Chapter 8 - The Winter on the Island
By mid-January, the Gulf of Mexico had settled into its calm, winter sapphire blue, untouched by storms, warmed by an equatorial sun that turned unit 402 into a sunlit paradise of light and salt.
The condo had undergone a complete, joyful transformation.
The old popcorn ceilings had been scraped and smoothed into clean, white plaster; the ivory curtains had been washed, pressed, and re-hung with heavy brass rings that slid across the rods with a soft, musical whisper; and in the second bedroom where Catherine’s peach luggage had once sat, two twin beds covered in cheerful yellow-and-white quilts were waiting for two children who were arriving on the Friday flight from Columbus.
At 7:00 on a crisp, sixty-eight-degree morning, I sat at the scratched iron table on the balcony, wearing my old flannel shirt over my sundress, drinking coffee from an oversized ceramic mug, watching a pod of four bottlenose dolphins surface three hundred yards off the sandbar.
The telephone inside the kitchen gave its cheerful, familiar ring.
I walked inside, lifting the cream receiver with a light, easy motion.
"Good morning, Alan," I smiled, knowing his schedule down to the minute.
"Good morning, Barbara," Alan’s gravelly voice came through the line, rich with satisfaction. "I just received the certified filing from the Nashville chancery clerk. Harper’s attorneys signed the permanent marital settlement agreement at five o'clock yesterday afternoon."
I leaned against the counter, tracing the grain of the cedar threshold with my toe. "Did she contest the trust assets?"
Alan let out a dry, barking laugh that rattled the earpiece. "She tried to claim twenty-five percent of the Sanibel condo value as marital goodwill. Judge Henderson dismissed the motion with prejudice in eight minutes. He cited the sixty-year chain of title, assessed ten thousand dollars in legal sanctions against her counsel for filing a frivolous claim against an irrevocable trust, and told her lawyer that if he brought another motion into his courtroom, he’d report him to the Florida Bar for harassment."
"And the children's travel clearances?"
"Daniel and the kids board the nine-fifteen flight out of Columbus," Alan said softly. "They land at Southwest Florida International at twelve-twenty. Daniel asked if you wanted him to rent a car at the terminal, or if he should take the airport shuttle."
I looked out through the open sliders toward the turquoise water, watching the white sails of a catamaran catch the morning wind as it cleared the lighthouse point.
May you like
"Tell him his mother will be waiting at the arrivals curb in Robert’s blue Buick, Alan," I said, a slow, deep smile spreading across my face.
"And tell him to make sure Lucas has his bucket and spade in his carry-on. The low tide is at two o'clock, and the fighting conchs are running on the sandbar."
