Tammy came out from underneath a cove of boards that she and Ozzie had built from Hal’s old cabin. They pushed and shoved them around where his porch formerly stood just before Tammy had given birth two months earlier. She walked over and stood next to Ozzie and watched the little torpedos squirm around, snorting, sniffing and smelling everything in sight. Everything new and wondrous to them.

“Where’re my grand babies?” Isabella called from beside the stream.

Rusty looked up and started running toward her. The others took off, racing as well, and passed him. Rusty came to a log lying down in his path, one that the others had magically hurdled over, but seemingly impossible for him.

“Wa, wa!” Rusty squeaked and squealed.

“Rusty, grow up!” Ozzie said, looking at him firmly.

Tammy walked to Rusty and glanced back at Ozzie, shaking her head. She put her snout under his rump and lifted him up. He ran sideways toward the stream and soaked up his grandmother’s love.

***

The children raced out of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church as the Easter egg hunt was about to begin. “Not this year for you, little one,” Angelica said as she tickled her three-month-old son’s nose. “But you girls run along and have some fun,” she said to Rose’s daughters.

The girls ran off in the matching Easter dresses Angelica had hand sewn for them on her grandmother’s Singer sewing machine. Bright yellow dresses with shoulder straps, hemmed on the bottom in six inches of pink fabric with red flowers. Angelica had put a pink ribbon in their hair that flapped now as they streamed toward the eggs.

“They’re so beautiful,” Rose said to Angelica as she walked out of the church and soaked up the midday sun with John. “I just wish they’d never outgrow them.”

Angelica laughed. “Well, I want to see this little munchkin grow up,” she said. Rose smiled as Angelica looked down to her newborn son.

“I just love the name Clayton,” Rose said. “Surprising you never hear that name up here. I don’t know anyone up here named Clayton.”

“Well, now you do,” Angelica said as she leaned down and put her face right in front of her son’s.

Rose nodded as her eyes fixed on a tearful, middle-aged couple, dressed in black and kneeling to place flowers in the creek. “Who is that?” Rose asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dixon,” Angelica said. “They live down on Earls Ford Road. Shane was their son.”

Rose thought for a moment. “Oh God, you mean the remains of that boy that washed up, that head that—.” Rose was unable to complete the sentence. The flood of memories overcame her. Her own near personal disaster, such a tragedy at the time that became eclipsed by the horrific losses that everyone suffered from Savannah up to Clayton and beyond. Everyone had a story of loss, a story of a hero who helped and saved. The grief was so great for everyone that they had to surrender and allow themselves to focus not on what they had lost, but what they had left. Rose stood beside Angelica and recognized for the first time that those catastrophic events had brought her closer to church and closer to Angelica.

Angelica stood and watched the kids scramble for eggs along Warwoman creek. Rose took her hand in hers. Angelica looked at her with a smile, which unleashed a flood of tears from Rose. She threw her arms around Angelica and hugged her as if she hadn’t seen her in many years.

“I’m so grateful to you for caring for the girls last fall while I was sick,” Rose cried. “I don’t know what they would have done without you.” Angelica pushed her sister back slightly so she could look into her eyes. “Don’t be silly! We’re just thrilled, so relieved that you’re okay. When we heard that a woman in your hospital in Miami had died of anthrax and we couldn’t reach you...that was the scariest moment of my life!”

Rose wiped her eyes and bowed her head. “I know,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that there were three of us in the same hospital who had all eaten at the same dinner. Oh God, it’s such a surreal, horrible memory.” Rose looked out at the girls running. She looked down at her nephew. “If that doctor on the island hadn’t had experience with anthrax in Spain and known what to do...,” Rose’s lip quivered. “I don’t know, Angelica, I know I wouldn’t be here.” Rose burst out crying.

Angelica thought back to the night of the storm, of staring out the kitchen window and seeing a vision of Rose. Of gingerly rubbing her beads and reciting a chant to heal Rose. A chant her grandmother had taught her that, somehow, she felt she had known for an eternity. She gave Rose a hug.

“Do you know he lost his sister to anthrax back in Spain?” Rose said. “That’s why he came to the island – to escape from the memory of her loss. But because of her death he was able to save me.”

Angelica smiled knowingly and ran her fingers threw Rose’s hair. “We can make some good memories now,” she said.

A hand landed on Angelica’s left shoulder along with a whisper in her ear. “Hi, hon.”

She turned around. “Hi, sweetie,” Angelica said to Blake. “Whatcha been doing in there?”

“Oh I wanted to talk to the pastor for a bit about the sermon. Just enjoying some fellowship,” he said.

Rose turned and smiled at Blake. She threw her arms around him. “I owe you a thank you, too, for being so good to the girls.” Blake stepped back and smiled, still uncomfortable with moments of affection.

“Happy Easter,” Rose said.

“You too,” Blake said with a warmer smile. “Now...let’s eat! What’s for Easter dinner?”

“Well,” Angelica said, “we all grew up eating Easter hams, but I decided to cook us a roast this year. I figure we’re all a little tired of ham.”

Rose nodded her head. “Amen, sis.”

***

Nick Vegas sat at the tapas bar in Barcelona. The mirror before him reflected the image of dozens of Jamón Ibérico hams suspended from the ceiling over the bar. He looked straight up, able to reach out and touch the symbols of his passion, the symbols of his demise. The bartender poured him another glass of cheap wine as Nick returned his eyes to the Sky News business broadcast on the screen. The Forbes magazine picture of Nick and his bulldog splashed on the screen as the British reporter read the story.

“American authorities are still searching for Nick Vegas, the restaurant chain owner who is wanted in connection with the deaths of seven people and the sickening of over one hundred last fall in the 50-Forks episode, as the anthrax event has come to be known.”

The bartender too was fixed on the screen and he turned to Nick. “Hey, you know I used to know that guy,” he said.

Nick looked at him closely. “Who? The reporter?”

“No, Nick Vegas.”

Nick took a hand and pulled his shoulder length blonde hair over his ears, giving himself a more scruffy appearance. It had been months since Nick had been clean-shaven or had worn neatly groomed black hair, but he still believed he looked like the man on the screen. As he fled the country, he managed to get a few hundred thousand dollars wired to his Spanish bank account, but within a week the Spanish authorities had agreed to cooperate with the U.S. and froze his assets. All to protect the reputation of their precious Jamón Ibérico, Nick assumed. Border authorities in the U.S. and Spain remained on the lookout for Nick, so with no place to run and no money to get there, Nick hid in the shadows.

“Is that so?” Nick said.

“Yeah. Spent a little time with him at The Culinary Institute of Spain. He headed to America and I ended up here.”

Nick stared at him through his dark sunglasses.

“He always said he’d go over there,” the bartender continued, “because over here he’d just be another good Spanish chef. Nothing special. But in America, he’d be one of a kind, so to speak. He said he’d make a lot more money because the market was so much bigger. He was always about the money.”