Ft. De Soto beach never failed to take Dan’s breath away. It was so beautiful, it almost didn’t seem real. The sugar-white sand, the endless aqua water gently rolling, the sand dunes—they all conspired to create a kind of tropical magic. And it wasn’t simply the view that had an effect; the combination of all of the above was also like a balm on the soul—calming.
Today, the beach was nearly empty. At one end, a family had spread out, the mother on a beach chair under an umbrella, reading a novel, while the dad frolicked in the water with his two kids—a little towheaded boy who made him think of what Mark must have looked like as a child, and a little girl, younger, who had her mother’s curly, red hair. Along the shoreline two middle-aged women waded, in loose-fitting linen tops, shorts, a
