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Her only words are “mama” and “bye-bye,” so she calls the turtles “ma-bye.” Her hand connects with the water right as a turtle glides by, and it grazes the green-brown shell.
I capture her look of shock with my phone. Lila laughs. “Turtle, Rosie. Turtle. Turtle.”
“Ma-bye,” Rosie says, kicking her legs and lunging after the turtle.
Lila holds her by the waist and zooms her through the water after it. “Turtle. Turtle.”
“Ma-bye!” Rosie shouts, her hands slapping the water.
Lila lifts Rosie to her face. “Turtle.”
Rosie stares at her a moment, then says, “Tuhtuh.”
Lila looks over at me. “Did you hear that?”
“I did!”
Another turtle lazes in the corner, and Lila moves toward it.
“They like it when you rub their necks,” says the man in a red uniform. “You can pick them up.”
Rosie seems to understand and reaches down, grasping the edges of the shell. She picks it up for only a moment, the turtle waving its flippers, then slides it back into the water.
“Awwww,” Lila says, shifting Rosie to one knee so she can reach out to pet the turtle herself. “It’s so beautiful!”
My eyes prick with emotion. It’s been wonderful to see my sister grow as a mother, confident and happy. Despite the rough start with our difficult upbringing and her deadbeat ex, we’re good. We’re really good.
Our turn in the pool ends, and we walk over to the rails where the giant turtles are being fed. Lila and Rosie leave a drippy trail. I shoulder the bags as we lean over the metal bars.
Turtles so large that they wouldn’t fit in Rosie’s plastic wading pool climb over each other’s backs to snap up bits of feed tossed into the water.
“Turtle,” Lila says. “Big turtle.”
“Tuhtuh,” Rosie repeats.
Lila looks at me. “She’s saying it!”
I nod, training my phone on them. I’m sad Ensley is missing this, but I’ll send her the video. She’s on her honeymoon, and the vacation has been well earned.
A large iguana with rings on its tail saunters by as if it’s an ordinary creature normally among humans. I tap Lila’s shoulder and point.
“Oh!” Lila says. Our eyes meet, and I see the emotion on her face, too.
“We’re a long way from Poorsville, Alabama,” I say.
She nods.
Our childhood was a struggle in every way. Dad checked out after Mom died, leaving us four kids to fend for ourselves. I was a baby, so I missed the worst of those days, blissfully unaware of the hardship.
But later, I was the one lowered into the donation bins in parking lots, grabbing as many clothes as I could get and still fit through the slot as Garrett and Ensley pulled me out.
If we were lucky, there would be kid outfits in there, or something we could sleep in at least. Otherwise, back down I would go, or if we determined everything in there was from some old lady’s closet, we’d sneak to another one and try again.
Later, many of the boxes put spiked wheels inside the openings to prevent people like us from taking the donations before they got where they needed to go. I hated that. Hated stealing more. But there was no other way to get what we needed.
Dad never asked where we got things. We almost never saw him. When we did have food for dinner, during the years some ladies’ group or teacher realized our plight and helped with casseroles or take-home bags from the cafeteria, he still didn’t come to the table.
He became a shadow of a person, only leaving his room at random hours to do odd jobs that must have paid rent. We did always have a home, even if there wasn’t anything much in it. Ensley sometimes excused his absence by saying he was in there with Mother’s memory.
