Page 89 of The Castaways
And what?
Tess and Greg died. Greg’s mind was elsewhere, the wind got the best of him, he lost control, the boat went over, they got caught underneath. He tried to save Tess but couldn’t? He had pushed Tess off the boat on purpose, then had second thoughts and gone after her? He told Tess about April Peck himself and Tess had jumped? No one would ever know what happened, but Delilah knew one thing. Whatever happened, it had been within her power to stop it, and she had not.
Delilah woke up stiff-necked to the sound of Barney breathing through his nose.
She lifted her head off the table. Barney was sitting across from her.
“Mom,” he whispered. “I’m thirsty.”
He was pale and sweaty, his hair in cowlicks, his eyes sunken but alert. Delilah stood up. Her whole body ached from sleeping at the table like some overworked paralegal. She felt Barney’s forehead. Cool and moist. Drew lay in bed, stirring, but Chloe and Finn were still asleep and unmoving, with the covers pulled over their heads. Delilah went out to the hallway for a bucket of ice, and then, from the bathroom tap, she poured glasses of water.
She brought Barney water, which he inhaled, then she checked Drew’s forehead. Cool to the touch.
Delilah brought Barney a second glass of water. “I’m going downstairs to pay the bill,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Will you get dressed?”
“What about breakfast?” Barney said. “I’m hungry.”
“We’ll eat on the road,” Delilah said. “We’ll find a Bob Evans.”
“Awesome,” Drew said.
Delilah smiled. The kids felt better; they could be made happy with breakfast at Bob Evans and other things they didn’t have on Nantucket. The rest of the wide world was a cornucopia for them.
She went down to the desk to pay the bill. Lonnie was still working.
“Where are you headed today?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
He cocked his head, confused.
She thought back to the Delilah who had been determined to live deliberately. She would deliberately get the kids breakfast. Then, she would decide what to do. Her neck hurt. Her soul hurt.
Tess! Greg!
She was to blame for their deaths. This wasn’t something she could run away from.
When she got back to the room, the kids were gone. Delilah blinked. She checked the room number on the door: 432. She studied the room: it was empty. The TV was shut off. The overnight bag sat agape on the floor; the vomity clothes were in a pile. Where were the kids? Were they hiding? Delilah checked the closet, behind the brocade curtains, under the beds. Then she ran out into the hallway, shouting names. Shouting! She would wake up every other guest on the fourth floor, but she didn’t care.
“Drew! Barney! Barney DRAKE!”
Nothing.
Delilah couldn’t wait for the elevator. She dashed down the stairs to the lobby and called out to Lonnie. The kids, three boys, one girl.Where are they?
Lonnie stammered.
“You didn’t see them? Hear them? They didn’t run past here?”
No.
Where should she look? Were they at the pool? In the game room? She would check there first: yes, okay, the indoor pool, then the adjacent game room, the modest amusements of this crap hotel. Or they had decided they couldn’t wait for Bob Evans and had gone for breakfast at the rinky-dink restaurant. They were hungry, they wanted pancakes and bacon, a wedge of pale melon, a thin disk of out-of-season orange.
Delilah concentrated on breathing. She had not used Lamaze during the births of either of her children, but she was using it now. In deep, out in short puffs. She ran down the hall to the pool. The indoor pool was a sad turquoise rectangle in a disintegrating tile room that smelled strongly of mildew and chlorine. The plastic resin lifeguard chair was deserted, and a stack of scratchy white towels stood untouched. No one had been in here for days.
The adjacent game room held two old-fashioned pinball machines that flashed their lights and made distorted groaning noises, a defunct Ms Pacman game, and a foosball table with half the players amputated from the waist down. No Drew, no Barney, no Chloe, no Finn. She had managed to lose four children. Not only her own children, but other people’s children. She touched her face; her cheeks were burning.
The restaurant held a little more promise. It was hopping! Nearly all of the tables held families with small children eating pancakes meant to look like Mickey Mouse swimming in ponds of syrup and topped with butter meant to look like whipped cream. Delilah weaved through the tables. Had the kids been lured down here by the smell of bacon and sausage?
