Mary Alice Monroe - Swimming Lessons

Praise for the novels of Mary Alice Monroe

An inspirational tale of redemption.

Publishers Weekly on Swimming Lessons

Monroe makes her characters so believable, the reader can almost hear them breathing. Readers who enjoy such fine southern voices as Pat Conroy will add the talented Monroe to their list of favorites.

Booklist on Sweetgrass

Skyward is a soaring, passionate story of loneliness and pain and the simple ability of love to heal and transcend both. Mary Alice Monroes voice is as strong and true as the great birds of prey of whom she writes.

New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons

With each new book, Mary Alice Monroe continues to cement her growing reputation as an author of power and depth. The Beach House is filled with the agony of past mistakes, present pain and hope for a brighter future.

RT Book Reviews

Monroe writes with a crisp precision and narrative energy that will keep [readers] turning the pages. Her talent for infusing her characters with warmth and vitality and her ability to spin a tale with emotional depth will earn her a broad spectrum of readers, particularly fans of Barbara Delinsky and Nora Roberts.

Publishers Weekly on The Four Seasons

Also by MARY ALICE MONROE

LAST LIGHT OVER CAROLINA

TIME IS A RIVER

SWEETGRASS

SKYWARD

THE BEACH HOUSE

THE FOUR SEASONS

THE BOOK CLUB

GIRL IN THE MIRROR

THE LONG ROAD HOME

Childrens Books

TURTLE SUMMER

Written as

MARY ALICE KRUESI

ONE SUMMERS NIGHT

SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT

Mary Alice Monroe

Swimming Lessons

To Martha Keenan

Contents

Odyssey

T he sea is thick and murky. Can you see me?

I am propelled forward, caught in a spiral of swift water. The Great Current carries me as it writhes along the coastline, swirling around the great gyre and through a vast spread of sargassum weed. It snakes from south to north, a supernatural force pushing me forward. Always onward.

I am a loggerhead. Ive journeyed far in this vast ocean, a servant to my magnetic compass. Yet now I hear a voice that cries above the roar of the current. It is the voice of my ancestors, a voice that has guided mothers for generation after generation, for two hundred million years. I heed the call and spread my beautiful long flippers. Strange forces gain strength in my soul, compelling me eastward. Light shimmers above, then grows dark. Aqua to indigo, over and over on this odyssey.

I ignore the hunger that gnaws at my belly and swim through the living broth of drifting plankton. I push past gangly, gliding invertebrates and hallucinatory looking creatures, beyond the wreck fish and sea bream that share space beneath a gilt rock laden with pink coral and bright anemones.

I am riding a river of current, gliding in watery thermals, warmed by the sun, powered by the earths rotation. I am soaring through liquid wind, reaching out to the place of my birth.

I am swimmingswimmingswimming home.

Part 1

L ast 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 seashells, 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 spotto think, to remember, to find solace. She felt closer to Olivia Rutledge hereMiss Lovie to everyone shed met. This dune had been Miss Lovies favorite spot, and on some nights, especially when the sun lowered and the birds quieted, as now, Toy imagined she heard Miss Lovies 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 shed 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 Lovies 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 Ive 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 dont I feel that I am? Or content? Im still like that turtle in my dream, swimming toward someplace I cant seem to get to.

A high pitched cry shattered her thoughts. Mama!

Toys gaze darted toward the call. Her young daughter sat a distance from the shoreline surrounded by colorful plastic buckets and spades. Her long blond hair fell in salt-stiff streaks down her back as she bent over on hands and knees before the crude beginning of a sand castle.

What do you want, Little Lovie?

Mama, come help me with my castle!

Toy sighed, sorely tempted. Im working, honey.

Youre always working.

She saw a scowl flash across Little Lovies face before she ducked her head and went back to her digging. Mingled in the muffled roar of the ocean she heard Olivia Rutledges voice in her mind. Stop what youre doing and play with your child!

Toy desperately wanted to play with her and enjoy each precious, fleeting moment with Little Lovie. She felt an all too familiar twinge of guilt and paused to allow her gaze to linger on her daughter. Little Lovie was carefully molding another tower with her chubby hands.

That child was happiest when she was at the seaside, Toy thought, her heart pumping with affection. Whether collecting shells, digging castles or rollicking in waves, as long as she had her toes in the sand she was content. She was only five years of age, yet Little Lovie was so much like Miss Lovie Rutledge that Toy sometimes believed the old womans spirit had returned to settle in her namesake. For Toy, the sun rose and set on her child. And it was for her childs future that she gathered her discipline.

Let me finish this report, she called back. Then Ill come help you finish that sand castle.

You promise?

I promise, okay?

Her daughter nodded and Toy resolutely brushed away grains 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 days 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.