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thing. They’re both safe. There’s never been a time when I couldn’t kiss them good night, at least over the phone. And even though these years of tearing away are difficult, there’s a part of me that knows it’s normal enough. Kids are supposed to grow up and cut the apron strings. I just never dreamed those sharp scissors would leave so many wounds. Who am I, now that I’m not Mom-in-charge anymore?
    I put on sweats and tennis shoes, grab a jacket in case my mother and Aunt Sandy are outside, engaging in an early morning battle. Yesterday, the only peaceful moments were those when Aunt Sandy brought out her sea glass, shells, and freshwater pearls and showed my mother how she makes one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces. Jewelry from the sea, she calls it. She almost lured my mother into the idea of being a long-distance designer of artisan pieces before Mom realized that she was unwittingly being pulled into the Seashell Shop dream. After that, she pushed away the salt-frosted glass and said, “For heaven’s sake, I don’t have time for this kind of thing. I came here to talk about the property, Sandy.”
    Then the war was on again. It lasted all day and kept us from leaving last night.
    Maybe they’ve gone down to the water together this morning, but I hope not. We need to get on the road, and from the sounds of the conversation after the moments of sea glass sisterhood, it will be just the two of us leaving. Mom and I. The taproot holding my aunt to this place reaches straight through the salty soil and all the way to the floor of the ocean. And with Uncle George gone, there’s no way she’s leaving their house and the store without someone watching after them. She has a generator, bottled water, batteries, nonperishable food, Uncle George’s old ham radio, and all the other hurricane necessities, including numerous cans of gasoline.
    Besides, she doesn’t expect the storm to be that bad. The last thing we heard on the television was that it was expected to pass by Cape Hatteras, not coming onshore until farther north. The greater fear seems to be that it will strike hard around New York City and up the Jersey coast.
    I don’t know if it was a show of bravado or not, but at the hurricane party the night before last, the old hippies were tipping their glasses to the storm, thumbing their noses at the weather bureau, and eating enough discount seafood to choke a whale. What else is there to do but feast when the power may be out for a while and the food will spoil anyway?
    These people are either the heartiest souls I have ever met or the most foolhardy. I can’t decide which, but they are very nice. While helping to pack shop goods yesterday—and listening to Mom and Aunt Sandy argue—I met several women Aunt Sandy refers to as the Sisterhood of the Seashell Shop. Teresa, Elsa, Callie, Crystal . . . I can’t remember all the names, but most of them own shops up and down Hatteras Island.
    They are as close to my aunt as sisters, and as I watched them, I noted something. This is lacking in my own life. Over the years, I’ve gotten so busy with work and my kids’ activities that I’ve let friendships slide off the map. Other than Carol at work, there’s literally no one to talk to who gets it  . . . no one I’m close enough to that I’d admit the ragged truth, anyway.
    I find my mother in the kitchen, trying to make heads or tails of some sort of professional coffeemaker that has undoubtedly been brought home from the Seashell Shop.
    Mom looks like you might expect a former high school principal to look without her morning coffee.
    And Aunt Sandy is nowhere to be found. That, of course, is the first thing Mom complains about, after letting me know what she thinks of the fancy coffeemaker.
    I decipher the brewing machine because I am, after all, trained to save lives, and this is a life-or-death situation. We need coffee. Now. Or heads will roll.
    We perch on barstools on either side of the small island