But I don’t think so.
Twenty-three people died in that storm. That wasn’t that big of a number, really. Just a few months later, Hurricane Greer killed something like seventy people in Louisiana. But for a town as little as St. Medard’s Bay, it was a significant blow. Luckily, everybody at the Shipwreck Inn had survived. There was water damage, and nearly every window was broken out, but for whatever reason, she’d stayed safe.
That made me happy to hear.
Hurricane Delphine.
That’s what the storm was called, but I didn’t learn that until later when I was in the hospital. I was fine for the most part, bruised and scraped up, and I’d broken three toes on my left foot, which the doctor said was probably from climbing the tree, or maybe when I lost my shoes as I ran across that road.
I told him that’s what I thought, too.
CHAPTER FOUR
July 7, 2025
27 Days Left
It’s ironic that the place where my mom will spend the rest of her days is called “Hope House.”
If there ever was hope in a place like this—a long-term care facility off Highway 59, just ten miles or so from the Rosalie Inn—it died a lot faster than its residents tend to. Every time I walk through the front doors, see the burgundy-flecked linoleum, smell the mix of strong disinfectant and whatever vegetable they’re boiling to death in the kitchen, I feel like I’ve suddenly aged fifty years, my shoulders reflexively stooping just a little bit as the weight of this place sinks into my bones.
Callie, the front-desk nurse, smiles when she sees me, raising a hand. She likes me, and since she’s always good to Mom, I like her, too.
“She’s having a good day today!” Callie calls out, and I smile even though Mom’s days are, as far as I can tell, always thesame. Not good, not bad, just a kind of limbo that taught me there are a lot of things worse than dying.
When I open the door to her room, I see her sitting in her recliner by the window, her hair, once as dark as mine, now steel gray, her thin hands fluttering in her lap. Her hands are always moving, and I used to wonder if she thought she was still crocheting. She always loved that, making blankets for the babies at her church, sending me socks that were always a little too warm but that I wore anyway because I knew they were her way of telling me she cared—even if the words themselves had never come easily to her.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, but as usual, she doesn’t answer, just keeps looking out the window, her fingers moving, moving, moving.
She’s been here for three years now, and she might be here for five, or ten, or fifteen more. No one really knows. Her body is still in good shape, even if her mind is gone. Hell, she could go on another twenty years like this. Sitting in the sunlight, staring out at nothing.
I putter around her room, straightening bedclothes that don’t need straightening, watering plants that are probably fine, talking to her about the inn, telling her what funny thing Edie said last week about the weather. It’s the same routine, every time I visit.
Do I do this for her, or do I do it for me?
She doesn’t ever acknowledge my presence, and I always leave here sadder, so maybe there’s no point in doing it at all.
But it breaks my heart to think of her as one of those patients no one ever visits, so I’ll keep coming here every Monday, keep asking her about her day and what she had for breakfast, and telling her gossip about people she doesn’t know.
Although now it occurs to me that Idohave a story about someone she knows.
Someone sheknew.
“Lo Bailey is back in town, Mama,” I say, smoothing the wrinkles out of the blanket on her bed. “She says she knew you when y’all were growing up. She’s brought some writer, and they’re writing a book about Hurricane Marie. About Landon Fitzroy. I know it sounds silly, but I’m kind of hoping the book is this big ol’ hit and then we get people wanting to stay at the inn because of it. Wouldn’t that be something? Not exactly how I wanted to put the Rosalie Inn on the map, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
I turn back to her, and okay, I was wrong. Turns out there must be some hope left in Hope House after all, because as I study her face, I find myself wishing that there will be some awareness in it, a sudden widening of her eyes. That this reminder of her long-ago past might spark something in her.
And for a second, I think it might have. Her fingers stop moving, suddenly going still on her lap, and her lips seem to tremble just the slightest bit.
“Mom?” I ask softly, going to crouch down next to her.
She always had the prettiest eyes, a bright, clear hazel that I sadly didn’t inherit—I got my dad’s dark brown eyes—but these days, they’re dull and glazed over.
Do I see a spark there now? Or maybe I just want there to be one.
“Mama?” My voice is soft as I cover her hand with mine, her skin papery and cool beneath my palm.
And then her fingers start to move again, her lips press tightly together, and I drop my forehead onto the arm of her chair with a sigh.
