Page 56 of Stuck in Paradise with You

‘Who says dilly-dallying, anyway?’ Carrie says.

‘Joe.’ It comes out sulkier than intended but the big guy’s name seems to put a nail in that one.

‘Have you seen this?’ Roy, thankfully, breaks into Carrie’s and my latest bickerfest. He’s holding out his phone, though I can’t make out what’s on the screen. ‘They’re calling Isabel equivalent to a category seven hurricane, if such a thing existed. She’s a monster.’

I’m not laughing anymore. I glance up to Carrie and see the same concern in her eyes as I’m trying to keep out of mine.

I want to tell her it’s going to be fine, that I’ll look after her. In truth, all I know for sure is that I’m going to try my damnedest. Because I haven’t figured out what the pull is between us in these islands, why I feel like I can’t be more than six yards away from her without my insides searching for her, but I think it has something to do with her confession last night.

Shifting my gaze from Carrie to Joe, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, I see what I never see in his expression, not even when he’s making decisions to put billions of dollars on the line. I see worry. And maybe, remorse? For what, I’ve no idea. He couldn’t help this any more than God himself. Still, Joe looks at me like he’s sorry.

Our first stop is Roy’s sister’s home. It’s a small one-story place with wood paneling on the walls, with a peach-painted exterior. I consider the roof and the already loose tiles here and there. Thewood-framed windows look old and flimsy. Floral fabric blows out from the inside where the strips of glass are set to open, probably on account of the humidity today.

Though I’ve already dried out from the boat in the heat of the morning, the air is sticky, it feels claggy against my skin, and the dust that kicked up from the road as we drove feels like it’s stuck to me.

We’ve brought some boards of plywood but Roy’s sister, bouncing a tiny, crying baby on her chest, tells us she already has boards; she needs help attaching them across the windows.

‘We should leave some space for airflow,’ Roy tells us. ‘Otherwise the pressure will blow the roof off the house.’

I have no idea if that’s fact or myth but I’m already out of the truck and taking tools from the front passenger seat next to Roy’s father-in-law, pleased for the distraction because all I can think is, boards won’t make a drop of difference. This mother and baby are going to lose the roof of their home regardless, and I get my first real taste of how emotional the next few days are going to be.

When I turn back to the task in hand, Roy’s father-in-law is giving the group instructions about another house, along the street, that belongs to Roy’s mother. The screaming baby has stopped crying – because Carrie is now cradling it in her arms while Roy’s sister focuses on the work we’re here to do.

I don’t know why but the sight of Carrie with the newborn stops me in my tracks, freezes me dead, steals the air from my lungs. She just looks so… natural at it, I guess, swaying and shushing the little one, gently stroking his cheek.

I’d be lying to myself if I denied ever imagining Carrie with a child. I have, I did. When we were together, and after, when we weren’t, when I was trying to make something work with my ex-wife for the sake of what I thought was our baby. No amount of guilt stopped me lying in the spare room of Anya’s new home,wishing the woman in the adjacent room, carrying my child, wasn’t her but Carrie. I didn’t only think about it; I tormented myself with the idea of the life that I’d held in my grasp.

Our relationship had been against the unwritten rules of our firm, particularly with my partnership imminent, but I knew in those weeks we were together, I knew the first night we kissed in the office because I had already thought long and hard about the consequences of not holding back, that I would have given it all up for her.

Ironically, I did.

I’ve thought for years that I was an idiot, an unquestionable fool to have rolled the dice on my career, because the feelings I had for Carrie weren’t reciprocal.

I’ve supposed as much all this time. Until last night.

‘Luke? The drill?’ I snap out of my reverie, finding Joe and following him past a bumped and dented old car parked next to the house and round to the yard.

The back of the house is as unkempt as the old car. Roy told us his sister is a single mom. I was raised by one, too, and I know how hard she worked to give my brother and me everything we needed.

Once the storm has been and gone, I’d like to come back here and clean up the garden.

For now, I hoist a wood board over one of three rear windows and Joe gets to work drilling it in place.

I’m stuck, otherwise I’d have leapt to help Jenny and Carrie as I see them jointly carrying a board to the farthest window along from mine. They lift it together against the window, then Jenny says she’s got it.

‘Are you sure?’ Carrie asks her. That board is heavy for anybody, even me.

‘Wait and I’ll come help,’ I call, but Carrie speaks across me.

‘I’ll grab the driver drill and some screws,’ she tells Jenny.

The next thing that happens renders me more dumbstruck than seeing Carrie cradling a baby. She picks up a drill, flips an old crate against the wall, climbs onto it and starts to fix the board onto the window.

I’m not old-fashioned and I try not to stereotype. I’m even the head of the D&I Committee at work. But I had no idea Carrie knew the name of any man-tools, let alone had the ability to use them.

Even more unexpected still is how incredibly hot I find it. Not just the way her body moves and tenses in her form-fitting workout gear, but the independence of it. She doesn’t need a man; she doesn’t need me.

I have zero clue what is happening to me today; I can only put it down to storm hormones or something, because I am as hot for her as I have ever been.

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