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Chapter One

The dawn of another suhtened the soft cashht pierced the velvety blackness over the Cove, and pewter-colored shadows danced on the spiky hosts

Mamaw sat huddled on an oversize, black wicker chair on her back porch, her legs tucked beneath her The fog was moist on her face and the predawn chill seeet ith Lucille gone Since her dear friend’s death, hts she’d awakened fro the fresh air would settle her She’d found scant warmth or peace in the chill of predawn In the distance, the Atlantic Ocean, her ry beast The waves were devouring the dunes in a relentless rhythm Echoes reverberated over Sullivan’s Island

Over a week had passed since Lucille’s death Yet she still felt her old friend’s presence around her, hovering in death as she had in life Dear Lucille Death caer to death At eighty years of age, she could hardly have been spared the loss of loved ones She’d buried her parents, and, too early, her son and husband Tonight she felt the past was more alive than the present Memories of her loved ones played vividly in her mind

Maed breath Frohorn Fro out his strident dahistlesa cardinal, she thought

She listened, stirred fro light, in degrees, brightened the skyline, revealing the ragged tips of green sea grass, pale, appearing as two great sailing vessels, in the distance Slowly, the rising sun illu away the shroud from her heart She felt her despair dissipate with thesun and took a deep breath of the cool, mud-scented air

Another day was dawning The worst was over

Foolish old woray sky shifted to blue Look at yourself, sitting in the dark, ive you what for if she spied you htclothes? Who had ti? Their plan for the sued granddaughters to Sea Breeze in May—and they’d coether in over a decade True, it had so far been a turowth, ups and downs, joys and heartaches But it was her triuether Eudora, Carson, and Harper had rediscovered the sisterly love they’d shared as children when they played together during the su at thelike a rooster!

Yet,out of ti another season, the children would be heading back to school, the ospreys would soon head south with the otherbirds and butterflies Su Soon, too, her Su

Maht She would hter The footfalls in the house, the dras and kisses liberally offered What a summer it had been!

Her shters leave in the fall She, too, would be leaving Sea Breeze Moving to a retirehters and Lucille gone, she would, she thought with a shudder, be utterly alone

Mamaered her cheek to her palo at suo? Each of the women was unsure of what her next step would be when she left the safe e, Carson was pregnant, and Harper was, for lack of a better term, completely adrift

“Ah, Lucille,” she said aloud to the presence she felt hovering in the pearly light “You were the one who always rallied me in my dark moments We lured them here And there is still hed “I don’t know if I can do it alone But I must try”

Mareat shafts of pink and blue continued to break through the horizon A sht But the sun was rising on another day

In another rooht, her hands tucked beneath her head, listening to the hty roar of the ocean How loud the sound of the waves was this ht She thrilled to the sound, so different from what she was accustomed to in the city

In New York, Harper awoke to the blare of police sirens, honking horns, and banging garbage trucks So much was different here She was different here Over the past few months since she’d arrived on Sullivan’s Island, her body had slowly accliency she experienced in the city to the slower, quieter rhyther went out to parties or bars until late at night, nor did she charge out of bed in theat the sound of an alarm At Sea Breeze her days were ruled by the sun Early to bed, early to rise

Harper s if she’d ever foreseen how much she’d enjoy this lifestyle No, she didn’t think she had In fact, initially she had quite dreaded the prospect of spending tie when, only a few days after her and her sisters’ arrival, Mamaw had announced her true intentions: that the wouidly while the light brightened to give the roolow As she turned to her side to look out the , her hand brushed against soate Sheets of paper lay strewn across her bed and scattered on the floor

She rubbed her eyes as understanding took hold Her book

Sheher athered the two-hundred-soes in order As she did, her eyes reread a sentence here and there Not bad, she thought to herself The eain, she was a biased judge Her irl that she didn’t have talent Just like her father, herattempts at short stories and poems Her mother was a renowned editor, so Harper had taken her words as fact Those fateful words still stung, even after decades