Chapter 6 - A Promise Kept
I walked softly across the damp sand until I was standing right beside her. Without turning her head, Grandma reached out and caught my hand, her fingers warm and trembling.
""Arthur was wrong, Emily,"" she whispered, her voice choked with profound, overwhelming emotion.
""Wrong about what, Grandma?"" I asked gently, blinking away tears of my own.
""He told me it was blue,"" she said, watching a wave retreat, pulling the sand from beneath her bare soles just as she had described on the plane. ""It isn't blue at all. It's green, and silver, and gold when the sun hits the top. It has every color God ever invented.""
She bent down, despite the ache in her back, and scooped up a handful of clear, cool ocean water in her cupped palms. She watched the droplets trickle through her fingers back into the tide.
""Eighty-six years,"" she breathed, staring out at a distant cargo ship crawling along the horizon line. ""I spent eighty-six years living inside a circle of twenty miles. Milking cows, sewing quilts, burying my babies, burying Arthur. I thought the world was just chores and supper and worry. But look at this... look how big it is. Look how much room there is to breathe.""
I pulled Grandpa Arthur's silver locket from my pocket and gently placed it in her palm. Grandma Rose smiled through a fresh river of tears. She clicked the locket open, holding the tiny black-and-white picture of Arthur up toward the waves.
""We made it, Artie,"" she told the wind. ""Both feet in the water, just like you said. You don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm right here.""
We stood there together for nearly an hour, letting the incoming tide wash over our feet until the afternoon began to soften into the brilliant pinks and oranges of a south Florida sunset. Other beachgoers walked past, many of them pausing to smile at the sight of an elderly woman in rolled-up pants holding hands with her granddaughter, totally captivated by the rhythm of the waves.
Eventually, the evening chill began to creep off the water, and Grandma’s legs began to tremble with fatigue.
""Come on, sailor,"" I teased gently, wrapping my arm around her shoulder to support her weight. ""Let's get your shoes and go find that diner. I promised you a hot supper.""
""A grilled cheese with extra butter,"" Grandma declared firmly, retrieving her cane from the sand. ""And maybe a chocolate milkshake with two straws.""
We walked slowly back up the beach path, Grandma leaning heavily on my arm but walking with a lightness in her spirit that I had never seen before. It felt as though a twenty-year weight had lifted from her shoulders.
When we finally unlocked the door to room 114 at the motel, however, we stopped dead in our tracks.
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Sitting on the small laminate desk was an enormous, professional floral arrangement overflowing with white lilies, pink roses, and fresh eucalyptus. The scent filled the entire motel room like a botanical garden.
Beside the flowers sat a sleek, heavy black envelope with Grandma's name hand-written in elegant gold ink across the front: To Miss Rose, the Angel of Row 14.
