Vigil for a Stranger (24 page)

“Nothing important.”

From the ferry, I could look back and see the church spire rising over the town, and the cluster of white houses along the road that hugged the curve of the harbor. The ferry was running regularly again; it seemed newer than the one my mother and I escaped on, but nothing else had changed much. Plover Island looked precisely the same: the wild shoreline dotted with seabirds, the far-flung cottages, and our old cabin at the end of the sandy road, weathered and tumbledown, perched on its rocky little hill like something thrown up by the sea.

Before I approached it, I took a walk around the island, skirting the rocky incline up to the cabin and heading down the level, dusty road that led away. There were wild roses along the road, blue morning glories climbing a wall, two kids on bicycles, a dog tied to a wooden clothespole. One cottage had undergone a posh remodel (Palladian window, skylights, latticework deck) but most of them were simple shingled structures with yards full of sand and beach-grass. I half-expected to run into the woman painter in her sun hat, or the two talkative old men with plums. Or Pierce and Robbie catching crabs down by the rocks. I wished, as I often had, that the miracle would occur and Robbie would come again to sit with me drinking tea from Gran's old pot. Or Pierce himself: if he appeared suddenly in the path before me wearing his denim shirt, his army cap—what a gift, what inexpressible solace.

How stingy the dead can be, I thought, but I felt no resentment at the thought.

The sun was climbing in the sky. The purse slung over my shoulder was cumbersome, heavier by the moment. I took off the sweatshirt and tied it around my waist. I imagined the interior of the cabin, dark and musty, with a slight chill. I went down by the rocks, took off my sneakers and cooled my feet in the water, and then, my heart beating fast, I climbed the hill to the cabin.

The lock was broken, but when I pushed open the door I didn't see what I had expected: no one had trashed it, burned it out, spray-painted dirty words on the walls. Everything looked the same—just worse. It had been thirteen years. The cabin hadn't gone unused: there was a pile of empty beer cans on the old bookcase, a plastic grocery bag hanging from a doorknob, a ticking pillow split open, a squashed cardboard carton that wasn't there before. But it looked long-abandoned, except by mice and spiders and dust and mold. The place smelled terrible, a combination of ocean and animals and musty air and rotting wood.

I didn't stay inside long. I inspected everything, gingerly. I realized that a scrub brush and pail wouldn't have gotten me very far. The cabin was reverting to what it always longed to be: a pile of rubble. It cared about the presence of humans as much as the sea did, the rocks. I had been half-wondering if it would be possible to rehabilitate it, to make it into a memorial not to Robbie dead but to Robbie alive: the brother who came up here to drink beer and catch fish and play poker, not the one who held a gun to his skull and pulled the trigger. I had been thinking of coming here summers with James, of fixing it up as we did the house: James and me in a sunny room filled with old white wicker furniture. But the cabin was beyond saving, and I didn't really mind. This way, it belonged to Robbie: it was always his, if it was anyone's at all.
Take it
, I said aloud, hoping I would get an answer, but the only sound besides my footsteps was the faint dash of the waves on the rocks down below.

I walked down to the beach and sat with my arms around my knees. The sun beat down on my head. I should have brought a hat, I should have brought a can of something to drink. The ferry would return at five: it seemed a long way off. I had hoped to stay until sunset, maybe even sleep on the beach all night, but this was not possible, I would have to go back.

I stretched out on the sand and fell into a light, uneasy doze. Fitfully, I dreamed about the cabin as it was when Emile and I cleaned it out.
Denis runs around, he is wearing blue shorts, a red-striped shirt, he is shouting questions and raising dust
. The dream came and went; I was conscious that it was a dream, and that the dream was half memory.
Denis is small, joyful, perfect: my son. And suddenly, he's gone
—
just disappeared. Impossible, but it has happened. We look everywhere but he can't be found. Emile says he must have been stolen by Tom, the man who ferried us out: remember how well they got along, he says, remember how much Denis liked him. It was Tom, Emile says. But I know it was Emile, and I fling myself on him, hitting him with my fists, and he crumples at my attack, there is blood, he cries out, he tries to shield himself with his hands, and though I know it's only a dream, though I feel the sand under my back and hear the water beat against the rocky shore, I hit him until he lies still
.

I opened my eyes to find that the sun had gone behind a cloud. The sea was grey and choppy, the sky a less intense blue, but it was still warm, and my face was hot and tight, probably sunburned. I didn't feel well—the horrible dream was still vividly with me. I sat up, took my hairbrush from my purse to brush my hair back from my face, and wiped my face with a tissue. I turned my mind from the dream, and from the consciousness of how thirsty I was. All around me there were fat gulls standing on the rocks. They paid no attention to me. I wondered if I was merging with the elements just as the cabin was. I looked out at the sea, and at the church steeple rising above the town. This was where we sat out on the rocks. This was where Pierce took out the gun and aimed it at the gulls.

Why do you have that gun
?

For protection in the big bad city
.

I thought about how it could have happened, how he didn't die, how he could have become a balding Manhattan businessman. He would have been doing drugs in New Mexico, hard stuff, Lord knows what—not pot or peyote or LSD but something Charlie and I had never even heard of, something nobody did anymore. Pierce would try anything. And he lent his car to someone, and when his car went off the cliff he was tripping, he was out of commission for days. And then he was confused, disoriented. At some point he would hear about his own death. He would get a kick out of that. And then he would worry about me, Charlie, his parents, his old girlfriends. He would want to return and reassure us, but—

I couldn't go any further. It was absurd. It was like one of those improbable movies from the fifties that featured amnesia and shrinking men and death rays that wiped out the entire populations of sleepy little New England towns. I put my head down on my knees. Pierce was dead. He'd been dead for twenty-one years, almost to the day.

I was so thirsty I was tempted to drink sea water. I thought of books I'd read about shipwrecked people, movies about people stuck in a lifeboat with a pint of water that had to last until they were rescued. The fifties were big on shipwreck movies, too—people always went out of their heads from thirst. I wondered if that was happening to me. I considered knocking on a door, and asking for a drink of water, but I didn't do it. I wasn't that far gone, I told myself. I was bored, hot, hungry, tired. The gulls didn't move. The rocks were their kingdom—the rocks and the sea, which was like cold wavy glass, bluish grey near the shore with a hint of green farther out. I tried to remember why I came to the island. It seemed to me that I had come to find Pierce and Robbie, but at one time I had something else in mind, though I couldn't recall what it was.

I walked up to the cabin. Maybe, miraculously, someone had left a can of intact beer or a bottle of water. The door swung on its hinges. The hinges were rusty—hopeless. Inside, I looked in the middle of the front room and watched the dust. The air was vibrating slightly, the dust was never still—even in the dimness, with no sunlight to come in through the filthy windows, I could see the dust move. All around me, spiders hung motionless in their webs. Somewhere there were mice. Maybe there were other animals, but I couldn't hear them, I couldn't hear anything. From the cabin, even the sea was almost quiet.

I wondered who had been here, who left the beer cans and the pillow. There were no homeless people on Plover Island, no derelicts, no bag ladies. It was teenagers, probably, who came over from Camden to drink and fool around: how perfect, a deserted cabin. I imagined them groping each other on the filthy floor, bleary-eyed kids with their lives ahead of them. Not knowing what ghosts prowl here.

Robbie
, I said out loud.
Pierce
.

I remembered when Pierce gave Robbie the gun. I remembered that I lay back against Pierce, his lips against my neck. He said, “Chrissie Chrissie Chrissie,” and I stopped thinking about Robbie. I barely noticed what he was doing—aiming at gulls, aiming at rocks. And then he raised the gun to his temple.…

I'm sitting on the floor under the window. It has gotten darker. Have I missed the ferry? How long have I been here? I look at my watch. The ferry must have come and gone. I stand up, with effort. I'm stiff. Out the window, I see that the sun is a scarlet globe low over the town, and the sky is purple and rose. I stare into the sun, watching the golden path widen across the water. Soon the light will be gone, the stars will explode overhead
.

Behind me, there's a noise. I turn, and he's there
—
just like that. How strange to see him here. He looks out of place in the doorway
—
and then I realize that I myself must look out of place here. The cabin is a work of nature, it's not meant for us
.

“
Chrissie,” he says. “I came to get you. Come with me. Down to the rocks where we can talk
.”

He turns and goes out the door, and I follow him, walking down the rocky slope to the sand, following his back to the beach. It doesn't occur to me not to go. My bag bumps against my legs. He wears his denim shirt. We sit down on the warm sand, not touching; he smiles at me
.

He says, “Why did you come up here all by yourself, Chrissie
?”

“
I can't remember,” I tell him
.

“
It was a crazy thing to do
.”

“
Probably
.”

“
I've been missing you,” he says, and his smile deepens. I would know his smile anywhere, the ironic curl to it, and the raised eyebrow. His eyes are exactly the color of the sea. I pull my bag closer to me and open it. Inside I can feel the gun, cold in its plastic
.

“
I've missed you, too,” I say
.

“
It's me, you know,” he says. He pays no attention to the gun. His eyes don't even flicker toward it. “It really is me, Chrissie. I can prove it, there are lots of ways
.”

“
I don't need you to prove it. I know who you are
.”

“
Ah,” he says. “Good.” He looks out to sea, away from the burning sun. Of course. His profile against the sky is exactly the same. I would know him anywhere. He turns back to me. “But you want to know more
.”

“
Yes,” I say. “I do
.”

“
I'm here. Isn't that enough
?”

I think about that for a minute. I suppose it is. I don't really want to know. What would I do with the details? I know enough, I know too much. I don't want the burden of all this knowledge. Is this what I came to Plover Island for? If I did, it was a mistake. I think about James, Denis, the house, the cats, the long road I have to travel
.

I unwrap the gun from the plastic. It's exactly the same. Everything is the same
.

“
Why do you have the gun, Chrissie
?”

We stare at each other. He knows why I have the gun, I don't have to tell him. I look at him in the darkening light, and quickly, quickly, I point the gun and pull the trigger
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” words and music by Boudleaux Bryant.

Copyright © by Boudleaux Bryant. House of Bryant Publications.

Copyright © 1995 by Kitty Burns Florey

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9339-5

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