CHAPTER 64
“Elias, can you pick up the other side?” Nat called, motioning for his son to lift one end of the specially designed tank they’d used to transport the big loggerhead to and from the aquarium.
Sam and Piper trotted over to help, too, and as they lifted it out of the back of the truck and carried it down the ramp, Elliot ran over and put his hands under the tank to help bear the weight, too.
Nat nodded in Elliot’s direction. “That’s how you used to be,” he said, smiling at Elias.
Elias grinned. “I still am.”
The sun was just peeking up above the horizon when they set the tank down on the sand near the water’s edge.
“Wow,” Elliot exclaimed. “Look how big he is!”
“Actually,” Elias said, “he is a she.”
“It’s a girl turtle?!”
“More like a lady turtle,” Piper said.
“How do you know it’s a lady?” Elliot asked.
“Her tail,” Elias explained. “The male’s tail is longer and thicker than the female’s.”
Elliot nodded.
“She’s beautiful,” Remy said, peering into the tank.
“She certainly is,” Birdie agreed.
Piper pulled out her phone and scrolled through her pictures. “This is what she looked like when we rescued her.” She tapped one of the photos showing the debris and lines tangled around her neck and flippers. She scrolled again. “And this was the buoy she was dragging.”
“Oh my, that’s awful,” Remy said, shaking her head.
“It is awful,” Piper said. “We are constantly rescuing turtles that have become tangled up in garbage. Last summer we rescued a little Kemp’s ridley that was so wrapped up in fishing line, you couldn’t even tell he was a turtle.”
“I wish people would be more careful about leaving plastic bags and garbage around,” David said.
“I’m going to pick up all the plastic bags I see,” Elliot said, stroking the old turtle’s scarred shell.
“Me too,” Maya said, reaching for her mother’s hand. Tess could tell she wanted to touch the turtle’s shell, too, but just didn’t have the courage.
“She won’t hurt you, Maya,” Elliot said.
Maya stepped forward and lightly traced her finger over the scarred shell while David took the lens cap off his camera and took several pictures of Elliot and Maya with the old turtle.
Finally, Nat looked at Piper. “Shall we?” he asked.
“Don’t you mean ‘shell we’?” Piper teased.
“Cute,” Nat said as Elias rolled his eyes.
Piper laughed. “You know what? I think now is as good a time as any,” she said, feeling her heart starting to pound, “and since I’ve just stumbled across exactly the right words to say, I’m going to say them.”
Nat gave her a puzzled look and waited for her to continue, and Piper pressed her lips together. “I think, today . . . right now . . . while we’re doing what we love . . . what we’ve loved doing all these years . . . with all the people we love most . . . is the perfect time to ask, especially since my sisters have always teased me when I’ve said I’m rescuing turtles with Nat.” She took a deep breath, searched the slate-blue eyes she knew so well, and smiled. “Shell we, my love . . . shell we get married?”
Elias looked up in surprise and Nat shook his head in disbelief and laughed. “You’re crazy, you know that?” he said, and then walked around the tank and lifted her off the ground. “We shell,” he whispered, smiling.
“Well, that took a turtle’s lifetime,” Sailor said, laughing.
“Now that that’s finally shettled,” Elias said, grinning, “What about this poor turtle?”
“Oh yes! The turtle!” Nat said. He put Piper down and turned to help Elias lift the gate. The big loggerhead sea turtle, smelling the salty water and hearing the waves, made her way slowly toward the surf, and when she reached the water’s edge and felt the wet sand under her belly, she paused and turned to look back at them with solemn eyes. Then, feeling the cold ocean water washing under her shell, she trudged resolutely into the surf until the tide washed over her and picked her up and carried her out to sea.
“What a beautiful grand old lady,” Piper whispered, misty-eyed.
“She truly is,” Sailor said, wiping a tear.
“Just like us,” Remy added, smiling.
“And like us, she has learned,” Birdie said, her eyes glistening, “that surrendering in order to be freed from what entangles us has a lovely, exquisite peace all its own.”
Smiling and teary-eyed, they stood on the beach and watched the old sea turtle plunge through the waves.
“I can’t believe you’re finally getting married,” Sailor said, kissing Piper’s cheek. Just as she did, David called them and they turned, realized he was taking their picture, and pulled each other close, laughing and happy to be free.