Swimming Lessons

Last night, Toy Sooner dreamed again of the turtle. It was always the same dream, one so vivid that when she awoke she was tangled in her sheets, disoriented and filled with a great, nameless yearning.Toy sat on the precipice of the sand dune looking out over the wave-scarred beach. Another day was ending. Around her the sea oats were greening and above, a nighthawk streaked across the slowly deepening sky. The tide was coming in, carrying sea-shells, driftwood and long-harbored memories tumbling to the shore.She identified with the loggerhead sea turtle in her dream. Was it merely that the turtles were on her mind? She searched the restless sea that spread out to forever under the vast sky. Out in the distant swells,the sea turtles were gathering for the nesting season. Toy sensed the mothers out there, biding their time until instinct drove them from the safety of the sea to become vulnerable on the beach and lay their eggs.It was an emotional time of the year for her. Each May when the sea turtles returned to the Isle of Palms, she felt the presence of her beloved mentor, Olivia Rutledge, returning with them.She hugged her knees closer to her chest. This small dune on this empty patch of beach was her sanctuary. She came often to this sacred spot--to think, to remember, to find solace. She felt closer to Olivia Rutledge here--Miss Lovie to everyone she'd met. This dune had been Miss Lovie's favorite spot, and on some nights, especially when the sun lowered and the birds quieted, as now, Toy imagined she heard Miss Lovie's voice in the sweet-scented offshore breezes.It had been five years since old Miss Lovie had passed. Five years spanned a good chunk of her life, she thought, considering she'd only lived twenty-three. After Olivia Rutledge died, Toy had worked hard every day of those five years to make a better life for herself and for Little Lovie, her daughter. That had been a vow made at Miss Lovie's gravesite and a promise to her infant daughter."I did my best to keep my vow," she said aloud to Lovie Rutledge, feeling her spirit hovering close tonight. "I finished college, got a good job and I've made a nice home for Little Lovie. All tidy and cheery, with flowers on the table, like you taught me. I want so much to be a good mother." She rested her chin on her knee with a ragged sigh as the longing from the dream resurfaced."So, tell me, Miss Lovie. Why don't I feel that I am? Or content? I'm still like that turtle in my dream, swimming toward someplace I can't seem to get to."A high pitched cry shattered her thoughts. "Mama!"Toy's gaze darted toward the call. Her young daughter sat a to play with her and enjoy each with Little Lovie. She felt an all too and paused to allow her gaze to linger Lovie was carefully molding another hands.Toy Whether collecting as long as she had She was only five years ofFor Toy, the sun rose and set on her child.she called back. "Then I'll come of sand from her notebook and returned to the report that was due by morning. She was an Aquarist and had been placed in charge of her own gallery at the South Carolina Aquarium. It was her first break and she needed to prove that she was capable of the responsibility.The noseeums and mosquitoes were biting in the sticky humidity and blown sand stuck to her moist skin but she worked a while longer, determined to finish in the last of the day's light. A short while later she closed her notebook and raised her gaze toward her daughter. Another lopsided tower had been added to the castle.But her daughter was gone.Toy's breath caught in her throat as her eyes wildly scanned the beach. "Lovie!" she cried out, leaping to her feet."Mama, look!"Toy swung her head around toward her daughter's voice. Little Lovie was arched on tiptoe at the water's edge. The bottom of her pink swimsuit was coated with a thick layer of damp sand and she was pointing excitedly toward the sea.Toy ran across tMonroe, Mary Alice is the author of 'Swimming Lessons', published 2008 under ISBN 9780778326441 and ISBN 0778326446.