turns away, jogs down the steps, comes right back up. “You know, it’s probably a good time to warn you about the snakes. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins. Oh yeah, and never get between a wild hog and her piglets. That’ll also ruin your day. Watch where you’re walking and swimming and you’ll be fine. Especially at night, because some of the creatures here are nocturnal. The beach is okay, but you know what, I’m thinking you shouldn’t do that by yourself either. The last thing any of us needs is to have to call a medevac to come get you.”
And like that, he’s down the steps again and heading for the road.
I move out onto the porch. “Do you give everyone this little pep talk when they arrive?”
He turns around to face me. “Only the reckless ones.”
“Well, sorry you had to waste a trip. I’m planning to stay inside the rest of the time I’m here.”
“And how long is that?”
“Thirty-four more days, if you count today. Which unfortunately I do.”
“I’ll be sure to warn the Park Service. You know. In case you change your mind.” He saunters away without a single look back. I stand watching the way the sun lights his hair and the way his shoulders move under his shirt as he swings himself up into the dusty black truck that waits in the road.
* * *
—
That evening, my mom and I sit in rockers on the front porch of the inn, drinking lemonade. We are wearing nearly matching blue dresses. An accident that leaves me feeling irritated.
Mom is overflowing with facts she picked up at the museum. “Did you know the history of the island is rife with strong women who had to rebuild after tragedy? Claudine and your great-grandmother Eva were descended from a line of them. Before the Blackwoods ever came here, women were running this place.”
“Rife?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying we’ve come to Amazon Island.”
“Pretty much. This is where we are right now. Here on Amazon Island, surrounded by the ghosts of strong women. Maybe there’s something we can learn from them. Maybe we can both find something to write about.”
She lets these words linger, and when I don’t ask about the work—how long she thinks it will take her, what kinds of materials the Blackwoods left behind, what the most fascinating thing was she learned today about the people who once lived here—she tells me about Doña Grecia Reyes, a Timucua Native American who married a Spanish soldier and fought with the Spanish for possession of the island. How she wrote a letter to the king of Spain demanding the money she needed to oversee the entire coast of Florida and Georgia. How he not only wrote her back but also sent the money to her, and how ever after they called her Princess of the Island.
Behind her sadness, there is a brightness in my mom’s voice, a purpose. She is on the brink of a project again, and the research is giving her something to do.
I don’t say anything, but some small part of me that is still me thinks, I need something to do other than wander around the island like rotten old Miss Havisham. And the part of me that is angry at her doesn’t want to tell her that these stories are interesting or that I care about them in the least.
“It suits you,” she says, touching the ends of my hair. “It’s sophisticated.”
“It’s too short.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I needed a change.”
“I’d cut mine off if I thought it would look good.”
“It would look better on you.” Everyone knows I’m the Ron to her Harry.
“The last thing you need is your mom trying to be your twin. I need my own thing. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo.”
As she talks, I think about roles. How we all have them. How we all play them, whether we want to or not. Mine is the Good Daughter of Two Exceptional People She Will Never Be Able to Surpass. The girl who took an IQ test when she was six years old that said she was a genius, even though she’s never felt like one. She is a less glittering version of her mom, whose role is Famous Award-Winning Author and Everyone’s Favorite Person.
My dad’s role is the One Not Like Us. Except that he’s creative too. He can play any musical instrument he picks up, even though he never had a lesson before he went off to Juilliard, back when he was