Page 83 of The Castaways
“Did she want that?”
“No,” he said. “If I were to be very honest with myself, I would have to say… I don’t think she did.”
Andrea nodded, nose in her wineglass.
Addison felt a shadow covering his head and shoulders, like a big, scary presence lurking behind him. He had never meant to disclose everything, but he saw now that it would be pointless to tell some but not all. “I wanted her to tell Greg about us on the sail. I asked her to tell him.”
“To tell him on theiranniversary?”
“I thought it would be a good time. They were going to be alone, without the kids.”
“Do you think she did it?” Andrea asked.
“I have this feeling…” Addison said. God, he had waited so long to say this, justsay it. “That she told him and he killed her.”
Silence in the house. The candles flickered.
“And that would make it my fault,” Addison said.
DELILAH
She drove and drove. She crossed the state line into New York. Now, she was officially kidnapping. At every exit she thought,I should turn around.But it felt too good to be headed away from Nantucket. It felt good to be putting miles between her and the site of her agony. After she drove through Albany, she had to decide if she wanted to cross the state on the throughway or via the southern tier. Which would be safer? She suspected the throughway would have more troopers. She chose the southern route. Leatherstocking land, the stomping grounds of James Fenimore Cooper. It was literary, the path they were taking. Literary? She was crazy. As long as she knew she was crazy, she was sane, right?
Delilah was monitoring herself for signs of exhaustion. She had awoken that morning at five when Jeffrey left for the farm; she had gotten out of bed at six to go to the grocery store. It seemed impossible that this was still the same day. Ten-thirty, eleven-fifteen. Her heartbeat was irregular. By now Jeffrey would realize she was gone. Her cell phone was in her purse, but she had shut it off, and she decided she would not check it to see what it contained. She was both giddy and profoundly terrified. Her actions were irresponsible, criminal even, but what could not be explained were the dual monsters of her grief and her guilt. She had to try to outrun them.
She had no idea where they were headed. She wanted to start over; she wanted another life. The life she’d been given, she had ruined. Where could she get a new life? The first place that popped into her head was Sayulita, Mexico. She would put the kids in school, they would learn to speak Espanol, they would learn to surf, they would become as brown as the natives. Four sophisticated expat children. Delilah would open a fish taco stand.
She would not take the kids to Mexico.
She would take them to… South Haven, Michigan, the town where she had grown up, the house where her parents still lived. Was that where she was headed? Could Delilah show up on the Victorian porch of the Ashby homestead with four kids, two of them not her own? Would her mother let them in? Would she bake cookies and show the kids the path down to the lake? Lake Michigan was as big as the ocean. They could pick blueberries, take day trips to Saugatuck and Holland. Delilah could sleep in her childhood bed with Chloe next to her and the boys on air mattresses on the floor, and Delilah would finally be safe to think.
Ironic that the place she had run away from as a teenager was the place she was now running to. But it made sense, right? In a circular kind of way?
There was a stirring in the back. Barney, of course. “Mom?” he said.
She would have to come up with a way to explain this.We’re going to visit your grandparents. We’re going on a road trip. It’s an American summertime tradition!She couldn’t frighten them. She had to pick her words so, so carefully.
“Yes?” Delilah said. “I’m right here, babe.”
There was a noise. A yelp, a bark, a splutter, a splash. A stink. A strangled cry. Delilah inhaled sharply. Oh no! No! Yes—again a retching sound, a spewing forth. Barney was sick. He was vomiting. He had thrown up all over the back of the car, all over his legs, all over Chloe’s legs. Oh God, the stench. He was gagging or choking—half a gallon of 7-Up or whatever toxic green elixir he’d ordered, two pounds of popcorn floating in coconut oil, chunks of red licorice. Delilah had long suspected that Twizzlers were made out of plastic and were therefore indigestible.
“Mom!” he cried out.
“I’m right here,” she said. “We’re stopping.” She pulled off at the next exit, where there was a Holiday Inn. They were in the town of Cobleskill. Delilah told herself this was okay. She would not panic.
She parked the car and turned around. Puke everywhere. Oh God, the minivan. It would never be the same. Barney was covered with radioactive goo; he was crying. She wanted to hug him, hold him, wash him, throw his clothes away, tuck him into a clean bed. But he had to wait. But he was only six. Could he wait?
“I have to leave you here. I’ll be right back. I am going in that door right there to get us a hotel room and then I’ll be back, okay?”
“No!” he howled. He was sobbing. Her baby. Her darling. She could not leave him even for the ten minutes it would take to check into the hotel.
Drew opened his eyes. He said, “Go ahead, Mom. You get us a room. I’ll stay here with Barn.”
Delilah did not wait to see if this offer was satisfactory to Barney. She hopped out of the car and hightailed it inside. She seemed to have brought the funky, underbelly-of-the-movie-house smell with her. Barney had puked in her hair.
It would be Murphy’s Law that during the times when you most needed a capable front-desk person to expedite your hotel check-in—at midnight, say, when you had a barfing child in the car—what you ended up with was an incompetent moron. The dude moved in slow motion, exactly like the fake-out trick the Vunderkids used against the villains. Delilah was so fatigued that for a second she became confused. Was this actually part of the movie she had just not-watched? The guy was lanky and had the wispy, flyaway hair of a mad professor. He was a sallow yellow color with even yellower teeth, and his nose was as big as a wedge of cheese. His name tag said “Lonnie,” a sad, outdated name that fit him.
Lonnie slid a form across the desk that Delilah was supposed to fill out. She had to get the kids in a room. Hurry!
