face. Lovie had straightened in the chair and her eyes were shining.
“It’d just be for a week. I know he wants me back.”
“We won’t even discuss the possibility of you returning to that man.”
“He loves me.”
They sat across from each other in a long silence. Lovie reached out and put her hand over Toy’s. “When I invited you to live here, I wanted you to feel that this was your home. I think we’ve managed quite nicely for ourselves here, don’t you?” When Toy nodded she continued. “So what made you think you’d be suddenly booted out when a guest arrived?”
“We’re not talking about some guest. Cara’s your daughter.”
“And you have become as a daughter to me, too.”
Toy lowered her head and fixed her gaze on the small hand over hers. It was a mother’s hand. Though the skin was pale, almost translucent, with blue veins protruding over bones as fragile as a sparrow’s, Toy saw in it so much love and strength she felt her eyes water with emotion.
Lovie said softly, “Tell me