Stone Cove Island (23 page)

“He was her best friend,” I said, repeating Mom’s words.

Bess nodded. “The hurricane really walloped the island, didn’t it? I was expecting things to be the same. It’s the kind of place where everything stays the same.”

“It was the same,” I said. “Until about a month ago.”

When we turned the corner onto our street, Bess paused. “I’m scared to see Nate,” she admitted. I didn’t
want to ask if she was scared to introduce him to Natalie or if she was scared about how she would feel when she saw him. I didn’t want to know. Natalie said nothing. She kept glancing around, squinting into the darkness, as though she’d lost something. Maybe she thought she was trapped in a dream, about to wake up. I wondered what could possibly be going through her mind.

Instead I just said, “It’ll be okay.”

WE FOUND MY DAD
heating up soup, alone in the kitchen. I entered first. Dad had spent so much time worrying about and taking care of my mother that without her he seemed a little adrift. I tiptoed in, bracing myself for the parental storm I knew I deserved, but instead my dad gave me an exhausted smile and a big hug.

“You didn’t really steal one of Hopper’s boats, did you?” He sighed.

“Where’d you hear that?” I hedged.

“Eliza, it’s not that big an island. Want some soup?”

I shook my head. “I thought you’d be mad.”

“I am mad. But right now I’m working on keeping your mom out of jail. The truth is, you’re here, you’re obviously fine. I don’t know what you and your boyfriend got up to with your little field trip to Boston, and I don’t really want to know.” He ran a hand over his stubble and sat back down. “I can’t afford to lose my entire family right now.”

“I think I can help with that,” I said. Under my breath I added, “In a couple of ways.”

“Is that so?” He was stirring the soup, not really listening
to me and definitely not taking me seriously. It seemed like Bess’s cue.

“Dad. I have kind of a surprise for you …”

She walked in, Natalie behind, her shadow. Dad stared at her. He didn’t even need a double take to recognize her.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.

Bess cleared her throat. “Nate. I’d like you to meet my daughter, Natalie. Our daughter.”

BREAKING THE NEWS TO
my mom went a little differently. I figured showing up with Bess and Natalie in tow might be too much of a shock, so I decided to tell her myself.

Dad agreed this would be the best approach. Charlie went with me for moral support. I tried hard to stay focused, preparing myself for whatever reaction she might have. But it was hard. I had so many questions of my own, like, now that Dad knew about Bess and Natalie, would he still choose us? Would he have chosen us if Bess had stayed? I tried to push the uncertainties from my mind. I had to stay calm and confident when I talked to Mom, or she would sense it and it might unravel her.

“She’s alive,” my mom repeated, after Charlie and I had taken her through the story step-by-step. She repeated it, over and over like a mantra until I had to jump in.

“Mom, part of the reason she left was because she was pregnant. She has a daughter now. My half sister.” Half sister sounded less shocking somehow than “Dad’s daughter.” “The other reason she left is that Dad and Jimmy and some of their friends were involved in something bad, something that really upset her.” Mom nodded.
I couldn’t tell whether that was because she already knew that piece of the story or if she was acknowledging that she understood it now.

“Don’t worry.” It was the last thing I expected her to say. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard her say that. She pulled me to her, wrapping her thin arms high around my shoulders and resting her chin on the crown of my head. The gesture transported me back to age six, sitting with her in the window seat of our living room, a snowy day, stuck at home with strep throat.

“I’ve missed Bess so much,” she said.

“She calls herself Willa now.”

Mom laughed. It was a giggly, girl’s laugh. “Well, that will certainly be confusing.”

“Involved in something bad?” interrupted Lynn Bailey, who had insisted on being present for this conversation and so had listened to the whole thing. Really, I didn’t care. She was going to have to hear it all anyway. But someone with more grace would have let us talk privately first. Charlie and I weren’t looking to keep secrets. Quite the opposite.

When we’d had a chance to fill her in a little, especially about Bess’s version of what had happened to Grant Guthy, LB’s face darkened. “I’m going to ask Jimmy to come down. And Nate too.” Charlie’s grandfather and most of the “Yankee good old boys” were dead or very old at this point. Jimmy was the youngest in a big family and his father had been over forty by the time he’d been born. There wouldn’t be much LB could do to them.

“I’d like to see Bess,” said Mom. “Will she come down
as well?” She seemed past surprise, and lighter somehow. Stone Cove Island’s police station was tiny, but by 10
P.M.
that night, it seemed like half the island was there. Bess and Natalie arrived first, with my dad. Bess and Mom could not stop hugging and staring at each other. Mom barely looked at Natalie or Dad. That was going to take a while to untangle, I thought. Both Natalie and Dad sat apart and alone, avoiding each other’s eyes.

When Jimmy and Cat arrived, they looked stricken. I’d never seen either so afraid. But of course: they each thought the other killed her. And they had lived the last two decades having been fine with that.
Poor Charlie
, I thought.

“Jimmy,” Officer Bailey said before he could ask a single question, “we’re going to have to sit down and have a real talk about all of this. There are some things that have come to light. Some things that need a lot closer investigation.”

His jaw tightened, and his eyes flicked to Dad. But Dad just kept staring at the floor. For a second, I wondered if Jimmy was going to make a run for it. But Cat looped her arm through his, her own face a mask of resolve, as if to say:
None of you people can touch us
. But that was a lie. Too many people knew the truth now.

I took one last look around at the train wreck Charlie and I had set in motion. It was like a sweater unraveling, one stitch at a time. I thought of a song Mom liked, by an old band that was popular before I was even born … a jokey sort of song about destroying a sweater. The refrain dared you to pull the thread while you walked away. And that was Bess, pulling the whole island’s thread when she
walked away, setting in motion the events that would leave the true Stone Cove naked and exposed.

“Should I walk you back?” Charlie was asking me, bringing me back to the present. I nodded. There wasn’t much more for me to do around here anyway. And I knew that Dad needed time alone with Natalie. Maybe I would too, sometime. But not now.

ON THE WAY HOME
, Charlie and I each kept starting to say something, then stopping. It was hard to know where to begin. We passed the village green, where the salt-burned grass had turned its normal winter brown. Lexy’s dad’s candy store was almost ready to reopen. There were just two windows still boarded up, waiting to be fixed. The fallen trees were gone, making Water Street look bare. The trees and grass would grow back. The buildings would eventually be repaired and repainted, but I didn’t think I would ever be able to look at the island again without seeing all its scars.

A cold, damp blanket of dense fog had settled over everything. My house looked small in it, its little porch light fighting mightily under the cloudy weight. I thought of Abby and Colleen and Meredith, of the “myth” of the black anchor. I wanted them to keep believing that it was a myth. But that was impossible now. The investigation into Charlie’s father, into my father, into lots of other families had begun. The Stone Cove Island I’d always known was truly gone forever.

I have to leave
, I thought, staring at my house as we approached.
I can’t stay here anymore
.

“I don’t want to go in,” I said when we got to the porch. I didn’t know why. I sat down on the steps.

“Why don’t I make us some tea?” Charlie asked.

He was too good to be true, really. But not really, I thought, because come January he’d be gone. What had happened to me? We had done everything we’d set out to do. We’d found Bess. We’d cleared Mom. But we’d erased every image I had of home. We’d stained every memory. Instead of a weight being lifted, I felt the fog pressing down on me too. I wanted to preserve the illusion of Stone Cove Island I’d always had.

Charlie came out with the tea. “Hey,” he said, waving a thick manila envelope in his other hand. “It was on the kitchen counter.” I took the tea and shook my head at the envelope.

“You open it. Thanks.” The warm mug felt wonderful in my hands.

“You sure?”

I nodded.

He turned it over twice, then tore at the flap. It only took a second for him to glance over the letter. Then he turned back to me with a strange grin.

“Eliza,” he said. “UCLA. I guess you really did apply.”

I had forgotten all about it.

“I really did,” I said. I looked at him, not understanding. “Early admission, actually …”

“Well, that’s good. Because it would have been pretty weird if you hadn’t. You know, seeing as you got accepted.”

I’m not sure what happened next, other than Charlie sweeping me into his arms. The details that have stuck
with me are just snapshots, like my memories of Hurricane Victor. I saw the scalding tea splash onto the front steps, the swirl of the beadboard ceiling above my head as Charlie swung me around the porch. I heard my own laughter and gasps of disbelief. But the image that really lingers was one I know existed solely in my mind. As I buried myself in Charlie’s embrace, I saw the vivid flash of an anchor. Only this time, it wasn’t a symbol, a threat, something to be hidden. It was attached to a boat, where it belonged. And it was finally being reeled in from the ocean floor.

Thank you to Dan Ehrenhaft, who is more creative kindred spirit than editor; to my always wise agent, Sarah Burnes; to go-to-girl Meredith Barnes and everyone at Soho Press.

Thank you to my friends who are such smart, tireless readers: Christie Colliopoulos, Laurie Shearing and especially Helen Thorpe, who held my hand all the way through my first novel. Thanks to KidLit 2. I can always count on you for inspiration and a good time.

Especially thank you to my husband, Adam, for your endless patience and excellent ideas.