All the Little Raindrops(67)

But she’d never even told him Callie existed. And he was trying to understand and forgive, but he was presently having some trouble with that, especially now after seeing what a sweet, funny girl his daughter was and realizing how much he’d missed.

He made a point to tune back into what Callie was chattering about. He refused to get stuck in his own head and miss one more minute of her. “Before they made laws about the lights, the turtles would end up in swimming pools or even crushed under traffic,” Callie said.

“That’s terrible.”

She nodded, turning her head and sucking in a breath. He looked in the same direction, and then he heard what must have drawn her attention. A very soft scuttling. “The nests,” Noelle said, taking Callie’s hand and standing. “They’re over there.” She pointed.

Evan stood, too, as did most of the others on the beach. He craned his neck, seeing movement on the sand.

“They’re hatching!” Callie said, and Evan’s lips tipped at the pure joy he heard in her voice.

A minute later, the first baby turtles came over the slight bank, moving in unison toward the water. Evan watched in wonder as the tiny creatures crawled over the sand, heading toward that bright orb hanging over the ocean. More followed, until it seemed that there were a hundred turtles all waddling as one. Single minded in their pursuit, doing exactly as nature intended them to do. There was something incredibly beautiful about it, and for some reason he couldn’t even explain, a lump formed in his throat, remaining there until the last little creature met the tide, disappearing beneath the water.

“Okay,” Noelle said, bending and beginning to collect their things. “Time to get you to bed, little miss.”

“I’m not tired,” Callie said, yawning.

Evan picked up the blanket, shaking it carefully so the sand didn’t blow toward any of the other people also gathering their things and leaving the beach. He folded it and handed it to Noelle, who stuffed it in her large canvas bag. “Thanks. Will you come back with us, and we can have a drink on my patio?”

“Yeah. That’d be great. Thanks.” They needed to talk. Not just about Callie, though something definitely needed to be worked out. He massaged his temple. How would visitation work? He was lost, and he still hadn’t figured out a way through any of it. He didn’t know if she might help figure something out that would give him some type of regular access to his daughter, or whether she was going to insist that they’d done fine without him thus far and be unwilling to let him play any sort of permanent role.

Would he push it?

He’d lost so much already.

But they were obviously doing pretty damn great on their own. Callie was a happy, well-adjusted kid who clearly loved her home. Who wouldn’t love it here?

He sighed as they turned away from the water. He had no answers. “I guess we follow the others, huh?” he said. The moon had slipped behind a cloud and dimmed the night. He could barely see where he was stepping.

Callie took his hand in hers. It felt so small. So delicate. And he had this sudden urge to grasp it tightly, to refuse to let go. He took a deep breath and blew it out as they began to walk. “I used to get scared of the dark when I was littler,” Callie told him, as though now she was fully grown and scared of nothing. He smiled down at her. He loved her voice and her chatty personality. “I wanted to sleep with the lights on all night. But my mommy reminded me of the turtles. She said that sometimes the dark is beautiful, and without it, we wouldn’t see the moon.”



“She put up a valiant fight,” he said, exiting Callie’s room and placing the book he’d read to her three times on the counter. “But in the end, she lost.”

Noelle smiled, handing him a bottle of Corona with a sliver of lime stuck in the top. “I hope this is okay. If you don’t drink, I have water, or juice. I don’t keep soda in the house.”

“This is great.” He took a long sip of the cold beer.

“Do you want to sit on the patio? We’ll feel the breeze off the ocean from out there.”

“Sure.”

He followed her to the sliding glass door next to the kitchen area and out onto a small garden patio featuring a round table with a green umbrella covering it and a few potted plants. It was surrounded by vegetation, but she was right, he could feel the breeze coming from the ocean, and the leaves rustled softly. They both took a seat at the table. “Your place is nice,” he said, nodding his head back toward the cottage so she knew he meant the entirety of their home, not just the patio. He meant it. It was small but cozy. Noelle had decorated it mostly in shades of white and various blues.

What’s your favorite color?

The color of that Easter egg dye that comes in those little kits from the grocery store.

“Thanks. It’s messy,” she said on a laugh. “But it’s home.”

He smiled. She’d made a good one for their daughter. Everywhere he’d looked, there was evidence that Callie was central in Noelle’s life. A scooter leaning against the house next to the door, drawings covering the refrigerator, an organizer of children’s craft supplies on the kitchen table, a wall full of photos of Noelle and Callie and some other people he didn’t know. All this time, she’d existed and he’d never even known. That seemed so odd to him, like he should have been able to sense her somehow from across the country, a little girl standing by the ocean, a smile the same as his.