Page 3 of The Castaways
Delilah looked up, but she was not happy to see him. Was she still miffed about this morning? If he understood her, she was upset because it was Greg and Tess’s anniversary and they were sailing to the Vineyard. Jeffrey had spent the better part of the day trying to dream up something—an excursion, a surprise—that would match this in Delilah’s mind.We never do things like that!Jeffrey couldn’t argue with her there. They were slaves to the insanity of their schedule: Jeffrey worked all day, Delilah worked four nights a week. Tonight she was home, though. They could get a sitter and go out for dinner. Would that be exotic enough? It was too windy to eat at the beach, but they could pick up sandwiches and a bottle of wine and spread a blanket between the corn rows. The corn was waist-high already; no one would see them. They could make love in the fields. They used to do this before they were married, before they had a home together, before kids—but now the fields, and Jeffrey’s absurdly long hours tending them, were a sore spot, and it was hard to imagine them feeling romantic about the farm the way they used to.
It was a full moon tonight. The wind was due to die down; it would be clear and beautiful. He would suggest a picnic in the fields and see what she said.
At that second, there was a buzzing in his pocket. His phone. He checked the display. It was the Chief.
“Okay,” Delilah said, smoothing down her skirt and straightening her hat. “We have enough berries to last us the rest of our lives. Let’s go home and make jam.”
“Jam!” the kids cried.
Jeffrey opened his phone. “Hello?” he said.
Jeffrey was a farmer’s farmer. He was methodical and straitlaced; he was sober, Delilah said, even when he was drunk. He had the posture of a minister—upright, straight, broad. He believed in process, he believed in cycles—the moon, the tides, the seasons. He respected the many complexities of nature, from a spiderweb to a bolt of lightning. He, Jeffrey Drake, could handle anything—blight, hurricane, famine, the apocalypse. Or so he thought.
Jeffrey and the Chief were friends, but there had always been something blocking the path between them, and that something was Andrea. Andrea had been Jeffrey’s girlfriend first. They had dated for seven months, and then they had lived together in the tiny cottage on the farm property for another year and a half. That Andrea was now married to the Chief and had been for years, that they were all part of the same tight-knit group of eight, was weird and uncomfortable, but probably only for Jeffrey. It didn’t seem to bother Andrea or the Chief at all; they treated him like a member of their family.
The Chief did not bother with hello. He never did. “Does Delilah have the twins?” he asked.
Strange question. The Chief was so humorless, he made Jeffrey feel like Jay Leno.
“Affirmative,” Jeffrey said. He considered making some staticky walkie-talkie noise, but he wasn’t funny enough to pull it off. No wonder Delilah found him tiresome. “Yes, Chief, she does. They are here at the farm as we speak, absconding with five quarts of strawberries.”
“They’re headed home?”
“Yes, sir. Home to make jam.”
“Okay,” the Chief said. “Keep them there. I’ll be over in… God, I don’t know. A little while. See that they sit tight, okay?”
“Roger Dodger,” Jeffrey said. This mock-cop shtick was the best way to negotiate small talk with the Chief, but today it seemed to be falling flat. “Is something going on?”
The Chief took a breath and then made some indistinguishable noise. A laugh? A guffaw? (It was safe to say the Chief had never guffawed in all his life.) A sob?
“I don’t know how to say this. God, I just can’t say it.”
Now Jeffrey was worried. “What?” he said. But no sooner had the word left his mouth than he knew. “Jesus, don’t tell me.”
“They’re dead,” the Chief said. “They drowned.”
Jeffrey and the Chief were cut from the same cloth. Everyone said so. Jeffrey had never been able to decide if he was flattered by this or bothered by it. They were both serious and steady. Jeffrey knew the Chief expected him to take this news like a man. They were to figure things out, make a plan. But Jeffrey found himself gutted. He had been shot once, by a hunter’s stray bullet; he had caught buckshot in the side that felled him from his plow. Receiving this news—They’re dead. They drowned—was like that, but worse. He was breathless. He could not respond.
The Chief said, “I know it’s hard.”
Jeffrey almost said,Fuck you, don’t patronize me. Let me wrap my mind around it, let me draw a breath, Ed, for Chrissakes. Suddenly Jeffrey wanted to sock the Chief in the mouth. He realized with those words—I know it’s hard—that he’d wanted to sock Ed Kapenash in the mouth for twenty years.
He was saved from a grossly inappropriate response by the sight of the twins, Chloe and Finn, proudly carrying their quart containers. Their mouths were smeared with red and Chloe’s white blouse had red stains on it that looked like blood.Your parents are dead,Jeffrey thought. They were happy kids, seven years old; they were well behaved, the closest friends of his own kids; the four of them were like siblings. The twins called him Uncle Jeff and they called Delilah Auntie Dee. He could not tell them their parents were dead; he could not tell Delilah either. The Chief served people up with horrible news every day; it was his occupational hazard. But it was not Jeffrey’s.
He realized he still hadn’t said anything.
“We’ll come to your house… in a little while,” the Chief said.
“Okay,” Jeffrey said. And then he thought,Andrea. “Does Andrea know?”
The Chief cleared his throat. “Not yet. I’m going to find her. Tell her in person.”
Jeffrey and Delilah had been friends with the Chief and Andrea—and Tess and Greg and Phoebe and Addison—for years and years. They hung out every weekend, they checked in, they helped out, lending a hand with the everyday stuff—Would you drop me off at Nantucket Auto Body so I can get my car? Can I borrow your deep fryer?They had taken six vacations as a group, but only rarely did Jeffrey’s old feelings for Andrea resurface as they did this second. He thought,I will go tell her. I will tell her in person.Jeffrey had known Tess since she was fifteen years old. When Andrea and Jeffrey started dating, Tess was still in high school in Boston. But the Chief was the Chief. It was hard to argue with his authority or his sense of ownership in situations like this one. Andrea was his wife.
“Okay,” Jeffrey said. Delilah and the kids were walking toward the car. He had to follow them home. He would tell Delilah first, and they would wait for the Chief and Andrea before they told the kids. Andrea—what would she do? Tess was her pet, her doll, her treasure. When Jeffrey and Andrea lived together and Tess came to visit, Andrea and Tess slept in the bed side by side while Jeffrey took the couch. And then there was that weird week this past fall when Tess and Greg had separated. Tess had taken the kids and moved in with Andrea and the Chief. For Andrea, losing Tess would be like losing a sister. Like losing a child.
Jeffrey was sweaty and grimy and his side hurt. He was heavy with the news, impossibly burdened with the prospect of sharing it.
