Peyton knew his father had biked down A1A, the coast road that hugged the Atlantic. Unfortunately, the bus route followed US 1, a faster interior highway with less enticing views—mostly Florida scrub pine, a wilderness area or two, and a gas station here and there. He had boarded in Atlanta before daylight. Since then the bus had made stop after stop at a strand of little towns until the driver at last called out, “St. Augustine station!”
Peyton and several other passengers stepped off the bus and waited at the luggage bay while the driver located their suitcases. Before Peyton could decide whether to wait on the platform or follow the others inside, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a man who looked like he had just stepped off a boat. His overalls were neatly tucked into tall black rubber boots, and the sleeves of his blue cotton shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattoos up both arms—an anchor on one and the lower half of a short-skirted woman in cowboy boots on the other. Her torso disappeared under that rolled-up sleeve. The man’s skin was deeply tanned and craggy, but he was clean-shaven. Silver hair peeked out from beneath his fishing cap, which shaded eyes the color of aquamarines.
“You the boy come to see Gert?”
“Yes, sir,” Peyton answered.
“Ha!” the man exclaimed with a big smile. “Ain’t nobody called me ‘sir’ in a long time. Name’s Leeward Finnegan, but ever’body just calls me Finn.”
“The Finn?” Peyton couldn’t believe he was shaking hands with the fisherman who had helped his parents get married.
“Well, I don’t know about that. Are you tellin’ me I’m famous in some quarters?”
“You could say that,” Peyton answered. “Nice to meet you, Finn. My name’s Peyton Cabot.”
Finn looked him up and down as they shook hands. “Now there’s a puzzle.”
“Sir?”
“What I mean is, when I look past your big-house manners and really eye you good, I’d swear you got a little bit o’ Gert in you—way down in there somewheres.”
“From the way Mama talks about her, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh, it’s intended as one. Speakin’ o’ Gert, I reckon we’d best shove off. She’ll be lookin’ for us.”
Finn loaded Peyton’s suitcase into a battered Ford pickup truck that smelled of fish, and they both climbed in. All Peyton got to ask was, “How do you know Aunt Gert?” That set off a monologue that lasted from the bus depot, through downtown St. Augustine and all along the harbor, past the bridge with the lion statues, and onto a side street where an oyster-shell driveway led to a Florida bungalow surrounded by palm trees and banana plants. The house backed up to a river.
By the time they arrived, Peyton had learned that Finn was born and raised in Alabama, was a breech baby who nearly killed his mother, married three times and divorced three times, served in the Navy during World War I, liked rum, drank too much of it (the cause of an unfortunate tattoo on his right shoulder), once landed a two-hundred-pound blue marlin without dropping his cigarette, wondered how magicians make people disappear in those trick boxes, had never voted, was a Pisces (“ain’t that a coincidence”), and hated coconut.
Also, he had met Aunt Gert at a VFW dance. She was serving the punch that he was attempting to spike. She told him rum was made for dive bars and fishing boats, and if he knew what was good for him, he’d take his flask and hightail it to one or the other. They had been friends ever since. Early on, he said, he tried to kiss her—but only once. She whacked him with her sun hat and told him there would be none of that nonsense, so he’d just as well get it out of his head.
“Yessiree, Gert says the loss of her late husband, rest his soul, is still so fresh, she’d feel like she was cheatin’ on him if she took a shine to another man,” Finn said, shaking his head.
“When did he die?” Peyton asked.
“Summer of ’21.” Finn shifted the truck into neutral and let it idle. “We’ll leave your suitcase on her porch. She ain’t here at the moment. The two o’ you’ll likely walk home from the dock, and I doubt you’d want to be a-totin’ your grip all the way.”
Finn unloaded the suitcase and then drove them to a marina just across the harbor. He led Peyton down a long dock, past fishing boats and trawlers, to a stunner of a wooden runabout named Madame Queen.
“Well, here we are,” Finn said. “Peyton, my friend, meet the Madame. She usually stays at Gert’s dock on the San Sebastian, but we figured it’d be easier for you here, it bein’ your first acquaintance and all. Been a pleasure meetin’ you. I reckon I’ll see you around Gert’s.” He shook Peyton’s hand and started to walk away.
“Hey, Finn, wait a minute!” Peyton called after him. “Where is she?”
“See that bend in the river down yonder?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go just past it, and you’ll see Cap’n Davy’s Seafood on your right. There’s a dock there where you can tie up, and Gert’ll come down to meet you. Likely waitin’ there for you right now.”
“You mean she wants me to drive this boat down there?”
“It’s a mighty long way to swim.”
“But I’ve never driven a boat like this.”
“Ever drive a car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Same thing—or just about. Untie ’er, push the starter, and ease back on the throttle—see it right yonder? Madame Queen’ll get you where you’re goin’. Been a pleasure!”
With that, Finn was gone, leaving Peyton to scan the dock. All the boats were bobbing in their slips, but there wasn’t a person in sight. Already he was wondering if Aunt Gert had lost her marbles.
He turned his attention to the Madame Queen. This old boat, with its fine mahogany decking and deep-green leather seats, had to be worth a fortune. If he wrecked it, Aunt Gert might send him home in a body bag, but she hadn’t left him with many options.
Peyton climbed in and untied the boat. Sliding into the captain’s seat, he ran his hand along the dashboard, which was beautiful with all the silver gauges and detailing set against rich wood. He started the boat. The rumble of her engine was deep and smooth, like distant thunder. Easing back on the throttle as gently as he could, he felt the boat stop drifting and take command of the water. Soon they were gliding across the harbor, slowly at first but then faster as Peyton found his confidence. Driving the boat felt as natural as breathing.
Stealing glances at downtown St. Augustine from his watery vantage point, he was mindful to keep an eye out for any approaching boats. The scene was unbelievable. A late-afternoon Florida sun was hanging low in the sky, casting its golden glow on the Matanzas River. To his left he could see the historic district with its ancient Spanish architecture just a street crossing from the harbor. To his right were barrier islands that kept the Atlantic at bay. And what a way to see it—the wind in his face, a beautiful boat in his hands, and the water sparkling below, parting for them as they sped up the river. What was it his mother had said about her time alone on the beach here? That first taste of freedom.
The bend was just ahead. Peyton throttled down in case Aunt Gert should catch him speeding and judge him too reckless to ever captain the Madame Queen again. As Finn had promised, Cap’n Davy’s was just ahead on the right. A woman was standing on the dock outside the restaurant. She waved her arms to flag him down.
“You must be Peyton!” she said as he climbed out of the boat.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “Are you Aunt Gert?”
“The legend in the flesh,” she said as she hugged him. Aunt Gert was tall, with warm brown eyes and thick silver-white hair, which was cropped short. From what his mother had said about her, she had to be in her seventies, but her tanned face wasn’t wrinkled at all. She was wearing red-and-white-checked pedal pushers, a short-sleeved white cotton blouse, a wide-brimmed straw hat with a red scarf tied around it, and leather sandals. Beside her was a picnic basket and a small cooler.
“I hear you’ve been havin’ a rough time of it,” she said to Peyton. “No sense hem-hawin’ around it.”
“Yes, ma’am. Mama and Daddy too.”
Aunt Gert nodded. “Well, we can’t do anything about them right now—they’ll have to fend for themselves—but we might be able to salvage your summer. I thought we might start by havin’ an early supper alfresco. Do your Aunt Gert a favor and grab that cooler. I’ll get the picnic basket and we’ll shove off.”
Peyton and his aunt climbed into the boat with their gear. He was heading toward the passenger seat when Aunt Gert corrected him. “None o’ that lazybones passenger business for you,” she said. “I intend to relax and enjoy the view.”
“You mean you want me to drive the boat?”
“Somebody’s got to.”
“Aunt Gert, I think I love you.”
She threw her head back and laughed as she took off her straw hat and tucked it under her seat. Then she put on a pair of white-rimmed cat-eye sunglasses with rhinestones at the corners. “Now,” she said, “let me show you how to back the boat out of the slip. And remember—from now on, you need to back it in. Otherwise the locals will think you’re a landlubber, and we can’t have that, now can we?”
“Wouldn’t want to bring shame on my family,” Peyton said with a solemn bow of his head.
“Ha! You’re a mess, Peyton. I can tell already. We’re gonna get along fine!”
Following her instructions, Peyton backed the boat out of the slip and they were off. He kept to a slow speed until Aunt Gert commanded, “For heaven’s sake, son, open ’er up!”
Peyton pulled back on the throttle, and soon the Madame Queen was slicing through sun-kissed water, her bow rocking up and down as they streaked toward a pass up ahead, their hair blown back, their shirts flapping against them in the wind.
“That’s more like it!” Aunt Gert said loudly enough to be heard over the boat. “Go through that pass and bear to your right. I’m gonna show you somethin’ special.”
To Peyton’s amazement, the pass opened not into a bigger harbor but into the open sea—the Atlantic Ocean, whose powerful waves appeared to be napping at the moment. Aunt Gert pointed the way as they bypassed a beach that was speckled with sunbathers, motoring on to what looked like coastal wilderness. It was a beautiful beach, with pristine sand and wild dunes covered with sea oats. Aunt Gert guided him to an inlet and an old dock, applauding when he successfully backed the Madame Queen against it and tied up.
“What is this place, Aunt Gert?” Peyton helped her out of the boat and handed her the straw hat, then set her picnic basket and cooler on the dock.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.” Aunt Gert put her hat on and took up the picnic basket.
“The special spot. Now grab that cooler and come on.”
She led him over a high dune to the prettiest stretch of sand he had ever seen. Still she didn’t stop. Only when they were just a few yards from the water and she had set the picnic basket on the sand did she dramatically spread her arms wide and proclaim, “This is Anastasia Island!”
“And we’re here because . . . ?”
“Oh, Peyton, keep up!” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Anastasia Island, near the lighthouse . . . ?”
He gasped as he figured it out. “This is where Mama and Daddy met!”
“Well, hallelujah, the boy’s got some brain cells!” She opened her picnic basket and took out a small blanket. “Here, help me spread this.”
They spread the blanket on the beach and sat down together. Aunt Gert had brought fried grouper sandwiches, hush puppies, French fries, and fudge brownies from the restaurant, along with a cooler full of Cokes. Peyton hadn’t realized how hungry he was till they started eating.
“This is the best sandwich I ever had,” he said, reminding himself to use a napkin now and then.
Aunt Gert took a sip of her Coke. “You’re just hungry. But Davy does fry a mean grouper. It’s the homemade mayonnaise that really sets off the fish. Look out there. See that?”
Peyton followed her finger to a spit of sand out in the ocean. He remembered his mother’s story about collecting shells on a sandbar in St. Augustine. “That can’t be the same sandbar—is it?” he asked Aunt Gert.
“No, but that’s about where it was. At high tide, it’ll disappear.”
The two of them ate their supper and sipped their Cokes as the sky slowly washed out to a pale robin’s-egg blue with faint streaks of pink and coral. After all his time in hospitals, Peyton couldn’t believe how great it felt to be on the ocean. What had it been like for his parents?
“Could you tell me what they were like—back then, I mean?” he asked, turning to his aunt.
“Well, let’s see. Your mother was always kind and sweet. But make no mistake, Katie’s got plenty o’ moxie—and a sharp, curious mind. Marshall wasn’t much different back then than he is now. Your daddy was the strong, silent type even as a boy. Over the years, he became a much more lovin’ person. Katie did that for him. If it wasn’t for her, he mighta ended up a cold fish like the rest o’ the Cabots.”
“You don’t care much for Daddy’s people?”
“Can’t stand ’em. Never could. George was pretty decent, as rich old planters go—may he rest in peace—but his lovely wife Celia’s got a cold streak a mile long. Marshall’s sisters never had to turn their hand, so they pretty much treat anybody outside the family like the hired help. And as for the brothers, the youngest one’s kinda giddy-headed, and that Julian thinks he could ride a mule around the moon backwards, but the truth is, he ain’t even got sense enough to saddle it up.”
“How do you know ’em all, Aunt Gert?”
She sighed as she took off her sandals and slid her feet into the sand. “When Katie first married, she used to call down here and beg me to come up and give her a little moral support durin’ that dreadful spring picnic, which I did, till you came along. I figured a baby’d give her an excuse to get away from ’em, and I just really couldn’t take it anymore. It’s like those people were all born with somethin’ missin’. All of ’em ’cept your daddy.”
“Why do you think he’s different?” Peyton had unearthed a couple of seashells next to their blanket and was absently turning them over and over with his fingers.
“I ’magine he takes after his mama.”
“But I thought you didn’t like Grandmother Cabot.”
Aunt Gert stared out at the ocean now turning soft shades of blue and gray in the early sunset. “She’s not your daddy’s mama.”
Peyton dropped the seashells and wheeled around to face his aunt. “Ma’am?”
Aunt Gert took off her sunglasses and looked straight at him. “It’s not my place to tell you, but I’ve never been too concerned about stayin’ in my place, and I believe in bein’ truthful. Plus I think you’d be a lot less confused about everything if you knew what’s what. So here we go. Your granddaddy didn’t start off in Savannah. He started off in Louisiana. That’s where he was born and raised and where he met his first wife, Julia Guidry. They were both very young when they married, and he was farmin’ cotton. Julia was a dark-haired beauty and a very lovin’ girl who was crazy about your granddaddy. The two of ’em didn’t have much, but they were happy together.”
Aunt Gert dug her feet deeper into the sand. “Poor Julia had two miscarriages before she gave birth to your daddy, and then she died in a car accident when Marshall was two. A happy life just wasn’t meant to be for that girl, bless her heart. Didn’t you ever wonder why there’s five years between your daddy and your Uncle Julian, but all the other Cabots are just a year or so apart? Or do you not know about the birds and the bees?”
“Aunt Gert!” Peyton covered his face with his hands, embarrassed to death to be discussing the facts of life with his aunt.
Aunt Gert, in turn, laughed till she couldn’t catch her breath. “I’m sorry, honey! I didn’t mean to shock you. But you do know, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am! But I swear if we don’t get offa this subject, I’m gonna go drown myself in the ocean.”
“Oh, don’t kill yourself, honey. You’ll miss the sunset. Anyway—”
“Now, wait a minute before you move on. You said Granddaddy Cabot was married before, but nobody’s ever talked about another wife. There’s no pictures of her. Daddy calls Grandmother Cabot ‘Mama.’ I don’t get it.”
“Alright. I’ll tell it to you the way Doxie explained it to me.”
“What’s Granddaddy’s cook got to do with all this?”
“Doxie’s worked for him since he was a young man. And she knows plenty. Those uppity Cabots just don’t have sense enough to ask her. I used to slip off to the servants’ quarters to escape the family during those heinous picnics, and Doxie and me would have us a glass o’ bourbon and a talk.”
“You said Granddaddy Cabot started out in Louisiana—was he farming, just like in Georgia?”
“Not quite. Back then, he was on a little-bitty family farm. But rumors got to goin’ around about oil bein’ buried under that prairie land, so he decided to drill. And he struck oil.”
“Oil? But he’s never been in the oil business.”
“That’s not true. After strugglin’ in the beginnin’ and losin’ two children, your granddaddy and Julia finally had a child—Marshall—and they had struck oil and knew they’d never want for anything ever again. They were so happy, Doxie told me, and started buildin’ a fine new house. Julia went to New Orleans to pick out furniture for it. But all she settled on that day was a set o’ fine white wicker porch furniture. I reckon you’ve been sittin’ on it all your life.”
“On Granddaddy’s porch?” Peyton was stunned.
“That’s right. Julia placed the order on Magazine Street not an hour before her driver went speedin’ around a corner, goin’ the wrong way on a one-way, and had a head-on collision with a bread truck. Threw ’em both outta the car and killed ’em, right there in the French Quarter. Left your granddaddy with a two-year-old child and an unfinished mansion and a whole bunch o’ money that didn’t mean a thing in the world to him without his wife.”
Peyton ran a finger over the sand, absently drawing the outline of a palm tree. “How did Granddaddy end up in Savannah?”
“About a year after Julia died, Celia came down from Virginia to visit some cousins in New Orleans. They also knew your granddaddy and invited him to a house dance. He was lonely. She was pretty. And she can be charmin’ when she wants to—when she wants something. That was that. The two of ’em agreed on a fresh start, and he had just read about a ton o’ good farm land comin’ available around Savannah. So they moved to Georgia, bought the land and a fine house, opened some cotton mills, and there you go. Everybody thinks cotton made him rich, but the truth is, he built those mills just to help all the poor communities around Savannah. His money came—and still comes—from those oil wells in Louisiana.”
“Does everybody know about his first wife and about Daddy—everybody in the family, I mean?”
“For a long time, nobody knew except Celia and Doxie. That’s how your granddaddy wanted it.”
“But why?”
“Because he didn’t want your daddy to be treated any differently than his other children—by the family or the community. ’Course, the irony o’ that was that George himself always treated Marshall a whole lot better than his other kids.”
Something moved in Peyton’s peripheral vision. He looked out over the water and saw two dolphins smoothly arch above the surface, then dip back under, the pair of them in perfect sync. Peyton watched them rise and fall together twice more before they disappeared in the ocean.
“Why didn’t Grandmother Cabot tell?” he wanted to know.
Aunt Gert swatted at a dragonfly strafing their blanket like a dive-bomber. “Celia didn’t really want anybody to know she was wife number two, so she was happy to raise Marshall as her own child. Accordin’ to Doxie, Celia’s so distant with her own kids, nobody’d ever suspect Marshall was any different. And as time went on, George figured out that fillin’ Celia’s purse was easier than meltin’ her heart, so he promised her that as long as she never told a livin’ soul about Marshall, he’d make sure she had everything she wanted—but if she did tell, he’d cut her off. That settled it for Celia. Doxie, on the other hand, decides for herself who needs to know what, and she up and decided one day that I needed to know.”
“What about Daddy? Does he know?”
Aunt Gert nodded. “They managed to keep it from him for a long time, but then when he was about fifteen years old, he was rummagin’ through his daddy’s closet, lookin’ for a fishin’ hat to carry with him to summer camp, and he uncovered a shoebox full o’ pictures, includin’ one o’ George and Julia with a baby in her arms—a baby with eyes just like hers. Later on, Marshall told me he just had a feelin’ about that picture—like it was answerin’ a question he’d always had but never asked.”
“If he was fifteen—that’s the year he rode his bike to Key West.”
Aunt Gert slapped her knee, pretending surprise. “You know, you’re right!” She laughed. “Came right through St. Augustine and met a pretty girl on a sandbar.”
They gazed out at the sea together, listening to the water sigh as it rolled onto the shore. Peyton finally broke the silence.
“Does Mama know?” he asked.
“She does. And no, I do not agree that keepin’ it from you was wise. And yes, you’ve got a right to be aggravated as all get-out with both of ’em. Years after they married, your mama told me that they talked about it that very first time they met on the beach. He told her he had just found out his mama wasn’t his mama, and he was takin’ this bike ride to try and sort things out. By the time you came along, Marshall was so tangled up in the family business that Katie knew y’all would likely be livin’ amongst the Cabots. She just didn’t want you to know anything that might make you feel like an outsider—which is how they always made her feel. I told her she oughta shout ‘glory hallelujah’ that you and your daddy are cut from a different cloth than the rest of ’em. If you ask me, that’s somethin’ to celebrate, not somethin’ to hide.”
“Why do you think Daddy let ’em do it—tangle him up in the family business, I mean?”
“Because he respected his father, and he knew the rest of ’em didn’t have sense enough to preserve what your granddaddy worked hard to build. He also knew the rest o’ the Cabots didn’t give a flyin’ rip about all the poor families who depended on your granddaddy’s cotton mills for work.”
They listened to the water lap against the sand before Peyton said, “I’m glad you told me. I really am. It feels weird to know I’m not one o’ the Cabots, but—”
“Now hold it right there. That’s not what I said. You are one hundred percent one o’ the Cabots. You just don’t have any o’ that crazy Kelly blood from Celia’s side o’ the family, which is all to the good, if you want my opinion. And somewhere in Louisiana, you’ve got some family you never even met. Prob’ly Cajun. You feel particularly musical all of a sudden?”
Peyton laughed and kicked off his sneakers so he could shove his feet into the cool sand like Aunt Gert. “No, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Maybe we’ll find out you can cook. Louisiana people can cook like nobody’s business.”
“I’m not much use in the kitchen, but I’m pretty good with a grill or a pit. Does that count?”
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to make that determination somehow. I expect you’ll need skill with crustaceans to be considered legit.” Aunt Gert pointed out to sea. “Well, would you look at that!”
What an amazing sight it was. As they’d talked past sunset and let the sky darken, the moon had risen over the water and was casting its glow over the placid sea. After daybreak the Atlantic would awaken with a thunderous roil of salty spray, but for now, it was like dark glass reflecting moonbeams back into the sky.
“You just missed the full. You know what the Indians called the full moon in May?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“The Flower Moon—because it appeared the same time all the flowers were in bloom.”
In the shimmering silver light, Peyton could picture a single pink rose next to an emerald-green ball gown. And he could only imagine what it would feel like to sit here on the cool sand some balmy evening and hold a beautiful girl with auburn hair and skin like ice cream.