16. Tilly #3
Both Dad and Grandbank are at the tailgate of Dad's truck looking at large white papers that are surely the plans of this "tasteful" development, as they like to tout.
Behind the two of them, past the last of the palmettos, two excavators sit down on their tracks with the buckets in the wet grass.
Somebody has run orange flagging tape tree to tree in a line that goes straight through the spot I used to sit.
"Well," Grandbank says. "There she is."
I get out of the Kia Sorento with a small overnight bag and pull the folder from the side pocket before I throw the bag on the wrought iron table beside the tree.
"You should have called sooner," Daddy says. "I'd have come to the airport and gotten you."
"I'm perfectly able to secure my own transportation."
"Tilly."
"I'm not being ugly. I'm telling you I didn't want a ride." I look past him at the tape. "Can we walk it?"
He looks at Grandbank. Then Grandbank looks at me.
"Let's walk it," Grandbank says.
We arrive at the point, and it requires much more time than it used to, as Grandbank moves slower now but refuses to admit he needs the golf cart to go the distance. All three of us go at his pace with our hands in our pockets, pretending it's the pace we wanted.
At the bank I crouch and put my hand flat down in the pluff mud, which is something I have done at this exact spot my whole life. The two of them watch me do it without saying anything.
Then I stand up, and open the file I've prepared.
I don't lead with Mama. I don't lead with the fiddler crabs or the birds working the flats or being nine years old out here in my life jacket.
Those are the cards they're braced for, and every single one of them proves I'm the sentimental one, the one who feels too much and doesn't consider the "important" business aspect.
I lead with the numbers.
I show them my stakes from October and where the bank sits against them now. I show them the fetch, the whole open run of the Stono, where the wind comes down, and what that does to an unarmored bank in a northeaster.
I show them a photograph of the first line Jo and I laid in Barataria back in the fall and a photograph of that same seam of marsh taken six days ago, holding.
Erosion is not a death sentence, I keep stressing.
I feel like I’m a broken record, but they fucking need to listen.
I tell them hardening that shoreline to put houses behind it forecloses the fix permanently and speeds up what's already happening to the ground next door, which happens to be ground they still work.
Neither of them interrupts me one time, which has never happened to me before in my life. When I'm done, my father rubs the back of his neck and looks out at the water for a while.
"Baby," he says. "The permits are approved, and we are ready to start prep work next week."
"I know."
"There's a man with a crew and equipment out there sitting on his hands, costing me money by the day."
"I know that too."
"Then what is it you're asking me for?"
That's the question I flew here for, and I've had the answer written on the inside of my skull since Monday night.
"I'm asking you to give me twelve weeks.
Nothing gets cleared for twelve weeks, which is enough time for a real erosion survey by a licensed surveyor, not my notebooks.
I'll put a written case in your hands with the easement numbers in it.
If it doesn't hold up, I'll get out of the way. I’ll never say another word about it. "
"And if we say no?"
"Then you say no." I close the folder. "And I'll be here at Easter anyway, eating deviled eggs from EarthFare by myself."
Grandbank makes a sound that isn't a laugh, but sort of sounds like one.
He walks out past me to the edge where the bank is worst and stands there with his hands behind his back, an old man on ground he has been standing on since before my father was born. Neither of us speaks for long enough that I have to lock my knees.
"Twelve weeks," he says to the water.
"Daddy," my father says.
"She asked for a date and a number, and she brought paper. That's more than the last three consultants managed between them." He turns around. "There's no reason we can't take a pause, Granger. That dirt isn't going anywhere in three months that it hasn't been going for forty years."
My father looks at me for a second, and I watch him as he realizes this isn't his decision. There are benefits to sitting in the mud with my grandfather all those years, listening to him talk about this space. He's giving me deference over my father for once, and none of us know how to handle it.
"Fine," he says. And then he ruins it. "If it'll settle you down, we'll hold it."
There it is. He isn't agreeing because I'm right. He's not pushing back because I'm upset, and a "settled" Tilly is better than the fear of what I might do if they don't let me think I have a chance.
I take it anyway. I take it because twelve weeks is twelve weeks, and because on the walk back up the path, Grandbank puts his hand on my shoulder and leaves it there for the rest of the walk up.
I fly back Friday night. Nobody has changed their mind about the land, and nobody has changed their mind about me. What I've got is a clock.
Twelve weeks. I can do a great deal with twelve weeks.