Salt Marsh Inheritance

The causeway stretched ahead like a promise Delia no longer trusted. Spartina grass blurred past on both sides, gold-green in the morning light, and beyond it the marsh lay flat and glittering, cut by channels she'd learned to read before she could write. She knew the high-water marks, the oyster beds, the places where the tide turned mud into mirror. She'd left this landscape thirty years ago for Atlanta's grid of predictable streets, and now it pulled at her with the same tidal inevitability that had governed her childhood.

She checked the mirror. Her face looked composed—good. She'd applied her makeup in the hotel bathroom at five a.m., the same neutral palette she wore to depositions. Foundation to even the skin. Mascara to open the eyes. A mouth that suggested competence without warmth. The black suit was Brooks Brothers, purchased for a senior partner's funeral two years ago and appropriate for this occasion as well. Evangeline would have approved of the suit. She would not have approved of Delia checking her phone at red lights between Savannah and Darien, but Evangeline wasn't here to disapprove of anything anymore.

Still no response from Rose.