Osprey Island

Eight

THE MECHANICS OF FLIGHT

To fly

Is to come toward

And

To go away from

—WILLIAM MOSLEY LANDIS, self-appointed poet laureate of Osprey Island, “The Osprey”

THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR of Suzy and Mia’s room after dinner that evening, and Suzy leapt to answer it. If she was disappointed to discover that it was not Roddy, her surprise at seeing her father in the doorway certainly masked any other emotion. Suzy started, then regained herself and put up a hand to shush Bud as she slipped into the hall with him and took pains to close the door quietly behind her. “Mia’s finally asleep,” she explained.

Bud nodded. His eyes were trained down. He looked almost humble, and humility was not something to which Suzy was even remotely accustomed in her father. “I’ve got to ask you . . .” he began, then fixed his eyes on her and spoke quickly, with urgent purpose. “I need you to take over for Lorna. I’ll try to find someone, but until then . . .” He stared, waiting for a one-word answer he might snatch from her like a relay baton.

“You want—?” Suzy screwed up her face. This was something she sensed she didn’t want to hear.

“You’re the only one who knows the Lodge. How things work. I’ll pay you, of course.”

Suzy’s lips pursed defiantly. “This is your way of asking ?”

Bud regarded his daughter blankly.

“Would please be so difficult?”

She exhausted him. Bud made a gesture as if to say, I concede to you, take anything you want from me, take everything, take it all! If “please” is what you require, then I give you “please.” He never said the word aloud.

“Fine,” Suzy said. “Fine. Whatever. Until you find someone.”

Bud sighed, eyes closed, shaking his head. “It’s going to be a hell of a time.”

“Yeah, well, for all of us.”

Bud nodded. He turned to go.

“You’re welcome,” Suzy called after him, the way she did with her first-graders.

He turned back around mid-stride, gave a cursory half nod, and continued down the hall.

Bud called a staff meeting in the dining room that evening. Nancy was back up at the house, still sleeping off the tranquilizers Doc Zobeck had pumped her full of that morning. The Lodge felt as it had the day they’d gotten word of Chas’s death in Vietnam. It had been Doc Zobeck back then too who’d given Nancy her fill of Valium, just to get her past the screaming, past the part when they were afraid she’d truly lose her mind. Bud hadn’t known what to do with himself that terrible day. He was the owner of a large hotel, always a thousand things to do. Except that day, when he couldn’t think of one. He was of no comfort to his wife, who howled like a dully stabbed beast; he could not even conceive of going to his daughter, who was sixteen and terrified him for that reason alone. Bud’s memory had blurred and distorted that time just after Chas’s death. Nothing had felt real. And it was dangerous, Bud knew, what a person might do if what was real didn’t feel real. Some time down the road, what was real would come back, and when it did the chances were good that it’d slam him so hard he wouldn’t have a choice but to feel the pain.

What Bud felt now wasn’t pain; it was more gnawing ache. There was fear, and along with it an uncomfortable lurking sense of being swindled. All these years finally culminating in Lorna’s greatest revenge. But revenge for what? Hadn’t he been good to Lorna and Lance? Hadn’t he kept them on at the hotel years after any normal person would have fired them for being drunks and freeloaders and not one ounce of help at all? Hadn’t he spent years defending that charity to his wife? Bud had long felt a certain responsibility for Lorna, and he’d taken care of them all those years, and what was her final thank-you? To load herself up and pass out and nearly burn the whole place down? It was a move that would surely hurt him, if not close the whole goddamn place down before the end of the season if he wasn’t careful. Bud had no choice but to be extraordinarily careful.

The staff was gathering in the dining room, in chairs and on the floor. Already the alliances were forming, the summer romances, hands grazing the backs of necks, the ever-insistent touch: I am here. Bud had seen it so many times before, those summer loves, so few of which would last, so few of which would make it as far as Labor Day, most of which were nothing more than summer sex. But it kept the staff happy, their furtive trysting in the bushes, and that’s what Bud was about, wasn’t it? Keeping everybody happy? His life, his livelihood—ironic as it may have been—was about keeping people happy. And keeping people happy, Bud had learned, was about keeping them from seeing what they didn’t want to see. They came for a vacation: a dream, a refuge, an escape. And if it didn’t turn out quite exactly as edenic and impervious as they’d dreamed, they didn’t want to know. Death is everywhere, they might concede, but for god’s sake, don’t point it out on the sightseeing tour!

Bud addressed his staff: “Thank you all for coming down this evening. ” Bloodshot eyes fixed him with spongy stares. “It’s been a difficult day,” he said, “a very, very difficult day for us all.

“This hotel—this island—will not be the same without Lorna Squire, and we need to support each other and Lorna’s family during this time. We have a big season coming up, and it’ll probably do us more good than we know to put a face on and face the guests. Help us get through our own grief . . .” He looked around at his audience. The Irish girls all looked the same to him, every summer. In the far corner stood Roddy Jacobs. Leaning in an archway near Roddy, Suzy was staring Bud down, her face critical, waiting to hear what he would say, waiting, as usual, to hear what he would say wrong. And in her view, Bud knew, that would be everything.

“I know,” Bud went on, “that no one here’s much in a holiday spirit right now. Lots of sadness.” He fumbled for a lead-in. “But our guests are going to be here on vacation, they’re coming to enjoy themselves. Fourth of July weekend we’re booked full. It’s important for our guests to enjoy themselves, and it’s also important that we set a tone for the rest of the season to come. Show our guests what kind of an establishment we run here, and send them home with great memories to tell their friends about the Lodge at Osprey Island.” This part of Bud’s speech was canned. He’d given it so many times. “Fourth of July weekend is important for us: we do well on opening weekend, we do well for the season.” Bud paused. He looked around. “Already . . .” He didn’t know how to go on. “Already this . . . accident . . . is going to make things difficult for us here, as a business. We’ve got a lot to overcome.” He spoke quickly now. He spoke to the floor. “In proper honor, of Mrs. Squire, we’ll cancel our Fourth of July celebration— bus the guests over to Wickham Beach for the fireworks there. For those of us who knew Lorna, this will not be a time for celebration. But our guests, they didn’t know Mrs. Squire. This is their vacation, and they don’t want our worries laid on top of what they already got. Not while they’re on vacation.”

Bud was in business mode: The maintenance shop off the rear parking lot would become the new home of the laundry facilities— equipment would be arriving the next day; he’d made the necessary arrangements with great speed and efficiency—and a new maintenance building would go up on the site of the old laundry shed. A demolition crew would begin in the morning, construction immediately following, and everything would be finished—We’ll cross our fingers, Bud said—in the next week and a half before the guests started showing up.

One of the Irish girls raised her palm in the air like a schoolchild. Bud looked at her uncertainly. She took his stare as a sign to speak.

“What should we do when people—guests—when they ask about it?” Her voice was riding as though she might quake and dissolve into tears. “What should we tell them?” She was whining now. “What exactly should we say?” She slumped back then, deflated.

“Well,” Bud began, “I think we say as little as possible. I think if anyone asks, you send them to me so I can tell them what’s going on and we don’t have to get into a game of telephone, with wrong stories, exaggerating . . .”

“What do you mean?” someone asked.

“I mean,” Bud said sternly, “anything other than the plain truth: there was a fire in the laundry room late last night, a fire started by a cigarette when Lorna Squire, our head housekeeper, was smoking and fell asleep. The laundry burned down. Lorna died in the fire. That’s the real story. That’s the story I will tell our guests if they ask.” He was almost pleased by it, pleased at how a story like that could work like a campaign: Don’t Smoke in Bed. “And please,” he added, “please just don’t be discussing all this—these events—around the Lodge, around the guests. Of course, they’ll find out. I’m sure we couldn’t keep that from happening. But we can keep it simple. Keep things clean. Keep it from bothering them the way it’ll be bothering us.”

From the archway, Suzy piped up, acting as though Bud himself had finally succeeded in doing Lorna in after all these years. “Don’t you think it might be a little more honest, Dad, a little more up-front, if we just came out and told them? Made up a letter, one for each room, just letting people know what happened. Explaining how sad we are, explaining there won’t be fireworks here at the Lodge, just to let them know . . .”

“No,” Bud said, “no, I don’t think that’s best. The more we play this thing down, the—”

“Someone is dead! You think we should play that down?”

“I do not think we need to point our fingers at it,” he said briskly.

Suzy was gearing up for a fight. Bud looked as if he might try to send her to her room.

“I think that’s a serious mistake on your part, Dad. I think you’re making a grave error in judgment.”

Bud was in no mood. “Well, when you own a hotel”—and he did not say “this hotel,” did not concede even that much—“when you own your own hotel, you can do things however the hell you want . . . But seeing as I’ve got just a few years’ more experience, this is my decision to make.”

In the dining room the staff squirmed. Bud and Suzy glared, each daring the other to speak. Suzy broke off first—turned in the doorway and strode from the room as though in undisputed possession of the upper hand. She never failed to leave her father boiling.

When the meeting adjourned, the staff retreated to the porch, and Morey’s, and the barracks. Bud was talking to Roddy Jacobs when Suzy reentered the dining room. She came at Bud like she meant to strangle him. Roddy stepped clear for her to do just that, if she so intended. He had his own hands behind his back to keep himself from reaching out and strangling Bud of his own accord. Bud stepped back, cornered.

“I think you’re wrong, Dad. I think you’re making a really bad call here,” Suzy said.

“Oh, really?” Bud countered. “You sure didn’t make that clear.”

“I shouldn’t have . . .” Suzy conceded: if there was anything she had learned in childhood it was that conflicts took place out of the public eye—or, preferably, not at all. Bud did not like to be questioned; when Suzy learned to ask why, she had ceased to be someone he could relate to, or even tolerate.

Suzy plowed on. “I really think you absolutely need to let the guests know ahead of time what’s gone on here. I can’t even believe Mom isn’t insisting on that already—”

He cut her off: “Your mother and I made this decision together.”

“Oh, now that’s just bullshit! Don’t even try to . . . Mom’s been knocked out all day. Don’t treat me . . . Jesus!” She stuck one hand on her hip, pushed the other through her hair and held it back from her eyes as she peered at him, lifting that final curtain of illusion about just what sort of man her father might be. She let the hair fall. The hand went to her other hip. “You have to tell them. You’d be an idiot not to tell them. If you tell them—a simple, discreet note in each of the rooms—then you present it to them exactly the way you want, exactly the way you want them to hear it. You have control over the information then.” It was like explaining combat theory to a wary recruit. “If you leave it ambiguous”—she said this as though her father might not know the word: am-big-u-ous—“then you’re chancing what they find out, how they find out—you’re risking all the rumor that might find its way in along the way. I can’t even fathom why you’d take a chance like that.”

It was entirely the wrong tactic. “I think, Suzy, there are a lot of things about this situation that you don’t fathom at all.”

“Oh, don’t give me that shit when—”

“That’s it, right now. I don’t want to hear any more. This conversation is over.”

Bud stood for a moment, staring down his daughter, then turned to Roddy, a few feet off, as though it were Roddy he’d just been chatting with all the while, and said, “I’ll be up at the house with my wife if anyone needs me,” and then he turned and walked away.

Roddy and Suzy just stood there in Bud’s wake, waiting for him to clear the threshold, for the slam of the kitchen door marking his exit. They stood a moment longer as the room settled, and looked around as though remembering the shape of the place, the smell of sea air and furniture polish.

Suzy let out a breath. “I need a drink.”

Roddy laughed before he could catch himself, before he thought to wonder if it was OK to laugh. Suzy stared, disbelieving, her mouth open slightly. “Should I make you one too, or are you just going to stand there mocking me?”

“Oh,” said Roddy. “I got it.” He went toward the bar as if to beat her to it. “What do you want? What can I make you?”

She flung up her hands.

“OK,” he said slowly. “Anything you’re particularly in the mood for?”

“Jesus!” She laughed. “Just hand me a bottle.”

And he was able to laugh too. He grabbed a bottle. Lorna was dead. Bud was an asshole. And Roddy Jacobs and Suzy Chizek were about to share a bottle of Maker’s Mark in the dining room of the Lodge at Osprey Island.

“Did you want some peanuts or anything?” he asked.

She gaped. “You are really one of the oddest people I think I have ever met.” His expression sank. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s OK. Not like I haven’t heard that before.” He came toward the table she’d chosen, the bottle of Maker’s under his arm and a glass in either hand. He went to pour, and his grip was visibly shaky. Suzy laughed again. “You need a drink more than I do.”

“You’re right.”

She took the bottle, poured both glasses, passed one to him, and they drank. The large room was strangely still: a fleet of empty tables, a few sconces glowing dimly along the far wall. Outside, through the panoramic sliding glass doors, the lights across the bay in Menhadenport were beginning to go on as the sky pitched from blue to black. Suzy took a sip from her glass, then set the drink down decisively. “You kissed me this morning.”

Roddy sucked his lips. He was nodding continuously, almost rocking. “I guess I did.”

She waited for more. They drank.

“Is that . . .”—she pawed for words—“is it something I should be on the lookout for . . . something I should be warned you might do again?”

He rocked. He didn’t answer.

She sent a quick push of air through her nostrils. A minute passed. “What exactly are we doing here?” she said.

“Having a drink.”

“Why?”

He waited. “Because you said you wanted one . . . ?”

“Why’d you stay away so long?” she asked him suddenly.

He bristled. “I don’t really want to talk about that, OK?”

She felt a little cowed and covered it with brassiness. “Why’d you come back, then?”

He looked at her. “It’s home . . .”

“Not my home,” Suzy said.

“You can say that.”

“You don’t know me,” she said, her tone meaner than she’d intended.

“You’re right.” He stood up. “I don’t.” He pushed in his chair. “Sorry to bother you.” He turned away.

“Wait,” Suzy said. “Wait!” Her voice got louder. “Please . . .”

Roddy stopped and faced her again. “What?” It came out sounding like, What more do you want from me?

“Come back.” Her voice was gentle, but awkward. “Stay. It’s not the kind of night to be alone.”

Roddy snorted a laugh. “You mean, you don’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t,” she agreed.

He nodded once. “Yeah. I’m not some guy to fill in the time for you. Sorry.” He turned again and went out the sliding door.

Suzy stared for a minute. Then she got up and went after him.

Suzy found Roddy sitting in his truck in the north parking lot. The keys were in the ignition, but he hadn’t turned the engine over, was just sitting there, hand at the starter, one leg bouncing like crazy, his body hunched forward as if he were driving in a snowstorm, struggling to see the road ahead. The windows were open. Suzy knocked on the passenger door, then opened it and climbed in. “What the hell is going on?”

His leg stopped for a few seconds as he paused to look at her, then resumed as he spoke. “OK, let’s not even do this.” He tried to hurry the words out of himself and will them far away. “No one kissed anyone, OK? I can’t be thinking about that, all right? Lorna’s dead. We’ve got to build the new laundry. Guests might as well start arriving in ten minutes for how ready we’ll be. I don’t know what the fuck’s going to happen to Squee. To fucking Lance. The poor pathetic bastard. What the fuck is going to happen to Lance?” Roddy’s voice was breaking.

Suzy stared down at her hands in her lap. She said, “I don’t know.” Then she lifted her head, unclasped her hands, and turned on the seat to face Roddy, who was still staring straight ahead, navigating that imaginary dark and winding road.

She slid over, took his head in both her hands, turned his face to hers and kissed his mouth. She pulled back, looked in his eyes, then did it again.

He pulled away. “We’re in the parking lot . . .”

Suzy’s hands slumped to her lap. “I’m sorry.” She reached for the door. “Good night.”

Roddy sat alone in the truck for a long minute before he turned the keys in the ignition and drove home.

On the porch of the Lodge, the staff members were drinking as usual. Suzy nodded as she passed, a sad, acknowledging smile. Jeremy raised a hand. He was sitting on the deck, close with Peg, their backs propped against a pillar. Suzy lifted her hand to return the greeting, but it was Peg who spoke. “It’s true, is it, that you’re taking over for Lorna, then, Miss Chizek? As the head of housekeeping?”

“Suzy, please. Please: Suzy,” she said. Then, “Looks like it. At least until we find someone else.” She shifted her weight. “I feel bad for you guys,” she said. “I’m no housekeeper . . .”

Peg laughed a little. They were all self-conscious: Was it ruthlessly inappropriate to smile when someone was dead? Peg glanced around, noticing Suzy was alone. “Mia?” Peg said. “How’s she been holding up, then?”

“She’s OK, I think. She seems OK. I’m not sure how she’s supposed to be dealing, really. She’s sleeping upstairs.” Suzy gestured in the direction of the Lodge above them.

Peg was extraordinarily poised and efficient. Even lounging on her boyfriend, she held herself in good posture, straightening even taller as she spoke. “Please,” she said to Suzy, “if you’re ever in need of someone to mind her, I’d be pleased to. She’s a lovely girl.”

“That’s very sweet of you.” Suzy was used to such offers at the Lodge. She pushed it aside in her mind. Babysitters weren’t particularly necessary when you had your mother living up the hill. Except perhaps if that mother was temporarily, incapacitatingly drugged up and knocked out. Or when you didn’t much feel like explaining to your mother, as was often required, where it was you thought you were going at such an hour and when exactly you expected to be home. “Actually,” Suzy said, taking a step closer to Peg and Jeremy. “Actually, were you planning on hanging out here awhile tonight?”

Peg looked to Jeremy, who met her glance. They turned back to Suzy simultaneously, faces wide and blank, heads wagging, yeah, no, no plans, why?

“Mia’s asleep,” Suzy said. “Chances are she’ll stay that way. I could really stand to get out for a few hours. Just to clear my head a little.”

Peg was already waving her off. “Yeah, grand, go on. We’ll look in on her.”

“That’d be great,” Suzy said. “Thanks.” She was already moving back toward the parking lot.

Peg settled back into the crook of Jeremy’s arm. She watched Suzy go. “I’d be unable to do that myself, I imagine.”

“Do what?” Jeremy nuzzled her hair.

“Go off and leave my child at such a . . . time, you know? I imagine I’d be unwilling to separate altogether.” Peg’s voice held a certain disdain.

“I guess,” Jeremy said. He cuddled her closer.

Suzy took a Lodge truck. She parked in Eden Jacobs’s driveway, then took the path out back and knocked on the door of Roddy’s shed.

Roddy’s voice said, “It’s not locked,” as though he knew who it was. She pulled open the door but didn’t enter. He sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing his work pants and boots, the dirty pale blue T-shirt he’d been wearing since the night before. She stood in the doorway: “Can I come in?”

He said nothing immediately, but sat surveying her in a way that might have been insulting—this moment at which he seemed to be deciding something, thoughts flying through his head like numbers across a stock ticker as he tried to sort them, each idea in its place somewhere inside his flashing cortex. He was plotting the route they’d take once she stepped across that threshold, and Suzy could almost tell when he’d mapped it, because his face cleared and edged over into resolve. He took a breath, a swimmer ready to plunge, and said, “OK.”

Suzy stepped in and pulled the door behind her, then hovered above him in the close confines, the bare walls of unfinished wood, the smoky air.

“It’s not a very comfortable bed,” he told her.

“That’s OK,” she said. “I didn’t really come to sleep.”

He smiled, slightly, then pushed himself up. “Why don’t you sit down?”

She took his place on the cot, which was firmer than it looked; he’d laid a board between the mattress and the springs. He stood above her a moment, then knelt before her and parted her knees, edging himself between them. He watched her, his eyes over her clothes as if he was planning the order of their removal. His fingers were shaking, his breath infrequent, as if he had to remind himself: Breathe. He grabbed on to her T-shirt with both hands and pulled it straight up, inside-out, over her head, then brought the shirt to his face and inhaled before dropping it to the floor. He reached around her then to unhook her bra. It took a minute, but he got it, let the straps fall forward and slide from her arms. She watched his face while he held her breasts, closing his eyes again, memorizing the feel of them. She reached out and pulled his T-shirt off him then and dropped it to the bed beside her. The tan on his arms and neck stopped at the edges of where the shirt had been; his torso was pale and oddly hairless. Suzy reached out a hand, let her fingers graze his skin. He jumped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “No,” he said. “No.” He drew his breath. She lifted her hand slowly. When her skin touched his he shuddered again but held his ground, eyes closed. She kept her hand on him, flattened her palm to his stomach.

She traced her finger over a broad scar that spread across his side and disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants. “Where’s this from?”

“War wound,” he said, then stood abruptly, slipped out of his jeans, and rounded the bed. He raised the cover like a wing and beckoned her beneath it. She pulled off her shorts and slid in, and he curled her body into his. He held her too tightly, but that seemed right somehow.

THE GUEST ROOM AT Art and Penny Vaughn’s was Lorna’s old bedroom, which Penny had never been able to bring herself to redo. It hadn’t actually seemed all that ludicrous a notion that Lorna might return to it one day, that she might need a place to run to. But she’d never run.

The day after Lorna’s death, while Art sobbed to himself in the other room, Penny took a box of Hefty bags and a stack of cardboard boxes from the IGA into her daughter’s bedroom and did what she should have done twenty years before. She went through, removing photographs from the vanity mirror, stuffed animals from the bed and shelves. She folded and packed up the clothes of a seventeen-year-old girl to bring to the secondhand shop off-island, moth holes notwithstanding. Books she boxed for the library. The curtains Squee would have to live with, but she stripped the bed and remade it with plain white sheets and Art’s old army blankets for a more masculine feel. It was as though, for that day, Penny Vaughn had decided to adopt a different life as her own. She was preparing for a visit from her beloved grandson—not eradicating Lorna, just welcoming Squee.

If Penny thought it strange that Squee uttered not a single word as she ushered him through the house and the rituals of bedtime, both of which were somewhat alien to him, she said nothing of it. She tucked him to bed without much flutter, as she’d tucked Lorna in for the better part of seventeen years, closed the door, and went across the hall to join poor Art in his heartbroken slumber.

Ten minutes later, Squee had his shorts and sneakers back on and was out the window and on his way back up the hill toward Eden’s.

GIVEN AN OPTION, it’s not likely that either Suzy or Roddy would have chosen sex on a camp cot. But sometimes such constraints render certain couplings more urgent. Roddy and Suzy were restricted by space, by time, and by circumstance, and driven by a desire that felt like necessity. It made such sense, and felt, for both of them, so good that they found themselves surprised, laughing afterward at how their bodies were like dogs, that they were the owners watching their puppies gallop and play. They sure seem to like each other, don’t they? Yeah, they sure do.

And then the world came back to them, and they remembered in earnest the things that had led them to the place they were in.

“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” Roddy asked.

“What do you mean?” Suzy balked.

“I guess I start clearing . . . debris . . .” He said it as if it were an unfamiliar word, difficult to speak. “Make way for that new-and-improved laundry!”

Suzy said, “Please don’t hate me because my father’s such a . . .”

Roddy propped himself on an elbow, touched her hair. “That hasn’t ever been much of a problem,” he said, laughing a little.

She craned up and kissed him, ran her hand across his chest, down his side. “Really, how’d you get this scar?” She traced her fingertips over its surface again. “It’s a nasty one, huh?”

“Yup,” Roddy said. He pulled the sheet up to cover himself, bent in to kiss her.

She pulled away. “Not your favorite thing in the world to discuss, huh?”

“No.” He paused, then relented. “I was working out West at a sawmill for a while . . . You don’t really want the details.”

“OK,” she said, though it was clearly not.

The air outside was awhirl with early-summer crickets. “What’s your tomorrow like?” he asked.

“I could check my appointment book.”

“That was a joke, right?”

“Yeah.” She lay back down, ran both hands through her hair and held it by the ends away from her head as if to yank it from the scalp. “Jesus, I guess depending on Mia, how she is, I guess I take on my new and illustrious position as head housekeeper! I guess I might get called on to help plan a funeral.”

Roddy closed his eyes, shook his head back and forth.

“I should get back,” she admitted.

“Yeah.”

“I’d rather stay . . .”

Roddy nodded. “Your bed back at the Lodge’ll give you a hell of a better night’s sleep than here.”

“A little lonely, though . . .”

Roddy went back to shaking his head. “Oh boy,” he said. “Oh boy, am I in for it now . . .”

Suzy grinned mischievously. “And why’s that?”

Roddy’s head just wagged back and forth.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Suzy asked.

“I’m sure you will,” he answered.

Suzy quietly shut the door to Roddy’s cabin and started up the path toward her truck. She was just passing Eden’s house when something moved on the porch. Suzy yelped. She backed away, peering into the shaded darkness. In seconds, the shed door slammed and Roddy was rushing toward her, the bedsheet clutched around his waist.

“What happened? Are you OK?”

She nodded, gestured to the porch. “There’s something on the porch. It’s probably just a raccoon.”

A light went on inside the house. Roddy grabbed a log from Eden’s woodpile. There was shuffling from the house, a series of lights flicking on inside as Eden made her way to the back door. She pushed open the screen and flipped on the porch light to reveal Squee crouched beside the rocker like a criminal caught in the searchlight, head darting, trying to decide which way to flee.

The porch light also brought to Eden’s attention her son, a log raised over his head, his other hand gripping a sheet around his otherwise naked body. And Suzy Chizek, standing on the path between the house and the driveway, looking as if she didn’t know which way to run.

“Jesus Christ, Squee!” Roddy dropped his log to the ground. “What the hell?” He clutched the sheet tightly.

“I’m not staying at Grandma and Grandpa Vaughn’s. I don’t care what you do to me, I’m not staying there.” Squee remained squatting in the shadows by the outdoor sofa’s armrest.

“For goodness sakes,” said Eden. She opened the screen door again and held it ajar. “Come on inside. We’ll give Penny a call, let her know where you are.” Squee scuttled up, his eyes on Roddy the whole time, lest he pick up the log again and lunge.

Roddy and Suzy turned to each other and began to speak at the same time.

“You OK?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she was saying.

“Go on. Go back to Mia.”

“OK.”

“Get some sleep,” he said.

“Yeah, OK.” She backed away a few steps, then turned and walked briskly toward the truck.

Roddy watched her drive away, then went down to his shack to put on some clothes.

“Toga party’s over?” Eden said, smirking, as Roddy came to the back door. Squee was at the kitchen table eating graham crackers with milk, and Roddy shot Eden a look through the screen.

“You get ahold of Penny?” Roddy asked. Eden nodded. Then, with a mustering of will that perhaps only Eden could have perceived, Roddy pulled open the door and stepped into Eden’s home. He went and stood behind Squee, put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and gave him a playful and affectionate shake. Squee’s body went slack under Roddy’s hands. Roddy dropped to his knees at the boy’s side. “What happened?” He searched Squee’s face for signs of distress. “You OK? Are you OK?”

Squee had straightened up quickly.

“Something happen at your grandma and grandpa’s?” Roddy asked. “How come you ran off like that? What’d you do, go out a damn window? Jeez. Squee . . . you’d’ve scared your grandma half to death. What’d you go and do that for?”

Squee could be as evasive as Eden. “I like it here,” he said.

“And we’re very glad to have you,” Eden jumped in. “But that doesn’t make it OK to go running out on your grandparents like some sort of . . . runaway.”

Squee stood up suddenly and stepped away from the table as if he might make a dash for it. Eden pretended to notice nothing. “You finished with these?” she asked him, her hands near his glass and plate.

Squee nodded, disarmed. “Are you going to make me go back?”

“Of course not,” Eden said. “You’ve disrupted everyone’s rest enough tonight already. You’ll stay here and we’ll handle all this in the morning.”

Squee looked to Roddy. “Can I stay with you?”

Practically before the question was out of Squee’s mouth, the “No” was out of Roddy’s.

Eden laughed. “You’ll stay up here in Roddy’s old room. In Roddy’s bed from when he was your age.”

Squee was clearly disappointed.

“Yeah,” Roddy agreed. “There’s more room for you up here.” And with that he seemed to take full stock of the fact that he was inside Eden’s house, which really wasn’t someplace he liked to be. He turned to his mother: “You got everything under control up here?”

Eden tried not to crack a smile. “I think we’re fine,” she managed to say.

“Where are you going?” Squee blurted, then looked embarrassed.

“Just back down to my place.”

“Can I come?” Squee asked.

Roddy winced inwardly, struck dumb for a moment until Eden jumped in: “Oh, so you don’t want to stay with me either?” She sniffed dramatically.

“I’ll see you in the morning, OK partner?” Roddy said.

Squee nodded but did not meet Roddy’s eyes. Roddy reached out and tousled the kid’s hair. He made a quick exit through the back door.

“Let’s get you to sleep, OK?” Eden said to Squee. He followed her obediently down the hall.

MOREY OPENED HIS BAR to the mourners that night, gave them a place to gather and grieve, locked off the pool table, unplugged the juke, though the muted TV was on as always. Morey tended bar himself since Merle Squire was at home with Lance. There wasn’t a big crowd, just a few tables of people talking more quietly than usual, drinking harder alcohol, drinking it more slowly. They all went home early. Last to depart, at half past twelve, were Brigid and Gavin, who purchased a fifth of whiskey from Morey, under the table, before they left.

They crossed the footbridge over Fisherman’s Cove, then stepped off into the sand and made their way slowly along the beach, feet dragging, circling back and around each other. They were just passing the Lodge dock when Gavin looked up the hill then turned back to Brigid and said, “Would you want to camp, maybe, on the beach tonight?”

“Would I want to . . . if what?” Brigid asked.

“Um . . . if I asked you if you wanted to?”

Brigid mulled this over. “Fucking in the sand . . . it’s terribly gritty, don’t you think?”

Gavin stopped. “Could you preserve just an ounce of mystery here? Just like one little element of the romance of it or something? Would that be so hard?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Brigid laughed. She was in a position with him now that she liked—at least, one she felt she understood. He was not half as menacing when she could see where he stood, anticipate where he was heading. He was a romantic after all, not so rakish as she’d imagined.

Gavin raised his hands as if addressing gods in heaven. “I can’t win,” he said. “What have I done to deserve this woman? What have I done wrong?”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Brigid cooed.

“I ask the lady to camp out on the beach with me—such a nice gesture!—something I think she’s wanting me to do, and what does she do? She makes fun of me! Incredible!” Gavin’s drunkenness was becoming apparent. “What’s a man to do, I ask?”

“Such melodrama!” Brigid goaded.

“I can’t win!” he cried again, and with that he sank to his knees in the sand, then rolled so he was lying down, looking up into the sky.

Brigid came over and towered above him. “Think you’ll recover, then?” she asked, peering down.

Suddenly, Gavin grabbed her by the knees and toppled her into the sand. She yelped, laughing, squealing like a girl, wrestling him in a kicked-up flurry of sand. He pinned her easily, sat straddled atop her, poised. Then he leaned down, still pinning her shoulders to the sand, and kissed her, much as he had the previous evening, only this time he let her kiss back. The sand beneath them was cool, and cooler still as they wriggled down into it, damp and prickly and forgiving, and they rolled around for quite a while until they were forced to pull their clothes back onto their bodies and trudge up the hill to find a damn condom. Except that when they got up to the barracks they found Jeremy and Peg each asleep in their separate rooms, and while they tried to figure out someplace else to go, Gavin managed to sober up enough in the eerie hallway bug light to say, “You know, maybe we should chill out a little, slow down, get some sleep.” And before Brigid could catch her balance enough to protest, he was hugging her limply good night and heading back to his own room, which left Brigid feeling more frustrated then ever.