And reminded her that, like Harper, she felt a stirring of rebirth. Maybe even a resurgence of the bold young girl she once was, who she believed was still hiding within her.
She saw in her mind’s eye the photographs of Nate that Carson had e-mailed the day before. To see her little boy laughing and playing again was more than she’d hoped for. She wished Cal could see this more outgoing, playful side of his son. Maybe he’d appreciate Nate’s uniqueness more. Mamaw and Lucille had huddled over the photos, arguing over whose idea it had been to suggest the trip.
Dora knew it had been a group effort—Harper and Carson’s brainstorm, and Mamaw’s generous funding—but in Dora’s mind, it was Carson who deserved the credit, for going solo with Nate like the fearless trouper she was, despite her complete lack of experience with children. She and Carson had talked several times in the past few days. At first they discussed Nate’s progress, but later their conversation shifted to whatever came into their minds. Not since they were young girls had they spent nights just chatting like this.
She was passing the black-and-white Sullivan’s Island lighthouse when she spied a small group of women clustered together atop a dune by the bright orange sea turtle nest sign. Curious, she veered on an angle across the softer sand to the dune. Three of the five women wore matching blue Turtle Team T-shirts. The other two stood by, eagerly watching one of the women kneel beside the sea turtle nest.
Dora walked up to the woman carrying a clipboard, a good sign she was in charge. This woman was tall, like Dora, slender, with glossy, dark brown hair under her cap.
“What’s going on?” Dora asked, drawing closer.
“We’re doing an inventory of the nest,” she replied, bending to her backpack. She pulled out plastic gloves and, straightening, handed the gloves to one of the team volunteers. Then she turned to Dora. “Three days after a nest hatches, we open it up to count the hatched and unhatched eggs. The Department of Natural Resources monitors the success rate of the nests along our coast. Sometimes we find a few hatchlings stuck in there and we release them.” She smiled. “That’s the fun part.”
Something about her was familiar and Dora tried to place it. The woman wore sunglasses, so it was hard to be sure.
“Do I know you?” Dora asked. She hated to ask that question, since most of the time the answer was no.
The woman took off her sunglasses, revealing a striking face with dark brown eyes under arched brows. She was friendly but had the manner of someone accustomed to being in charge. She squinted and slowly shook her head. “Maybe. You look familiar to me, too.”
“I’m Dora Tupper. I used to be Dora Muir,” she added, using her local family name. “Marietta Muir’s granddaughter?”
The dark eyes widened with the woman’s smile. “Little Dorrit? Oh my word, of course I know you! I see it now. It’s me, Cara! I used to babysit you, a long, long time ago.”
Dora’s mind shot back in time to the early summers she’d spent with Mamaw, back when she was seven and Carson was four. She hadn’t been called Little Dorrit since she was a little girl.
“Cara Rutledge! Is it really you? I can’t believe it.” She stuck out her arm toward the nest. “But of course it’s you. You’re a Rutledge. You’re taking care of turtles.”
Cara rolled her eyes. “Yes, my mother roped me in, kicking and screaming all the way. Only it’s Cara Beauchamps now.”
“How is your mother? I’m surprised she’s not here with the turtles, holding court. Even after all these years I never see one of those orange nest signs without thinking of Miss Lovie.”
“Mama passed.”
“Oh, Cara, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard. Your mother was an amazing woman. The pied piper of these islands. We all loved her; do you remember how we used to follow her around the island as she tended turtles?” Dora laughed gently at the memory. “I remember a couple of times you took us to your beach house on Isle of Palms. Miss Lovie used to give us sugar cookies and sweet tea.”
Cara added, “I was trying to get my mother to help babysit.”
“Do you still have your beach house on Isle of Palms?”
“Of course. I’ll never sell it. My mother adored that house. A part of her spirit lives on there. How’s your sister? She was such a cutie.” Cara shook her head. “I can’t remember her name. It’s been so long.”
“Carson.”
“That’s right. You two were such a pair. You with your white-blond hair and she with her dark hair. Wasn’t there a third sister as well?”
“That’s Harper, but I don’t think you babysat her much. By the time she started staying for the summers I was old enough to babysit. Mamaw’s not above going after free labor.”
Cara laughed at that. “I haven’t seen your grandmother in ages. Is she well?”
“Alive and kicking. She’s going to live forever, I pray.”
A squeal of excitement interrupted the two women’s reminiscing. Cara swung around and Dora, following her gaze, saw the volunteer who had been digging holding a small loggerhead hatchling in her hand. More people had gathered while she was talking to Cara and now they were crowding closer to the nest for a better look.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Cara told her. “I have to get to work.”
Cara grabbed a red plastic bucket and brought it to her teammate, who placed the hatchling inside. Dora moved closer to watch in fascination as the two women who were opening the nest brought out dozens of broken eggshells, a few whole, discolored eggs, and, to the thrill of the onlookers, three more hatchlings from the nest.
Cara moved with the same efficiency and grace that Dora remembered in Miss Lovie, and she felt a pleasure in knowing there was a continuity between mother and daughter. She’d always wanted a daughter, someone with whom she could share traditions, go shopping, cook and bake, just be a girl. Then she thought again how this prayer had been answered. She might not have a daughter, but this late in her life she’d rediscovered her sisters.
Dora followed Cara, who was carrying the red bucket closer to the sea. Cara asked the group clustered at the shoreline to form two lines at either side of a wide opening that would allow the hatchlings ample room to find their way into the ocean. Dora took a place close to the water’s edge, excitement thrumming in her veins that at last she would witness this. She had come to these islands in the summer for most of her life and yet had never seen a sea turtle hatchling.