The Language of Sand (32 page)

Piece by piece, they emptied the basement. For every chair that came up, another went onto Nat’s truck. Soon the living room was full of antiques and his flatbed was piled high. By noon, Abigail was spent. She plopped onto the front steps of the house.

Nat wiped his face with a handkerchief. “You hungry yet?”

“Yet?”

“You don’t seem to eat much.”

“I eat. I eat plenty.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nat headed into the house. Abigail found him in the kitchen inspecting the contents of her refrigerator.

“This is a sorry sight.”

“It’s not very polite to—”

“Go through people’s medicine cabinets. This is your fridge.”

“Laugh it up. I don’t have any food. Ha-ha-ha.”

“This a start,” he said of the frozen dinners in the freezer. “At least you can throw these in the oven and….” He mimed the gesture, inadvertently exposing the half-baked turkey tetrazzini from two nights ago. “Saving this for later?”

Face burning, Abigail stormed out of the kitchen. She sulked on the stoop. Nat appeared minutes later with a sandwich on a plate.

“This must be your favorite, because it’s all you got.”

Abigail took the plate. The sandwich was so artfully presented that her mouth began to water.

“You should’ve made one for yourself. Or I could make you one,” she offered lamely.

“Don’t worry. I brought my own.” Nat unpacked a delectable-looking overstuffed sandwich from his cooler. He saw Abigail eyeing it. “You want some?”

“No, I couldn’t.”

Nat put half of his sandwich on her plate, then took the other half of hers. Abigail had a bite. His sandwich was perfection.

“That’s what a couple months as a short-order cook will teach you.”

“Is there a job you haven’t done?”

“Other than president?”

“Yes, besides being the leader of the free world, what occupation haven’t you taken a stab at?”

“Can’t think of any,” he said. “Except lexicography, of course.”

The topic had become too intimate for Nat, too personal. He began to fidget with the cap of the soda he’d brought. Abigail changed the subject. It was the least she could do after he’d made her the sandwich.

“What’s your take on these robberies? Weird, huh?”

The second the words tumbled from her lips, she recalled that
Nat had been arrested for breaking into a car as a teen and regretted raising the issue. Abigail expected him to get tense or fly off the handle. Instead, he chewed his food, pondering his answer.

“Mostly, people steal because they’re desperate. Because they have to. It’s a rare few who steal for the fun of it.”

Until she posed the question, Abigail hadn’t considered that Nat might be the thief. Even after Merle explained his past, she didn’t make the connection, and she now had reason to be glad. If she’d suspected him, Abigail was positive Nat would have intuited it.

“Hope it stops soon, though,” he said. “Folks are getting nervous.”

“I thought nobody cared as long as it wasn’t their house.”

“There are only so many rental units on the island.”

It was a logical inference, a conclusion Abigail had been avoiding. What if the thief started targeting the places where people lived?

“Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’m not scared.”

“I’m sure you’re safe here.”

“Me too.” But Abigail wasn’t that certain.

It was Nat’s turn to change the subject. “I’ve had a lot of jobs. Never as an interior decorator. I can stick around and ‘arrange.’ Isn’t that the woman’s favorite part?”

“Pardon me?” The edge in Abigail’s voice was unmistakable.

He put his arms up defensively. “All I’m saying is I’m here.”

“Now
you’re
on,” she replied, echoing his earlier statement. “Better finish that sandwich. You’re going to need your strength. This
is
the ‘woman’s favorite part.’”

Rearranging the furniture was almost as taxing as moving it, yet far more fun for Abigail. Though she wasn’t going to tell Nat that. They tried positioning the settee at countless angles and turning the dining table again and again. They relocated the pair of wingbacks in every conceivable spot. Once they got the layout set, they finished
by replacing the wobbly table that held the telephone with a sturdy, carved console.

“Looks good.”

Abigail agreed. With the new paint and furnishings, the living and dining area had the homey atmosphere of an inn. She couldn’t resist smiling.

“That’s a big fireplace. Brick’s original. You must get a lot of use out of it.”

Nat’s mention of the fireplace caused her smile to sink.

“Would you mind helping me in the study? I want to get the desk in the right spot, and I won’t be able to lift it on my own.”

Her shift in tone obviously confused him. “Uh, all right. No problem.”

With the desk centered under the bank of windows, Nat proffered the matching chair. “Want to take it for a test drive?”

“I can do that later.”

“Come on,” he urged, dusting the seat.

Reticently, Abigail sat down. The chair cupped her firmly. The height of the desk was a tailored fit.

“Looks like it was built for you.”

The desk and chair, she presumed, had belonged to Wesley Jasper. Abigail could picture a man sitting there gazing through the windows and making notes in the ledgers. She thought of the night the
Bishop’s Mistress
sank and how Mr. Jasper must have felt.

“What’s wrong? You seem…sad.”

“Nothing, nothing.” Abigail hurried for the stairs as Nat pursued her. “I, um, remembered I wanted to show you something.”

From the kitchen, Abigail produced the bags of plates and pots she’d culled from the cupboards. “It’s not bone china and Waterford crystal. But it’s not broken.”

Nat peeked in at dishes. “Hell, I’ll take ’em.”

“Super-duper. I’ll bring these bags to your truck.” Abigail couldn’t get out of the caretaker’s cottage fast enough. She was suddenly brimming with worry. Had she made a mistake bringing Mr. Jasper’s possessions up from the basement?

Bewildered, Nat grabbed a bag himself, saying, “Super-duper? That’s quite the word, Ms. Dictionary.”

Outside, the day was darkening. The clouds threatened rain. Wind was flogging the trees.

“You heard about the storm?” Nat asked, putting the dishes on the passenger seat of the truck.

“What storm?”

“It’s hurricane season. Since you don’t have a TV, you should always listen to the radio for weather reports,” he cautioned. “It’s been on the news. They’re predicting the storm will swing east, out to sea. Except a hurricane can turn tail in a heartbeat. You got candles and flashlights and water and such?”

“Most of it.”

“If I were you, I’d get to the market by tomorrow morning. Stock up. Better safe than sorry.”

It was a sliver of friendly advice, yet Abigail felt awkward getting it from Nat. She swiveled the conversation in a different direction, away from herself. “So are you going to have room for this bountiful cornucopia at your place?”

“Didn’t have much to start with. When Hank rented the apartment to me, it was empty. Loaned me an air mattress, a hot plate, a folding card table. That was it.”

“I didn’t realize you lived with him.”

“Not with him. Over his garage. This is his truck.”

At last, Abigail understood why Nat took such care of Hank, why he guarded him and protected him. Hank had not only given Nat a job, he’d opened his home to him. It may have been more than anyone else ever did.

“Well…” he said, signaling his departure.

“Thanks.”

“Deal’s a deal. Bet you thought it wasn’t going to be a fair trade.”

That was exactly what Abigail thought. Given the amount of labor, Nat had done more for her than she had for him.

“I had my reservations.”

Nat smirked at her and got into Hank’s truck. “Don’t forget about those supplies.”

“I won’t. Thanks again.”

During the two days they’d spent together, she and Nat had exchanged a few dozen words at most. Though they had worked tirelessly, side by side, they’d hardly spoken. It wasn’t the absence of discourse that troubled Abigail—she could do without pointless chatter. Rather, it was the implication. On Chapel Isle, language—her primary currency—held a lesser value. The exchange rate was not in her favor. That left Abigail feeling like her proverbial pockets had been picked.

The early-evening hours ebbed away. Abigail didn’t notice. She was busy admiring the new appointments to the house. She sat in each chair, cozied up in both wingbacks, snuggled on the settee, and rested her feet atop the coffee table. This was how the caretaker’s cottage should have been from the beginning. Curtains would add the finishing touch. She didn’t think any of the stores on the island carried drapes, so the windows would have to wait until she made a trip to the mainland or could order some from a catalog. What could no longer wait was her hunger.

Abigail tore open a frozen dinner, turned on the oven, and summarily threw the decaying dinner into the garbage.

“Turkey tetrazzini will not beat me.”

Heat ticking, the stove slowly came to life. Abigail stood watch as it preheated, then put the entre in to cook. She tried turning her back on the oven but kept stealing glances over her shoulder. She finally made herself leave but got only as far as the door between the kitchen and living room.

Adjectives clicked through her head:
timid, pusillanimous, spineless, lily-livered.
She settled on the most juvenile.

“Chicken.”

The house was miserably icy. Abigail needed to start a fire. Using the stove and the fireplace simultaneously would be a tall order.

“I’m going to get some firewood, and you’re going to stay here and not do anything out of the ordinary, right?” she asked, addressing the oven.

You’ve gone from trying to reason with a ghost to negotiating with an inanimate object.
Talk about a downward spiral.

Outside, the ocean was crashing against the seawall. The sky was striated with orange clouds. Abigail felt lucky that she could open her front door and see a sight this sublime. She also felt categorically unlucky. She wouldn’t have been looking at this sunset if it weren’t for the fire. With the oven on, Abigail didn’t have a moment to waste, either on the view of the landscape or the view of what her life had become. There would be plenty of time for both later.

She lugged in some wood from the shed and prepared the fireplace, ripping apart the container from her frozen dinner and sticking the cardboard pieces between the logs. Once the fire took, she had to decide whether to stay or go guard the stove. An ember popped in the fireplace, sending her back a pace.

“What we need is a screen.”

We
was a term she hadn’t uttered in a while. For Abigail, there was no more
we
. To her,
we
meant her family, her husband and son. Her main frame of reference was as
we:
We bought a new house.
We’re having a baby.
We’re going out to eat.
Now all that remained was
I
. It was the second of only two one-letter words in the entire dictionary, the first being
A
. Each was defiantly singular. The language would be nothing without them. Abigail felt she was nothing without
we
. She missed
we
.

“At least now you can make a list,” she said, careful to say
you
instead. She got a pen from her purse and wrote
fireplace screen
on what was left of the box the frozen dinner came in.

“What about kerosene for the lamps in the shed? Maybe a second flashlight. Some more batteries. Jugs of water. Canned food.”

She continued until she smelled something. The aroma of food.
The scent drew her into the kitchen. Through the oven window, she could see the entre bubbling. Hungry as she was, the aluminum tray of food looked scrumptious. Abigail set herself a place at the dining-room table, spooned the contents of her frozen dinner onto a plate, and poured herself a glass of milk. The meal was miles from gourmet, but with it and the new paint and furnishings, she was as near content as she could be.