Page 14 of Dead of Summer
He notices Jean looking at the bedroom door. It’s shut now. It’s been staying shut later and later, making his days more and more solitary. He swallows and turns back to the counter.
“How are things going with you, Jean?” he asks instead. His voice sounds loud and unnatural from lack of use. “How’s the Crab?”
“Getting crowded already. I have a feeling it’s going to be busy this summer.” Jean bustles around the kitchen opening cupboards and putting things away. The arthritis in her leg has gotten worse lately, he notes. It drags very slightly on the wood floor.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” he says absently, inspecting a can of peeled tomatoes. Even though Henry hasn’t been to the Salty Crab in nearly fifteen years, through Jean he knows the ins and outs of the place as though he were a regular. Every special menu item and employee scuffle. Henry enjoys the chatter. Hearing about these people with their day-to-day problems and mundane situations almost makes him feel like one of them, like he is normal. And he knows that it is good for Jean to be able to talk freely to him in a way she can’t with anyone on the island. After all, who does he have to tell?
“I know I should be grateful for business being good.”
He can hear the guilt in her voice. “But what?” Henry asks quickly, putting the can into a cupboard with a whole stack of others. He doesn’t really cook tomatoes but doesn’t have the heart to tell her.
“I don’t know what has gotten into people lately. They’re always wanting gluten-free lobster rolls and asking if we have reposado, whatever that is. Not asking,demanding. And the look on their faces when I say no. This place is changing. And not for the better.”
How much the island has transformed over the years is a common theme in their conversations. Hadley has always been exclusive andmonied in the summer, but there was always something more laid-back about it than other East Coast getaways like the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps because of its size and how isolated it is there was something more quaint and charming about the island than some of its brasher, more commercial neighbors. But over the past few years something has shifted. Henry can feel it even from here on his little outpost. It’s been, as Jean put it bitterly once,discovered. The crowds are bigger, younger. Boats moor in front of the marina and blare music, the girls sunning themselves on the bows in barely-there bikinis. Port Mary is nothing like the sleepy fishing village where he’d grown up. Back then the wealthy people were mostly quiet and kept to themselves. But then again, Henry thinks, maybe it’s the world that is changing. Not just Hadley Island. How would he know?
Jean unloads the bags, lining up various pantry items on the counter. She grunts with the effort. Henry tries to intercede. “You don’t have to do that. I am perfectly capable of putting my own groceries away.”
But Jean stubbornly picks up a coffee canister. “I don’t do it for you. I do it for Margie.”
Henry stands down, retreating to the other side of the kitchen island. He never could go against Margie’s wishes.
“The Clarkes are back,” Jean says, hobbling toward the fridge with a carton of milk.
“Oh, are they?” Henry tries to sound like this is news to him but miscalculates and it comes out too quickly. Jean glances up sharply. He looks away from her, distracting himself with the grocery haul.
He pulls a box out of one of the bags and looks down at the bright packaging. “What are these?” he says, grateful to change the subject.Chocolate-covered nuggets with crisp rice coating.
“Ice cream bars, just like the label says. They were on special.” She shrugs. It’s unlike her to buy him something so frivolous. Perplexed, he puts them into the freezer next to a frost-coated hunk of haddock.
Jean sighs heavily as she leans to place a bag of potatoes into the cupboard. She seems extra exhausted lately. He stops to watch. Is shemoving slower than normal? Does she look slightly older? He relies on her for so much, the idea of it scares him. “Why don’t you sit down a minute, Jean?” Henry tries again. “Have a cup of tea. I can do the rest.”
She waves him off with a stiff flap of her hand. “No, no. There’s no time to relax. I have to get back. Have a training session with the new hire. An island girl. She’s good so far. Young but surprisingly bright. And a hard worker.”
“Does her family live on the west side?” he asks, trying to sound neutral, though they both know the western part of the island is the side he can see.
Jean shakes her head. “No, she’s from back in the village. Her mom is Eunice Collier.”
“The drunk?”
“The very one.”
Henry shakes his head. He’s finding lately that some of the people in town are beginning to blur in his memory after so long away. Some may even be starting to disappear altogether. The thought is frightening and keeps him diligent about his logbooks.
“But Gemma is a good kid. You wouldn’t know she’s had it so rough from spending time with her. I’m grateful for her. Not easy to find a young person with a decent head on their shoulders these days.” Jean folds the paper bags and puts them under the counter as Henry scans his memory for the young girl or her mother, but he comes up empty. The longer he spends away from the island, the more he doesn’t know about it. No matter how hard he tries to keep up, things slip through the cracks. He can only know what he can see, after all.
“What does Gemma look like?” he asks. At this Jean turns sharply and stares at him. It passes quickly, but he can see in her arched brows something he’d rather not, something that makes him take a small step back and retreat into himself, going quiet until she leaves. He watches Jean limp down to the dock and get into her little boat, motoring back to the island, the question hanging unanswered in the air behind her.
ORLA
Orla spends the afternoon cleaning and sorting the upstairs bedrooms. Better to be busy and productive than to let the lethargy she’s felt these past months come for her here. It was already starting when she returned from the store. She’d finished putting the groceries away and just stood there in the kitchen for too long, her eyes going in and out of focus. She could feel it coming for her, like a hand slowly closing around her ankle, ready to drag her down. If she sat down right then, she realized, she might never get up again. So instead, she took another Xanax from the bottle on the counter and began to clean.
The really important things in the house, those with any deep sentimental or monetary value, have long since been shipped to Florida but there are still plenty of little things to sort through. She works methodically, sifting through boxes of mostly useless odds and ends, stacks of old bills and papers, folded-up blankets and towels; going through the extra boxes in her parents’ bedroom; sweeping and scrubbing the floors while listening to a podcast. It feels surprisingly good to keep moving, to feel useful. She sorts diligently through boxes under beds and in cupboards, deciding what should be kept (very little) and discarded or donated (most of it) and forming piles of each. She hasn’t stopped moving in hours and her brain has so far stayed away from thetopics that brought her here, the well-trodden paths that lead to no place good.
She gathers armfuls of musty-smelling linens and blankets and takes them outside. Standing in the dappled sunlight Orla shakes them out, hanging them on the clothesline the way her mom used to. It soothes her. Orla likes the way tidying up makes her feel competent, even if only temporarily.
The sheets ripple gently in the breeze. Orla takes in a deep breath of the air that smells like sweetgrass and wonders what it would be like to live here again. She could keep the house for herself and stay. She begins to imagine herself painting seascapes and selling them at a shop downtown. Could she be happy here? Living next to the Gallo house? She narrows her eyes at the laundry to avoid looking next door as a flash of memory comes back to her.Orla is chasing Alice across the lawn toward the water. They are young, elementary age, both in their swimsuits; their tan legs pump across the grass. Alice is excited. She’s heard that a humpback whale has been spotted offshore and is determined to see it. “Wait, wait,” Orla calls to her, but Alice just runs faster, yelling impatiently over her shoulder, “There’s no time, Orla. Keep up!”Orla hangs another sheet on the line as a new image crowds that one out.The rush of waves, frothing white in the moonlight. And between crests, barely visible, Alice’s hands reaching up for help as she sinks into the murky black.
Back upstairs Orla washes the floors in the hallway and the bedrooms with Murphy Oil Soap. On her hands and knees, she furiously cleans, returning the sponge over and over to the soapy bucket, scrubbing at the wood as though she might also be able to remove the horrible pictures from her mind.
