The Silver Boat (28 page)

“Maybe I'll bring Les Paul with me,” Harrison said. “I have to deliver a sweet Gibson, signed by the master, to New York on Saturday. If I pick the guitar up in time, I'll have it join us for the soiree. I'll try to play ‘Moon River.'”

“You can't play the guitar, Harrison.”

“I'll fake it,” he said, and they laughed.

She hung up, feeling warm inside. It was great to have such wonderful friends—another reason she could never leave the Vineyard. Her family—whether blood-related or not—belonged here. Staring at the phone, she wanted to call Andy, just to make sure they were okay, and to tell him about Friday. But she decided to leave him alone, let him have his peace.

Instead she opened her laptop and logged on. It was too late to call Ireland, so she sent an e-mail instead to Tim McCarthy, telling him all about what had happened since she'd last seen him, since leaving Cobh.

And then she found herself writing another e-mail, addressing it to each of her sisters.

F
riday dawned clear and fine, and the sky grew more blue and the breeze dropped as the day went on. Harrison came early to help Dar get ready. She sent him on errands—to Poole's in Menemsha for swordfish, the West Tisbury market for fingerling potatoes, mesclun greens, tiny yellow tomatoes, and small purple beets. She made a plum tart. When Harrison came back, she sent him into the wine cellar to choose whatever bottles he thought would go best with dinner.

Wines chosen, Harrison helped Dar pull the weathered teak table off the porch and onto the lawn. She covered it with one of her grandmother's French country tablecloths, bought on a trip to Avignon, set it with the best china, silver, and crystal. She and Harrison carried the Hitchcock dining room chairs outside, giving them a good dusting; they hadn't been used since her mother's epic parties.

Overhead, the low, wind-twisted pines and oaks were still. There was barely a breath of breeze, making the morning hot, but assuring Dar that the evening would be warm and beautiful. She went into the basement, brought up strings of colorful paper lanterns.

Dar had made them with rice paper, painted them with pen and ink, in homage to the Camp Meeting's Illumination Night. She and Harrison strung them from the porch roof to two poles set in the ground by the table. When the time was right, she would light the tea lights set inside each one, making them all glow like beach jewels.

Harrison wasn't one for moving too far too fast, but Dar convinced him to walk down to the beach and collect shells with her.

“What do we need them for?” he asked.

“Table decorations,” she said. “Party favors.”

“Party favors?” he asked skeptically. “As in ‘Oh goody, I got a clamshell'?”

“Well, or a pretty rock, or a fish jaw, or whatever interesting thing you might find. What's the matter? You used to love to walk on the beach.”

“I've got to get back to it. Into shape and all.”

Was he thinking of Rory? Dar took his hand as they walked along the hard sand. Harrison was tall and stolid, his hand powerful. She had the feeling he could have crushed her bones, but he'd always been a gentle soul.

“Rent's going up on the storage unit,” he said.

“Can you afford to keep it?”

“As long as there are vintage instruments to be delivered.”

“I think you're amazingly creative and resourceful. Finding a way to stay on the Vineyard. Luckily, there are lots of musicians here.”

“I was saving the unit beside me for you,” Harrison said. “Although Andy always had a fallback plan for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ask him.”

Andy. Dar hadn't seen him since the night she'd burned Morgan's letter and the Rileys' offer.

“He's been private lately,” she said.

“Oh, you artistic lovebirds,” Harrison said. “I hear it from him, I hear it from you. Two lonely souls who are too dumb to live together.”

“Thanks,” Dar said.

“Baby, I'm only stating the obvious. You're living on the most beautiful island in the world; you might as well do it together. You'd think you were both tortured.”

“Maybe we are. It happens inside,” Dar said, remembering all her years of pain and misbehavior, drinking to chase the demons away. Andy had his own; he never talked much about his childhood, but Dar remembered his father's drunken rages, the homemade moonshine he'd brewed from a recipe passed down from his Tennessee grandfather.

Dar and Harrison picked up a collection of shells and sea-smoothed shell fragments, small bits of driftwood, a few crab carapaces, a broken piece of blue and white crockery, a red gingham button.

When their hands and pockets were full, they headed across the boardwalk to the lawn. Harrison needed a Heineken, so he went into the cool kitchen while Dar arranged the beach treasures at each place setting.

Dar had chosen every plate, glass, and piece of silver carefully, wanting to remind her sisters of what they had here, the memories that would never die as long as they stayed, and what they stood to lose.

She had sharp radar for her sisters' emotional lives. Both Rory and Delia had been massively kind, yet deeply withholding on the phone each time Dar had called. They couldn't be thinking of selling. She told herself so, but the nagging thought kept returning. The traumas of this house, and what they'd just done to discover their father's truth, had been a lot to bear. For Dar as well. But she knew they would get through it, as they always had.

“Hey,” Harrison said. “Is Pete coming?

“Yes, why?”

“Andy said he's taking a little time off from work.”

That gave Dar a jolt, but she decided not to panic yet. She wondered why Andy hadn't called to tell her.

“Is Andy coming?” she asked.

“Yep,” Harrison said, going to his truck and returning with a battered leather guitar case. “I brought the music.”

“Excellent,” Dar said as Harrison opened the case, revealing a custom wine-red vintage Gibson electric guitar, chrome gleaming. She used to feel nervous about his bringing such valuable instruments, but had given up.

At other times, he'd brought rosewood fiddles, a mandolin with ebony inlays, a double bass played by a musician at La Scala. Harrison always enjoyed sitting quietly with the instruments he transported, tilting them toward the beach so that, although he couldn't actually play them, the wind would strum across the strings, echo through the f-holes of violins or arch-topped guitars. He told Dar the music stayed in him, inspiring him as he drove the instruments long distances. The music got him through the miles.

Dar looked around the yard. Daggett's Way and the Hideaway had always been her inspiration. Dulse, Heath, and Finn had sprung from this rocky earth, surrounded by salt ponds and the ocean. Could she continue the series, such an important part of her existence, if she didn't have this place to come to?

That's why she had to be wrong about her sisters. They couldn't be thinking of giving it up, after all they'd been through. That's why dinner had to be perfect. She wanted to look across the table, into her sisters' eyes, and know that they were all together on this, still in love with their family home.

 

 

With twilight coming on, Rory and Delia rode the ferry. They had decided to come together—solidarity. They stood on deck, watching the island shimmer on the sea, a beautiful mirage.

“I'm nervous about seeing Dar,” Delia said.

“Me too. I can't believe it,” Rory said.

“Did you tell her we talked to Morgan?”

“I chickened out.”

“She had to figure we'd want to know the details of the offer, right? She did send us that e-mail,” Delia said.

“I'm not sure she thought we'd check,” Rory said.

“I would never be feeling this way if the Littles were still in the picture,” Delia said. “But it's not so hard to take, knowing the Rileys will keep the house and land the way it is.”

Rory nodded. “I guess that's how I see it,” she said.

“Can we put it in the agreement?” Delia asked. “That they can't destroy or alter the house in any major way?”

“We'll have to ask Bart,” Rory said, staring into the water, seeming sad but relatively serene. No maniacal checking of her BlackBerry, no hacking into Jonathan's e-mail. Delia didn't understand. In less than an hour they would have to break the news to Dar, but Rory seemed calm.

“I notice you're not checking up on Jonathan,” Delia said.

“I'm just so tired. Chasing him, hoping for him to come back. It's worn me down.”

“I'm sorry,” Delia said.

“I really believed we would last forever. He's left Alys, and once the kids are out of school, he'll take them to the Vineyard for two weeks.”

“Maybe you'll see him!”

Rory closed her eyes. “It hurts to see him, Delia.”

“Are you sad about the house? Deciding we want to sell it?”

“Of course,” Rory said, almost harshly. “Aren't you?”

“I feel like someone in Shakespeare. Betraying Dar, trying to wash the blood off my hands.”

“There's no blood,” Rory said, as the ferry entered Vineyard Haven's harbor—the town and sky were painted with streaks of sunset orange and gold. It was time to go down to the cars.

Rory felt overwhelmed by the evening's beauty—blue sky fading to amber sunset, planets and a few stars already visible in the darkening sky. She supposed that one blessing would be that she wouldn't have to see all the familiar landmarks on the way home. It would be too dark to see the large, twisting oak, the row of cedars, Alley's Store, the vistas looking south toward salt ponds, dunes, and the Atlantic Ocean.

When they dipped down the hill in West Tisbury, Rory heard a quick siren burst. She instantly checked her speedometer. She'd been going fifty; had the speed trap gotten her, or was he after the car heading toward Edgartown?

“Shit, he got me,” Rory said.

“Cops always hide here,” Delia said.

It was pitch-black in this glade of thick trees, and the officer shone a bright flashlight on the license plate and all around the car. He stayed carefully back from the two front doors, and in the side-view mirror, Rory saw he had his hand on his holster.

“Can you believe it?” she asked Delia. “He's got his hand on his fucking gun. We're two middle-aged moms!”

After a while he stood right beside Rory's car, shining his light in her face, indicating for her to roll down her window.

“Any idea how fast you were traveling, ma'am?”

“Fifty,” she said, hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead.

“That's right. The speed limit here is thirty. You were going twenty miles per hour over. License and registration, please.”

Delia had gotten them ready; Rory passed them into the officer's waiting hand. He thanked her for them and went back to his patrol car, doubtless to call them in and make her wait and stew.

Little did he know Rory didn't care. She was turning to stone as she sat there. Numb couldn't begin to describe it. Being on the island brought Jonathan back to her in a way too wrenching to bear.

“He's writing you up,” Delia said, looking over her shoulder.

In a much shorter time than Rory would have expected, the officer returned. She saw his smile, illuminated by the flashing lights.

“You're one of the McCarthys,” he said. “My dispatcher told me when I gave her your information.”

“Yeah,” Rory said. “That was my maiden name.”

“You're the daughter of the guy who sailed to Ireland and found some kind of paper that gives him and his kids right to land in Chilmark.”

“Basically, yes,” Rory said.

“Well, I still have to give you a ticket.”

“Well, thank you,” Rory said. “I appreciate it.”

“Take it easy,” the officer said. “Arrive alive.”

“You bet,” Rory said. She turned to Delia. “Thought maybe he'd let me off.”

“Killed a little time for us, anyway,” Delia said.

As Rory pulled slowly away, up the hill and bearing left toward home, she felt chills. They drove along South Road, and just before they got to their house, Rory paused—prolonging the moment before she'd see Dar—and gazed out to sea. A marsh hawk flew low over the grasslands.

Just beyond, Rory saw a white sailboat coming into view, sailing slowly along the coast. The sloop heeled into the wind, looking so beautiful and mysterious, barely illuminated by a rising moon. Rory stared at it for another moment, wondering where it was heading, whether it was leaving the Vineyard or just arriving.

T
he party had started. That is, Harrison had placed several bottles of champagne and a six-pack of Heineken in a battered tin washbasin filled with ice. Andy had lit the tea candles, making the paper lanterns glow above the table. Dar had gathered bunches of wheat and beach grass, placed them in old blue bottles. Coals were bright red on the grill; dinner was almost ready to cook, but Rory, Delia, and Pete hadn't arrived.