Page 68 of Chasing Sunsets

She giggles, but before I can even get out the door, she’s curled up like a baby and fallen back asleep. I have to fight the urge to call Sebby and tell him I’m taking a sick day.

It’s a good day, but I couldn’t get off the boat fast enough. Margie left me a message, saying the sellers are willing to give me a key so I can start moving boxes into the garage this week, ahead of our closing. I’m eager to take Tabby by to show her the place. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. First, it’s dinner at my parents’ house.

I take a shower at the office and drop by the market before leaving the wharf to grab the steaks that Dad had the butcher cut. After dropping off the meat with him, I stop in the yard to gather a bouquet of wildflowers before getting back in my truck and heading to pick up Tabby.

When I pull into the campground, she’s sitting on the porch of the office with Freda. She jumps up immediately and comes bouncing down the steps. I wave to the older woman as I get out to open her door, grabbing the bundle of flowers from her seat and holding them out to her as she approaches.

“You brought me English daisies?” she asks.

I glance down at the white-and-yellow blooms. “Um, I guess. They were growing in my parents’ yard, and I thought they were pretty flowers.”

“They’re weeds,” she says.

I wrinkle my forehead and frown. “Weeds?”

She smiles as she takes them from my hand. “Yeah, beautiful weeds that make ordinary lawns interesting. They’re one of my favorite things,” she says as she brings them to her nose and inhales.

“Makes sense,” I murmur.

“What’s that?” she asks as she slides into the passenger seat.

“Why they reminded me of you. You make ordinary things more interesting,” I say before shutting her in and walking back to the driver’s side. I climb in beside her. “So, a weed is your favorite flower, huh?” I ask as I back out of the campground.

“I didn’t say that. I said they were one of my favorite things. Yellow dahlias are my favorite flower.”

“Yellow dahlias,” I repeat, committing it to memory.

“How was work?” she asks as I turn toward town.

“Good. What about you? What did you get up to today?”

“I biked to the library to do some research on self-publishing,” she says. I raise a brow, and she continues, “I want to write and illustrate a children’s book one day.”

“Wait, you’re a writer too?” I ask.

“No. Well, kind of. I’ve written a few poems, and one was published in a collection with others. But the idea of doing a children’s book has always been in the back of my mind. It’s based on a story my grandma and I made up about a frog that lived in her mailbox,” she explains. “I was thinking about her the other day, and I started to draw him.”

“Him?”

“Yes,Fernando the Frog—that’s the title and his name. He sits in the mailbox and observes life on his street, watching the children and keeping an eye on them as they grow up.”

“I see.”

She shrugs. “I have to work out the story, of course, but I have an entire sketchbook full of illustrations.”

“Sounds like you should go for it,” I suggest.

“I don’t know.”

“And why not?”

“Probably fear. What if I’m not any good?” she admits.

“All right, I’ll be the judge. Let’s hear it,” I say, turning my gaze toward her.

“What?”

“Your poem. Share it with me, and I’ll tell you if you’re good enough,” I say.

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