They were getting too old for this.
Maybe this was fate. Ali walking into the Sea Turtle Resort when she did was a good thing. In a way, an answer to Didi’s prayers.
The next time the younger woman asked about who paid them, she’d show her the books.
There was one bank account they deposited in to and used to maintain the Sea Turtle. They also paid themselves from it. There was no mystery there. It wasn’t even complicated.
There also used to be extra, a nest egg Didi had plans for, but now, well, that was dwindling.
Maybe it was best to hold off on opening the books just a bit longer.
Long enough to convince Ali this was her home.
That would require Henry to keep showing up. Ali had an eye for him. Didi could see that! And Erica was Ali’s age. Didi would keep pulling Ali into their little Haven Beach community. If Ali was anything like Didi, she would have a hard time leaving it.
Haven Beach was made for second acts and spectacular sunsets. Ali would see it in time.
Ali had no kids with her, no husband, and no wedding ring on. But Didi had noticed she kept touching the space where a wedding ring would be—and that told her Ali might be in the market for her own second act.
Didi didn’t know what had given Ali that wistful look in her eye when no one was watching. But Sea Turtle Resort had a way of fulfilling dreams even if you didn’t know exactly what you were dreaming of.
Twenty
Ali
The morning after the Grand Finale, Ali decided to take Erica and Henry up on the offer of coffee at the Morning Bell. She woke up rested and with a plan: a walk and a coffee date with her two new friends. Hopefully, it would fortify her with the strength to push Didi. Ali’s mission was to find facts, but she kept finding ways to relax a little longer before getting down to business.
This morning, though, the beach was the top priority.
She noticed, happily, that the fatigue that had been weighing her down for as long as she could remember was gone or displaced somehow. Ali had loose ends everywhere—her marriage, her career, and this place—but those ends were slightly less frazzled than if she’d been at home.
Was it the salt air doing its magic? She was beginning to see how people decided to chuck it all and open a seaside restaurant!
“When in Rome,” Ali said to no one in particular. She found her leggings, her lightweight zip-up hoodie, and the University of Toledo ball cap she’d packed. It was time for a walk on the beach.
It was early, which suited her fine since she was an early bird. It seemed like she was always rushing in the morning: the kids’ lunches, a meeting for Frogtown, a mammogram she needed to arrive at fifteen minutes before, or an errand to the store because they didn’t have anything in the fridge for dinner. Always rushing.
This morning felt slower. The beach made it so. She locked the little Key Lime unit and palmed her key. And then she was off. No phone, though the view was something to capture. She always answered whenever her sisters or her kids called or texted her. Maybe it was time to try not being so tied to that phone.
Nothing was so urgent that it couldn’t wait until after her walk on the beach. Who knew when she’d get this chance again? She had her Hokas on, the only shoes that really handled her intermittent plantar fasciitis, but then she thought better of it.
Get your toes in the sand,said a voice in her head.
Ali placed her shoes neatly by the front mat on the porch of the cottage. Each cottage had its own little front deck, all facing the ocean. They were in various stages of disrepair. Some needed a little sand and paint, others probably ought to be torn down, but this one, the Key Lime deck, was solid.
Ali stepped out on the path; all the cottages had an individual path that merged into a circle that led out to the beach.
Follow the yellow brick road…
Ali put her foot down on the sand and decided to hang a right for her walk. There were other walkers and runners dotted up and down the shoreline, but not many.
It was as if she had the place to herself. She supposed in another two months, it would be Grand Central Station, but right now, well, this was her private paradise to borrow.
Ali took a slow, deep breath. The sea salt air was divine. If she could bottle that up and take it home, she’d do it!
She decided to walk closer to the water’s edge. For a while, she walked with her head down, eyes on the sand. The surf gently washed in and then out. She supposed there were days when it roared in and ripped out. She’d like to see that.
But today, it was a hypnotic and gentle motion as the water smoothed the sand over and over.
