The Night Mark

“Grew up near Myrtle Beach, watched sea turtles hatching when I was a kid and fell in love. That’s all I’m trying to do—keep these beaches for the turtles. Don’t give a shit about the people.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“People are why we’re in this mess. Last year I pulled ten plastic bags, two Coke cans, half a nylon fishnet, and a goddamn pink Croc shoe, size six, out of the stomach of a shark. You know what we say about that down here?”

“What do we say about that down here?”

“That ain’t right. That’s what you say. You try it.”

Faye put on her thickest faux Southern accent. “That ain’t right.”

“Not bad. I took pics of all that mess, made signs and hung them up on every beach from here to Savannah.”

“You must make lots of friends that way.”

Ty snorted a laugh. “Yeah, they aren’t too happy with us when we tell everybody their fun summer vacations are killing the wildlife. They think we’re scaring off tourists. We are, but we’re not doing it to be assholes. We’re doing it to wake people up.”

“Are you waking them up?”

“All we can do is ring the alarm. Most people aren’t going to start paying attention until they have dirty ocean water on their doorstep. Bad as it is, I admit I’m gonna laugh when those rich white boys are playing golf in three feet of seawater.”

“My ex-husband was one of those rich white boys. He loved coming down here to golf with his buddies.”

“Sorry,” he said, looking awkward.

“I’m not.” She winked at him.

Ty smiled and hit the gas. Coming here had been a good idea. She should thank Richard for sending her the job. This job was just what she needed—work. Real work. Meaningful work. Plus sand, surf, seafood and a chance to be her old self again. She knew the old Faye, the Faye who’d existed before the miscarriages and the failed marriage... The old Faye wasn’t sad like the new Faye. The old Faye felt things, felt them deeply. The old Faye fought for things, too, didn’t give up or give in. And the old Faye would definitely go on a date with Ty. Absolutely.

Ty glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. A college boy had just checked her out.

Maybe the old Faye and the new Faye had something in common.

“Is that it?” Faye asked, pointing to the top of a lighthouse peeking out from the tree canopy.

“That’s Hunting Island. Pretty lighthouse. You can climb it for two dollars.”

“I think I can cover that. I’ll go tomorrow. Today I want to see Bride Island’s lighthouse.”

“We’re a couple miles out from there still. The lighthouse is on the north beach. You can see it a lot better than the Hunting Island lighthouse. It was never moved so it’s right on the water.”

“What do you mean it was never moved?” Faye asked, pausing to dig a strand of hair out of her mouth. She’d forgotten how windy it got on a boat.

“You see that long spit of sand there?” Ty pointed to what looked like a yellow cat’s tail lounging a few hundred yards out into the water.

“I see it.”

“That used to be land. And that’s where the Hunting Island lighthouse stood. Built in the 1870s, but they had to move just a few years later. The land had eroded that much already. Going, gone, almost gone...”

“It’s really all going away, isn’t it? The coast?”

“Let’s just say you won’t catch me buying a beach house.”

“It’s too bad. I always feel like a better person when I’m on the water.” The air smelled cleaner here. The water seemed purer. She wanted to strip off her clothes and dive off the side of the boat and let the water baptize her a free woman.

“The ocean is big,” Ty said. “And we aren’t. It’s good to be humbled every now and then.”

“You ever go through a divorce?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“Trust me, I know from humble.”

“You don’t seem humbled,” Ty said.

“What do I seem like?”

“Like a woman who just got out of jail.”

Faye grinned and was about to ask him what a woman just out of jail ought to do first when Ty raised his arm and pointed.

“There it is,” Ty said, and Faye looked up from the dancing blue water to the island on their port side.

“That’s Bride Island?”

“That’s it.”

Faye studied it, not sure what she was looking for except something to justify the trip out here. From this distance, about five hundred yards from shore according to Ty, it looked like Hunting Island. White sandy beach, a line of ocean debris where the tide met the shore and a thick forest of trees. Faye picked up the binoculars and studied the trees. She saw no palms or palmettos, no pines, no evergreens at all.

“Are those live oaks?”

“I don’t think they’re dead oaks,” Ty said.

“You know what I mean.”

“They’re white oaks. Lady who owns the island owns a bourbon distillery in Kentucky. They get the trees for the bourbon barrels from here.”

“White oak? Interesting. Naturally occurring or did the owner plant them?”

“You know anything about Bride Island?” Ty asked, slowing the boat.

“Not a thing except I couldn’t find it on the guidebook map.”

“It’s just Seaport Island on the maps,” he said. “But call it Bride Island if you want to sound like a local.”

Ty turned off the boat and let it bob gently in the water.

“Where’d the name come from?” Faye asked.