She steps into me, and I wrap my arms around her. Outside, the porch light keeps glowing. Inside, for the first time in my life, the next season does not feel like leaving.
It feels like taking her with me.
Epilogue
Layla
Five months later
The first thing I learn about teaching children beside the ocean is that sand will end up everywhere.
Everywhere.
Inside backpacks. Inside shoes. Inside the plastic bin labeled crayons. Inside the lid of the glue sticks. Inside the pages of picture books I foolishly thought would remain mostly clean because I am apparently still capable of optimism.
By ten o’clock this morning, I have already said, “Please do not put the shell in your mouth,” four times. I have rescued two nature journals from a puddle near the outdoor rinse station. I have gently explained that a lizard cannot enroll in class, even if he attends every session and listens better than some of the humans.
I have also laughed more before lunch than I used to in an entire week.
“Miss Layla!” Max holds up a piece of driftwood like he has discovered buried treasure. “Can this be part of the pirate research station?”
“It depends,” I say, crouching beside him on the sun-warmed boardwalk. “Is it research wood or sword wood?”
His eyes widen like I have asked a serious academic question.
Poppy, who is seven and already suspicious of most male leadership, leans over from her spot on the mat. “Research wood. We said no weapons.”
Max considers this, then nods gravely. “Research wood.”
“Excellent choice.” I hand him a blue marker. “Label it before the pirates lose funding.”
He gasps. “Pirates have funding?”
“Responsible pirates do.”
The kids around me dissolve into giggles, and I grin as I stand. Above us, the canvas shade sails ripple in the Gulf breeze. Beyond the marina, water stretches bright and blue beneath a winter sun that would probably horrify the snow back in Cady Springs. Boats knock softly against their slips. Pelicans glide low over the surface like cranky old men with wings.
And there, attached to the wooden post beside my supply table, is my sign.
Layla’s Little Explorers
Stories, Nature & Adventure for Traveling Kids
I still stare at it sometimes. Not because I doubt it is real anymore. Because it is. That may be the strangest part. It is real.
Three mornings a week, I run outdoor story-and-nature sessions for kids whose families are staying near the marina, traveling through the coast, homeschooling on the road, or escaping cold weather for a few months. Some are here for one class. Some come for weeks. A few have been with me since November, their freckles multiplying beneath the Florida sun while their reading confidence grows right along with them.
In the afternoons, I tutor online from the small table in the camper Hudson and I renovated because, according to him, “If you’re going to teach from the road, you deserve better than a folding chair and a hotspot with attitude.”
I did not abandon teaching. That is what I wish the old Layla could have known.
I did not throw away the part of myself that loved children, story time, dandelions, lost teeth, crooked letters, and the holy little moment when a child realizes the word on the page belongs to them now.
I brought her with me. I just gave her more sky.
“Miss Layla?” Poppy holds up her nature journal. “I wrote three sentences, but Max says pirates don’t need punctuation.”
Max looks betrayed. “I said some pirates don’t.”
