We sat in silence. A little wind smelling of brine and pluff mud and the faraway sea (Oh, the island! The island and the sea!) rose and riffled the water's surface, cooling the sweat that had popped out on our faces.

"It makes me sound like some kind of spoiled brat," I said presently, "but I don't think I could live anywhere that wasn't beautiful. The Low Country spoils us."

Henry was silent. And then he said, in a faraway voice, "When I took Fairlie back to Kentucky, I thought that, well, at least she'd be in that beautiful green place she'd loved all her life, with the farm, and the horses, and all. There was a big chestnut tree on a hill overlooking the house and barns that somehow survived the blight, and she wanted to be...under it. But when I got there, the pastures had all gone to seed, and the buildings hadn't been maintained, and there was red mud and sagging outbuildings everywhere. Her brother obviously hadn't lifted a finger to maintain it. He lives fifty miles away, and the horses had been sold years before. He never told her that."

He turned to look at me.

"Anny, G.o.d help me, the first thing I thought was, 'Thank G.o.d I don't have to come and live here now.' I would have, you know; I'd promised Fairlie, and I would have done it. But it would have killed me. It was all right to leave her there; her childhood Kentucky was the only world she would ever know. But I couldn't wait to back that car around and screech out of there. I've hated myself ever since, but I haven't changed my mind about that."

He was silent again. I had a great lump in my throat, but around it I said, "We love what we love, Henry. There's no reason on earth to give it up unless we have to."

He smiled, but it was a crooked smile, and I could tell by the twitching of the muscles in the corner of his mouth that it was difficult to maintain.

"Well, I do love this land. I always have," he said. "Maybe I took it for granted, but it was always my place. But, Anny, right now I don't have anywhere in it to...be. I can't go back to Bedon's Alley. I don't know if I ever can. The beach house...well. I even tried a shack on the edge of a river a thousand miles away, with a lot of tequila and a sweet little prost.i.tute for company. None of it was a place for me. I can't leave the Low Country and I can't find a place in it."

There was so much pain in his voice that I reached over and laid my hand on his, and he squeezed it.

"What's wrong with here?" I said. "These are real houses. This is a beautiful place. People can live here comfortably just as well as in town. Maybe not forever, but for right now, why not let this be home? Camilla's almost always here now. The rest of us are here every weekend. I know there's nothing of...your old life here..."

He laughed, shortly. "That's the main reason it could work," he said. "Nothing and n.o.body haunts me here. You know, I came home partly to see if I could find Fairlie anywhere, but it's turning out that what I'm looking for is me."

"Well, when you find you, let us know. Meanwhile, we're all just happy to have whoever it is who says he's Henry back. It was awful, not knowing where you were...."

"You're a sweetheart, Anny Aiken," he said, squeezing my hand and reaching to start the engine again. "I always told Lewis he wasn't good enough for you."

It was well after noon when we came putting up to the dock, and Camilla stood on the end of it, clasping and unclasping her hands, and smiling a forced smile.

"I wish you children would tell me when you go out," she said. "I worry about you. I imagine the most awful things when you're gone...." She turned and started back up the walkway, leaning heavily on the blackthorn cane that she carried everywhere now. She seemed more stooped than I had seen her in a long time.

"I should have told her," I said guiltily. "It would be so easy for her to fall now. Somebody needs to be here when she is. I'm glad you're around during the week."

"Yeah," he said. "Listen, Anny, maybe it would be better if you didn't mention anything about our conversation to her. She's seemed kind of distracted lately. I don't want to worry her."

"You haven't talked to her about all that? I was sure you had. You ought to, Henry. She's the only one who can really know what you're going through. You know how strong she was after Charlie. She's always been our port in a storm."

He laughed. "Cammy is the consummate survivor. But she'd try to fix me," he said. "She can't stand hurt and pain without trying to fix it. She always did that. I don't need fixing. I just need listening to. Thanks for that."

When we got back to the house, Lewis was there, and Lila and Simms's SUV, and the momentum of that beautiful bronze day flowed on.

We sat late at dinner that night. The cool, winesap air held, and the stars burned like the stars of winter. The weather forecast was for rain, followed by returning heat and humidity, and we all held on to this night almost fiercely. The sense of change was strong. I remembered other days and nights at the beach house, when change had hung in the air as palpable as fog. I shivered in my skin, and poured myself another gla.s.s of wine.

We were in Simms and Lila's dining room, which, with its dark plantation furniture and standing candleholders, had always seemed more a winter room to me, and though it was not yet cool enough, they had turned on the air-conditioning and built a fire. We teased them about the sheer decadence of that, but I think we all loved the living flame that danced on crystal and polished wood. We had had quail and hominy-"I'll choke on one more crab," Lila said-and sat now drinking wine and talking quietly. Gladys had come with Henry and lay under his chair, snoring noisily. Pachelbel poured from the little CD player. Outside, the autumnal croaking of a thousand frogs rose on the cool air, clearer now than it had been all summer.

Henry leaned forward and put his elbows on the table and said, "I made a few calls today. I thought I might find something to do with myself. I can't sit out here in the sun forever. I don't think I'll reopen the office, but maybe some on-call work, or even a few days a week at a medical center somewhere. The John's Island center is new. They were interested."

"Will you go back with the traveling doctors?" I said. I realized that I did not want Henry to go anywhere, but it was purely a selfish wish. Of course, sooner or later, Henry would need to feel useful again. He had been useful all his life. That wouldn't stop with Fairlie.

He laughed. "I don't think they'd have me on a silver platter after the last time. I am a legend among the docs of the air."

We all laughed, too, relieved. It was the first time he had spoken of those terrible weeks in the Yucatan, at least to us as a group. Another step on the journey, I thought.

"You don't want to push it," Lewis said. "A month or two more might be good. You need to get some weight on you."

"And you need to get some off you," Henry replied, and we all laughed again. Lewis's stocky frame was thickening, no doubt about it. It bothered him not at all.

"A little exercise will do it," he said.

Camilla was silent, studying Henry.

"Speaking of exercise," Simms said, "I think I've found just the boat for you, Lewis. Guy I know in Fort Lauderdale told me about it when I mentioned I might be looking. It's a Hinckley sloop, Pilot 35. Got four berths and wheel steering, and a tile fireplace. She was built in 1966, but she's been totally renovated. I know how you feel about Hinckleys, and the Pilot has one of the prettiest hulls I've ever seen. The price seems right. I thought if you were interested we might fly down sometime next week and take a look at her. He said he could get someone to bring her up the waterway for you, if you liked her."

I looked at Lewis. He had said nothing about being in the market for a boat. I knew he was loving the sailing he did with Simms, but it was odd that he had not mentioned it.

"A Hinckley," he said reverently. "I've always wanted one. I love the old ones. I went to the Hinckley boatyard in Southwest Harbor one summer, when I went to visit Mike Stewart in Maine. It was awesome. I still remember those beautiful hulls, and the smell of teak and varnish." He turned to me.

"Want to be a sailing wife, Anny?" he said, grinning.

I was obscurely annoyed, without knowing why.

"You had one of those," I said. "Surely that was enough."

Everyone laughed aloud, and Lewis waggled his eyebrows at me.

"One day out on the harbor in a Hinckley and I'll change your mind," he said. "Sure, Simms, let's go look at her. Is next week good for you?"

They settled on flying down the next Wednesday, and coming back on Sat.u.r.day. That would, Simms said, give them time to sail the Pilot in many different weather conditions.

"Have a feast ready," Lewis said happily. "A home-is-the-sailor-from-the-sea feast. Lay in the champagne. Slaughter the fatted calf."

Camilla still had not spoken. Her face was grave and beautiful in the candlelight.

We went back to Sweetgra.s.s on Sunday afternoon, and spent the late afternoon and evening swimming off the dock in the river. We had a thousand things that needed doing, but the sense of impending change was still queer and heavy on us, and I for one wanted simply to drift in the blood-warm waters of home. Water is eternal, immutable.

We swam until the last light faded, and then crawled out on the dock. The boards were still warm from the day, but a little wind was chilling the thick air. For some reason the mosquitoes were taking a sabbatical elsewhere. We lay, wrapped in damp towels, watching the ghost moon rise in the lavender sky.

"Do you remember?" Lewis said. And I did. The night, that first night I saw Sweetgra.s.s, when we had made love on this dock under the yellow eyes of a bobcat. "Want to give it a try, old lady?" Lewis said.

"Wait ten minutes and tell me if 'old lady' still applies," I said, dropping my towel and reaching out to him. His body was firm and sweet and damp, as it had been under my hands for many, many nights. It still made my body burn.

Afterward we lay in each other's arms, our breathing slowing, our limbs heavy with la.s.situde and completion.

"It's still good, isn't it?" I said into his neck.

"It's the best."

"It always will be."

"d.a.m.n straight," he said.

I got up early the next morning. Lewis was still asleep, deep under the bleached old coverlet that had been his grandmother's. I made myself coffee and an English m.u.f.fin, and reluctantly pulled on my office clothes. I was flying to the University of Richmond later in the morning, to speak with the dean of the school of nursing about the possibility of making our program one of the school's elective specialties. Ordinarily I would have sent Allie, my young a.s.sistant, but this could, if effective, open up an entirely new direction for us. I needed to be there in person. I was set to stay until Wednesday night, and fly home on Thursday. In the green morning gloom of our bedroom, I thought that I had never wanted to go anywhere less than this trip.

I kissed Lewis on his forehead and he opened his eyes and blinked up at me.

"I'm going now," I said. "I'm sorry I won't be here to see you off."

"As long as you're here to see us home," he said, and kissed my knuckles, and went back to sleep.

The session at the university was profitable, but fully as tedious as all things academic, and took about a day and a half longer than it should have. I was tired when I got to my motel room on my last night there, and whispered, "s.h.i.t," softly, when I saw my message light blinking. It had blinked off and on for three days with "academic input." I almost did not pick it up, and then I did.

It was Lewis, with a message to call his hotel in Fort Lauderdale no matter how late I got in. Heart thundering, I dialed.

"What?" I said when he picked up. "What is it?"

"Bad news, babe. Double dose. Henry just called and told us. Camilla fell this morning and sprained her ankle really badly. She can't walk a step. And, Anny...Gladys died last night."

"Oh, Lewis!" I wailed, feeling tears gather in my eyes. "How? What happened? How is Henry?"

"Apparently, she just slipped away in her sleep. He found her at the foot of his bed, all curled up, her nose on her paws. He said it must have been very peaceful."

"Is he devastated?"

"Not really. He seemed sort of at peace with it. He said, 'Well, she waited for me, and that's all you can ever ask, isn't it?' He's going to take her over to Sullivan's Island and bury her just above the dune line where the beach house used to be. The people who bought the lot aren't anywhere near ready to build on it yet."

"And Camilla...what's going to happen to her? Oh, Lewis, I need to go straight on to the creek tomorrow. Who's going to take care of Camilla?"

"Lila's going for a day or two, and then Henry plans to take over. Cammy's being really stubborn; he wants her to go have an X ray, and she simply smiles and refuses. You can't just haul her there bodily. She says she can manage fine with her crutches, but of course she almost falls every time she gets up. Go and spell Henry for a while, and see if you can talk some sense into her. Henry says this thing could keep her off her feet for months if she doesn't get treatment."

"Oh, Lord. How will she manage?"

"She'll manage," Lewis said. "She always does."

"Have you seen the boat yet?"

"First thing in the morning. I offered to come on back, but Henry said absolutely not. We just got in from a stone-crab dinner, and I'm going to hit the sack. I'll call you at the creek Friday."

"I love you, Lewis."

"Always, babe."

I replaced the receiver and crept into bed, and lay there for a long time, crying softly for my beautiful failing friend, and for the old dog I had so loved, and for the thin, wounded man who had loved her, too.

When I got out to the creek the next afternoon, everything was still and silent, stunned into sleep by the savagely reborn sun. I looked onto everybody's porch, but saw no one, and, thinking perhaps they were napping in the heat, went into our cottage and flicked on the ceiling fan. I skinned out of my suit and panty hose before the sluggish air even began to move, and went out onto the back deck, clad only in shorts and a tee, sighing with relief. I vowed that I would do no more out-of-town trips. Not enough happened where I visited; too much happened where I left behind.

There was a languid splashing in the pool, and I squinted into the wire cage. Henry was swimming laps, slowly and easily, only his wet white hair showing when he turned his head for air. Like Lewis, like all Low Country boys, Henry was a good swimmer. The water was like air to them, another element. I saw no one else.

Henry saw me and pulled himself out of the pool. He was quite deeply tanned now, almost as he had been when he was much younger, in the days of the beach house, and it seemed to me that some of the cruel hollows around his bones had filled in. I went into the cage to meet him.

"Bad two days, huh?" I said, slumping beside him onto a canvas lounge.

"Bad," he agreed. "I've seen worse, but bad."

"Henry, I'm so sorry about Gladys. It just breaks my heart to think about it."

"Don't feel that way," he said, and his voice was as peaceful as Lewis had said it was. "She was a great old lady and she gave everybody who knew her a lot of pleasure. I want all of you to remember the good times with her, and the goofy ones. She was, above all, a funny dog."

"Well, at least it was a good way to die. In your sleep, with the one you love best nearby."

"I'd settle for it," he said.

We sat quietly for a time, listening to the rustle of marsh gra.s.s and the little waterfalls of birdsong out on the hummocks.

"I've always been afraid that when she died you wouldn't have any more reason to stay with us," I said.

"No. In a way, it's better. There's literally nothing left now of...the time before, but us. This place is different. I don't see Fairlie here. I won't see her now, every time I look at Gladys. I'm going to have to make a life out of this because I don't have anything left of the old one. Might as well start now."

"We all hoped you'd like the creek for itself," I said softly.

"I do. It's beautiful. And I practically grew up out here, you know, b.u.mming around with Lewis and Booter. All the a.s.sociations are good ones."

"I'm glad. Is Gladys...have you...?"

"This morning, very early. The sun was just coming up. There was n.o.body around. She has a pretty place; one of the few things the new people have left on the property is that huge myrtle right on the dune line. I put her there, under it. It'll flourish like the green bay tree, and they'll never know it's Gladys."

"Was it awful, seeing the island and the beach again?"

"No. I was afraid it might be, but it wasn't. There's nothing left of us there. They've dozed the lot absolutely flat and are landscaping it all to h.e.l.l, and judging from the amount of framing and supplies lying around, it's going to be four stories tall and have Palladian windows. It's going to cost a mint, and look like every other house on the beach now. In a way, that's comforting. I'd hate thinking the old house was out there, just waiting, with none of us going back."

I felt a lump in my throat.

"Do you think about the old house and...everything, Henry?"

"Only fifty times a day. Do you?"

"Yes. I try hard not to, but I do. I see it like it was, though. It's sort of good to know it won't be like that anymore."

"Well, there'll always be a little of the Scrubs there now, what with Gladys under her dune. Do you remember how she used to sit in the golf cart there, watching us down on the beach, but afraid to come down, after Hugo? 'Pore pitiful Pearl,' we called her."

I choked a little. I did remember. I remembered everything.

"Tell me about Camilla," I said. "How bad is it? I've been afraid of something like this for a long time."

He frowned.

"It's bad enough. I found her lying on the pool ap.r.o.n when I came out after breakfast. She was dripping wet, and just about out of it with pain and shock. It was the shock that worried me. I carried her into her house and wrapped her up in blankets until her pulse picked up. The ankle itself is a mess, but it will eventually heal. Or would, if she'd go see somebody about it, get it X-rayed, a walking cast, if she needs it. If she doesn't, she could literally be crippled for life."

"Why is she being so stubborn? It's not like Camilla to worry people. The last thing in the world she'd want is to be a burden to anybody."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Henry said.