“Martus,” she said, her voice steadying with the kind of rhythm that came when she was telling a story she’d told before. “Her dad was the lighthouse keeper on Elba Island. When he passed, her brother took over. They lived out there in isolation for years. No electricity. No running water. Just the sea, the sky, and each other.”
She stood, pulling her camera from her bag and snapping a few photos—of the statue, the low-hanging clouds, the way the moon caught the river.
“People say she waved to every ship that came through the Savannah River. Every single one, for over forty years. Morning and night. Rain or shine.” She turned back to me, lowering the camera. “Can you imagine that kind of devotion? Standing in the same spot, every day, hoping someone sees you?”
I didn’t answer. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
“Some say she was waiting for a sailor she fell in love with when she was young. That he promised to come back for her, and she waved until the day she died, hoping to see his ship.” She turned toward the bronze figure again. “But Florence always insisted it wasn’t about love. She said she did it because shedidn’t want to feel alone. That waving made her feel connected. That if she could make someone smile on their way in or out of the port, maybe it would mean she mattered to someone, even for a second.”
She crossed the short distance to the base of the statue and gently rested her hand on the bronze dog’s head.
“Loneliness,” she whispered, “makes people do the most unbelievable things.”
I crossed the space between us and slid my arms around her, steady and warm. Not possessive. Not demanding. I held her still while everything else seemed to move. I pressed my lips to the top of her head, slow and sure, and she tilted her chin to meet my eyes.
The world quieted.
“I think,” I said, voice low, “you’re a lot closer to finding where you belong than you realize.”
Her eyes glossed with unshed tears, but she didn’t look away. For a second, she leaned into me—just barely, enough that I thought maybe this was it. Then something shifted behind her eyes. A wall went up, quiet but unmistakable.
She stepped back, out of my arms, and wrapped her scarf tighter around her shoulders like she was gathering herself back together.
“Goodnight, Charlie,” she said softly.
Not angry. Not bitter. Just... careful.
And before I could find the right words to stop her, she was already walking away, Nancy Reagan trotting at her heels.
I stood there by the statue, watching her go. Florence Martus kept waving at ships that might never return.
And I wondered if I’d just become one of them.
Chapter Thirteen
TALLY
Iwasofficiallylumberingthroughthe awkward, swollen stretch of my second trimester, with Christmas crashing toward us and the slow-building, mutually assured emotional implosion between my brother and me ticking closer by the day. Most of the time, we held it together—if we weren’t home at the same time, or speaking, or occupying the same general airspace. Some days, even the knowledge that the other existed felt like a personal affront.
I kept trying to pinpoint the moment it all shifted, when the thread between us frayed and the space grew quiet in a way that wasn’t peaceful anymore. We used to be close. Even when I wasstill across the globe, we checked in. We’d send stupid memes. Called when the world felt heavy or stupid or too much. And now, I was sleeping two doors down in his meticulously polished penthouse, and somehow I had never felt more like a guest in my own family.
I missed him. Not only in the nostalgic, wish-it-were-different way. I missed him with the deep ache of someone who remembers what it felt like to be understood without having to explain anything. We used to move through the world like a two-person team, taking turns as the mess and the fixer, always knowing the other would show up when it mattered. And somewhere along the way, without meaning to, Doyle became the one who kept everything running—who paid his bills on time, who held the line, who became the steady one I pretended to be. I missed being the big sister who could take care of things. I missed being his soft place to land. And lately, it felt like I had become a problem he didn’t quite know how to solve, a presence he tolerated out of obligation.
But aside from all that, Savannah was settling into my bones, the way a blanket does when it’s been washed a hundred times and always smells faintly like home. I’d started carrying my camera everywhere, picking up odd gigs when I wasn’t atCheese, Please!or managing the Daughters of Savannah Civic Society’s social media feed.
I’d just about finished planning Hoyt and Charlotte’s elopement—we nailed down a cake, a florist, and, by some miracle, Pastor Dave Donnelly, a newcomer trying to establish himself as Savannah’s latest pop-up minister. I’d met him at one of Eunice’s business mix and mingles, courtesy of Magnolia’s not-so-subtle matchmaking shove.
But with no actual, steady job in range, I’d been happy getting what work I could and putting away some money for my own space.
Avoiding the penthouse had become somewhat of a full-time job in and of itself. But eventually, I had to go home. And, when I did, the fireworks were inevitable. Not the fun kind. No, these were full-blown, nuclear-grade blowups—the kind only the Aden siblings could truly ignite.
“I just don’t understand what you have against kale,” Doyle huffed, stabbing at his own quinoa-and-sadness bowl. “It’s full of micronutrients. It’s good for your skin, which—frankly—doesn’t look like you’re taking care of no matter how many serums and creams I throw your way. But why am I even talking? You’re not listening.”
Across from us, Jordan didn’t say a word, but I saw the way he sat up straighter. His spine stiffened in that barely-there way it always did when Doyle started to spiral. He didn’t interfere—he never did—but his silence carried its own kind of tension.
“I just don’t like it,” I said, my voice low and flat. I rubbed a hand over my stomach. “I don’t have to justify anything to you, Doyle. It’s rabbit food. I’d rather have a burger.”
“Technically,” Jordan said under his breath, “That’s a salmon burger.”
