The Language of Sand (27 page)

Daybreak brought a haze to the windowpanes. Instead of an early
October frost, a humid film of condensation clung to the glass. Abigail opened a window, and the air was unusually balmy. It would be an ideal day to finish the grass. However, there was another project that required her immediate attention. The bathroom.

Ridges of hardened grout jabbed through her socks. On tiptoe, Abigail brushed her teeth and got one contact in. Then she heard pounding.

“It’s too early in the morning for this.”

Except the noise hadn’t emanated from the lamp room or the basement. Someone was knocking at her front door. When she ran downstairs to open it, Nat Rhone was standing on the stoop with a toolbox in hand.

“Merle sent me to check your wiring,” he said gruffly.

Thanks a lot, Merle.

“Uh, come in.” Abigail crossed her arms to cover her layers of pajamas.

“Basement?”

She put on the light for him. “Do you need a flashlight? I have one if—”

“I got a flashlight,” he told her, descending the steps.

While Nat was in the basement, Abigail tore up to her bedroom, wriggled into yesterday’s clothes, and put in her other contact. Dressed, she went back down to the living room and waited at the basement door.

“I’d offer you some coffee,” she hollered to him, “but I don’t have any. I don’t have a coffeepot. I have some milk. And water.”

“No thanks,” Nat answered, his inflection flat.

“If there’s anything I can—”

A thud reverberated from below. Nat cursed loudly. Abigail rushed into the basement and found him dusting himself off. He’d slammed his shin into the crates she’d been digging through.

“Are you all right?”

Nat limped a step. “I’m fine.”

“Sorry, I should have warned you. I’ve done that myself. Have the bruises to prove it.”

She was babbling, and Nat could not have been less interested.

“Where’s your breaker box?”

“I think it’s over here. Watch the furniture,” she warned, as they moved toward the row of antiques along the far wall. Chair arms and table legs protruded here and there, ready to impale or trip any hapless passersby. She noticed Nat do a double take at the desk.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?
Nice
isn’t the right word. Too general. Unique, maybe. Or striking. Or…”

Abigail couldn’t believe she’d admitted to not using a precise enough adjective. That was how nervous having Nat in the house made her.

“I’m planning to bring the desk into the study and the other pieces into the living room. Problem is, they’re too heavy for me. It would be such an improvement compared to what’s there. Did you get a load of that stuff? How dismal.”

Nat looked at her. “The breaker box?”

“Right. Over here.” She pointed it out, sensing that Nat was waiting for her to leave. “I’ll be, um, upstairs if you need me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Abigail retreated to the kitchen, muttering to herself, “Who does he think he is? This is my house. Or it’s sort of my house. What was Merle thinking, sending him here? Him of all people.”

“I owed him for some supplies from his store.” Nat was standing at the kitchen door. “I couldn’t pay him, so he told me he’d clear my debt if I’d take a look at your wiring.”

Embarrassed at being overheard, Abigail took a second to respond. “I had no idea you were an electrician.”

“I’m not. Anymore, that is. I was. Before.”

Nat shifted on his heels. Discussing any aspect of his personal life made him as uncomfortable as it made Abigail.

“Merle mentioned something about the bathroom light, that you were having trouble with it.”

“You could say that.”

She led him to the bathroom. “You’ll have to ignore the grout situation.”

“Forgot to wipe it, huh?”

“Yup.”

“It’s not hard to fix. What you do is get it damp again, remove the excess, reapply the grout, and wipe it fast. Like this.”

Nat wet a bath towel and started scrubbing the rigid swirls that were caked on the tiles. Then he began to respread the grout around the tub. He was deft with the trowel.

“I take it you’ve done this before.”

“I’ve done a lot of things before.”

Abigail understood how it felt to have a
before
and how distant it could seem compared to the present.

“I’m sorry about what happened at the Kozy Kettle. I think you and I got off on the wrong foot.”

Nat glanced at her as if to say,
That’s the understatement of the year, lady.

“And I didn’t mean to stare last night when you were with Hank—”

He cut her short. “Don’t worry about it.”

Yet that was what Abigail thought she ought to do. Worry. Hank Scokes was evidently in pain and drinking to numb it. He had lost his spouse like she had. However, Abigail had her own worries.

“You mind?”

Because the bathroom was barely big enough for one person, Nat had to back out in order to finish. Abigail was blocking his path.

“Sorry.” She’d been peering over his shoulder, so she stepped into the hall, giving him a wider berth. “Listen, I really want to move that furniture up from the basement and I can’t do it alone. Maybe I could pay you to help me.”

He shook his head firmly. “Couldn’t take money for that.”

“Why not?’

“Just can’t.”

“Then we could trade, like you and Merle did.”

“What are you going to swap me for?” Nat said, incredulous.

Cooking was out. Cleaning too. He wouldn’t believe she was decent at either, based on the current state of the house. Abigail was stumped.

“You still thinking?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, what did you do before you came here?”

For a moment, Abigail genuinely couldn’t remember.

“I was a lexicographer. That’s a—”

“I know what it is.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t see how writing dictionaries is going to do me any good.”

Abigail had been forced to burrow into her memory to retrieve her old life, only to be told it had no value. Nat’s remark smarted.

In the past, when she’d met someone new and they asked what she did for a living, she would have to explain the parameters and politely defend hers as a real job. Most people didn’t even realize
lexicography was a profession. There was no dedicated training program, no section in the classifieds for open positions. One time, after clarifying the details of her occupation to another mother in Justin’s playground, the woman deemed Abigail “a word cop.” It wasn’t Abigail’s optimal description, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. At her last consulting job, she’d assessed existing foreign-language-dictionary entries and searched for evidence to consider possible new entries. Like police work, the task involved logic, information gathering, and sound judgment. Now, however, Abigail didn’t feel like an off-duty cop or an unemployed lexicographer. She just felt unemployed.

“You seem pretty handy with a paintbrush.” Nat motioned at the roller and paint cans at the end of the hall. “I owe Duncan Thadlow for some mechanical repairs he did on the boat. Have to paint his house. I’ve done most of the prep. Could use a hand to finish.”

“The outside of the house? I haven’t done that before.”

“Ain’t much of a difference. You want in or not?”

“In exchange for moving the furniture? Yes, definitely.”

“We’ll start tomorrow.” Nat stood and stretched his legs. The grout was complete, the job immaculate. “Let it dry for an hour. It’ll be like new.”

“Thanks. You didn’t have to—”

Nat was already partway down the stairs. “I’ll pick you up in the afternoon once I get back.”

“Back?”

“From work. Fishing? Tomorrow’s Wednesday. I was off today only because Hank’s boat is still being repaired.”

The days had bled together for Abigail. She hadn’t seen a calendar since she left Boston.

“Right. Of course,” she sputtered as Nat headed toward the front door. “Hey. What about the electricity and the light switch in the bathroom? Was there a short in the wiring?”

“Nothing wrong with them.” He set his toolbox in the flatbed of his truck, saying, “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow,” she replied, lost in thought.

Abigail had convinced herself the light was broken and that confirmation of the defective wiring would make her feel better. Except the wiring wasn’t broken. Though the bathroom bulb hadn’t come on mysteriously in days, the chance that it might happen again was an unpleasant preoccupation that had built into dread.

Dread
was only one syllable. However, when spoken, the sound stretched, elongating like the feeling it defined. Dread wasn’t about
if
. It was about
when
. And
when
was always somewhere on the horizon, impending and preordained.
When
was merely a matter of time.

Abigail liked surprises about as much as migraine headaches. Nat Rhone’s early-morning visit was just such a surprise. A warning would have been nice. She was knocking on Merle’s front door to give him a refresher course on common courtesy, but he didn’t appear to be home.

“Maybe it’s the same as his store. You have to go around back to get service.”

Merle’s deck overlooked the bay. A grill filled with months’ worth of charcoal cinders stood next to a wooden table where many a fish had met its end. The wood glimmered with scales embedded in the grain.

“Thought I heard someone sneaking around out here,” Merle said through the screen door. “Glad you’re not a prowler. Guess it’s too early in the morning for prowlers, huh?”

“A little. I’ve been pounding on your front door for five minutes.”

“Figured it was somebody selling something.”

“You get a lot of Avon ladies here on Chapel Isle?”

“No, but those Girl Scouts are relentless.”

Abigail put her hands on her hips.

“All right, all right, if you’ve come to read me the riot act about Nat Rhone, let’s get it over with.” He leaned into the screen that was
separating them and put his chin out, miming that he was ready to take the verbal blow. “Go on. Gimme your best shot.”

“You could have at least told me you were sending him.”

“Then would you have let me?”

“Point taken.”

“Want a cup of coffee?”

“Can’t. I’m on my way to see Sheriff Larner.”

“Caleb? Why?” Merle opened the screen door and joined her on the deck, hobbling with his umbrella cane.

“I saw someone during the rounds last night. A man. He was on Timber Lane.”

“Did you recognize the guy?”

“It was dark. All I could say for sure was that it was a ‘him.’”

“This was last night?”

“I drove straight to the sheriff’s station afterward. Larner wasn’t there. He had this sign in the window—”

“
Back in five minutes.
That’s always there. Even when Caleb’s in the office.”

“What is it with you people and not answering your doors?”

“If it’s that important, it can wait.”

“Ah, more Chapel Isle logic.”

“Only kinda logic I got. Anyhow, I was meaning to give you a ring. You don’t have to do my route anymore. Tonight can be your last night. I’m feeling better. I can do it myself.”

“Are you sure? You’re still walking with your umbrella.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m peachy. And I’m well prepared if it rains.”

“Okay, but what about the man I saw? Do you think I should tell the sheriff?”

“Your call,” Merle answered, indifferent.

“Don’t you care that somebody’s coming to the island,
your
island, and breaking into people’s homes?”

“Yes, I care. Except those houses that are being robbed, they’re for the tourists. They’re not for us. I worry for Lottie’s sake. If she’s hit, she’ll get the insurance money, then she’ll have to pay to fix
whatever damage the burglar did and her rates will skyrocket. That’s a raw deal. Fact is, she sends me around only so she can keep track of which units have been broken into and which haven’t. It’s not prevention. It’s treading water.”

“What if it was your house? What then?”

“It won’t be.”

“How do you know?”

He wouldn’t answer.