Heartbroken (18 page)

chapter thirteen

W
henever there were games, Caroline always lost. She was the smallest, the most prone to tantrums, and the clumsiest. She couldn’t run without tripping. She couldn’t hide without laughing. She tried to cheat at board games, would fly into a rage if caught. And she always, always tattled. Gene was the oldest; Caroline was the baby. Birdie was the middle child.

In Birdie’s memory, they never got along. Gene was impossibly bossy, always trying to control everyone, always acting bigger, older, and more knowledgeable than he was; that never changed, even into adulthood. Caroline was everyone’s pet. She’d be an absolute terror, wrecking every moment of fun and pleasure for Birdie, then acting the perfect angel for the adults. How they fawned over her, her cherub cheeks and golden curls, her blue, blue eyes. Even as a child, Birdie found it disgusting. People were so easily fooled by a pretty face.

On the island, they used to play a game they called Castle. Birdie always wanted to be queen, and Gene always wanted to be king. But they didn’t want to rule together. No, if Gene were king, then Birdie had to be the serving wench. And if Birdie were queen, Gene had to be the knight at her command. Caroline always wanted to be the baby princess, so that was fine. She’d just lie in the hammock, linking flowers for her princess crown or, later, scribbling in her journals. The game always ended badly, with Birdie and Gene engaging in
physical combat and being yanked apart by Mother or Daddy.
What is wrong with you two? Why can you never get along?
their mother would ask in distress.
We raised you to love each other
.

Birdie could concede that it was true. Their parents, Lana and Jack, were loving and kind. They never played favorites or took sides, though everyone doted on Caroline because she was the baby. That seemed right somehow, even to Birdie, who hated her for it. Her parents never, in Birdie’s memory, had more than the most banal arguments. Once her mother had slammed a door. But there was nothing like the verbal and physical battles she would experience in her own marriage to Joe. So Birdie and Gene were not mimicking some bad behavior on the part of their parents. It was just that the chemistry wasn’t there, she supposed. She never liked him. And she never wanted him to win, even though he was bigger and older and a boy.

There was an album, a large clothbound book in which their mother had painstakingly organized all their childhood photographs. Each photo was lovingly affixed with paper corners. Her mother’s careful handwritten notes were written beneath each image.
It’s important that you have this, that you always remember your childhood
, her mother had said, ignorant of the fact that there was nothing Birdie, at least, wanted less.

It was the sound of the squeaking screen door that had Birdie looking for the album now in the boxes stored in the bunkhouse. The wind had been picking up as she walked the path from the main house, gun in her pocket, flashlight in her hand.

She wasn’t afraid, in spite of everything. She refused to be afraid on Heart Island, which belonged to her. She unlocked and opened the wooden door and flipped on the light switch. She was greeted by the chill of an unused, uninsulated cabin. It was a small but cozy space, with a desk along the left wall and two tidy bunk beds on either side of a large picture window. There was a small fireplace and
an intimate sitting area. Everything was draped with white cotton slipcovers, since the bunkhouse was rarely used.

She knew the album was there. Joe had suggested that they leave it out on the coffee table so their guests could see what the island looked like back then, compare the old black-and-white photographs of the house and island to the stunning professional color shots in the coffee-table book in which their Heart Island home had been featured as one of the jewels of the area:
Great Adirondack Island Homes
.

Joe wanted to do that only to feed his ego. He loved for guests to see how he’d had the original structure remodeled into a modest guesthouse and then designed the main house himself. Everyone would know that he’d put his indelible stamp on her island. Ostensibly, it was his twentieth-anniversary gift to her. But by that point in their marriage, extravagant gifts had lost their meaning somewhat—not that she didn’t love the new house. At least until recently, it was free from the ghosts of memory.

She found the book in the third box she opened. Caroline had desperately wanted it. She’d asked for it again and again over the years, especially after their mother’s passing. But Birdie, though she could barely stand the sight of the thing, had kept it from her, even as her sister lay dying.
I’ve looked for it everywhere, Caroline. I’m sorry. I’ve no idea where it is
. It was something she felt terribly guilty about when she allowed herself to think about it. It had been cruel and cold, a vicious act of withholding, proving her sister’s most furious, desperate recriminations true. But if that was what they thought of her, then why shouldn’t she be that?

She lifted the album from its box, marked
Memorabilia
, and turned her head away from the powerful smell of mold and dust that lifted into the air. She issued a shuddering sneeze and then sank back onto the floor with the album in her lap.

The story was that her mother had inherited the island from her
uncle, who had won it in a poker match from its drunken owner. Whether that was true, Birdie didn’t know. But it was the story her mother told. She told of that and the island ghosts. Birdie had been thinking about it since the dock incident.

There was a little girl her mother had seen playing naked near the rocky shore where Birdie always waded in to swim. The girl came when the fog was thick. A young woman stood at the highest point, which the children called Lookout Rock, and gazed back toward the mainland.
She’s anxious
, her mother would say.
She’s waiting for someone who never comes
. There was an old man who, forever restless, tirelessly walked the perimeter when the moon was full.

Mother was delicate, prone to terrible headaches and spells that sent her to darkened rooms. The only other person who claimed to see the island spirits was Caroline. And no one believed her because she was Mother’s pet and would do or say anything to please her.

Much as Birdie had never believed in Santa (Gene took care of that early) or the Easter Bunny, she had never believed in Mother’s ghosts. She’d never seen anything even vaguely resembling a spirit during her summers on the island.

Sometimes the mournful call of an owl would scare her senseless late in the night. She’d climb into her sister’s bed, and Caroline would wrap her warm body around Birdie.
Don’t be scared, Birdie
, she’d say in her sweet voice.
I won’t let anything hurt you
. Birdie did believe that, even though Caroline was two years younger and much smaller. She had always been braver and fiercer. But until today, Birdie had never seen anything on Heart Island that she couldn’t understand or explain.

In the main house, she could hear the phone ringing, a low chirping in the quiet. It could only be Kate, since Joe wouldn’t bother to call to check on her. Theo had already phoned to deliver his news.
And no one else would call so late in the evening. But thinking of Caroline had Birdie feeling annoyed with Kate (Kate and Caroline had always been thick as thieves; even her own daughter preferred Caroline’s company). She didn’t bother to make the dash to the main house. Let Kate wait until morning with whatever she wanted to say. If she, too, was calling to abandon Birdie, that could wait until she was feeling less vulnerable.

Birdie flipped through the thick pages separated by dusty vellum sheets. There they were, all skinny legs and mussed hair, wide smiles, funny shorts and vests for Gene, matching dresses for Birdie and Caroline. Were they ever so young and small? Gene was a beautiful boy, towheaded, with brown skin and flashing green eyes. He grew into a heartbreakingly handsome man, until he allowed wealth and success to make him fat. Even then, everyone always seemed to swoon around him.

Caroline was a little porcelain doll of a child who grew into a pretty woman, if not a great beauty. And Birdie—well, was she frowning in every picture? Or wearing an expression that could only be read as antagonism? There were a few of her smiling, yes. But it was that forced photograph smile, stiff and wan, threatening to flee in a moment if the shutter didn’t snap quickly enough. Often her eyes were closed. Well into adulthood Caroline accused Birdie of doing it on purpose, of willfully ruining every family photo.
I have sensitive eyes
, Birdie explained.
The flash makes me blink
. But it wasn’t true. Birdie hated to be photographed, especially next to Caroline, who was always so pretty, forever younger and more joyful-looking. Beside her, Birdie looked like a hag.
Can you give nothing, Birdie?
It was one of the last things Caroline had ever asked her. She still wasn’t sure what Caroline had meant. Birdie had devoted her life to charitable causes.

On the island, the falling of night was thick and total. When there was no cloud cover, there were more stars than sky, it seemed. For a city girl, the starry night was the most magnificent sight on
earth. But tonight there were no stars and no moon, everything obscured by the thick cloud cover that had rolled in, threatening but so far dormant. Through the picture window, the other islands were points of light in the distance. A glow emanated over the mainland. Out here, night was black when the moon had waned. Flashlights seemed to cut through a velvet cloak that had settled over everything. Outside the smaller window that faced the main house, Birdie could see only the porch light. The guest cabin was totally dark.

In the album, she found the picture she was looking for. Once upon a time, the old house was the sole structure on the island, except for the outhouse. (Gene always had to take the girls to the bathroom in the night, groggy and annoyed, carrying the flashlight.
Hurry up, Birdie. I’m freezing
.) There were three bedrooms. Their parents took the largest, of course. Birdie and Caroline shared the small one next door. And Gene slept, to his great pleasure, in the attic room, because he was the oldest. In the photo, Birdie was touching the old door. No matter how often it was oiled, it would issue a long squeal and bang loudly if you didn’t hold it as it closed, which Mother was always begging them to do. Even when you tried to make it close quietly, it seemed to have a way of pulling away from you and slamming anyway.
Children, the door! Please!

There were certain sounds in the night. Her father snored. The water knocked the boat against the dock. Caroline breathed deep and even, always in Birdie’s memory, soundly asleep. And then one night the sound of that door. It woke Birdie; she heard it echoing in her consciousness, though the house was silent. Who would be out and about in the night when everyone was sleeping?

Birdie climbed from bed and slipped from the bedroom in her bare feet. There was a high full moon that night, and everything was cast in the silvery glow. She peeked in on her parents. Her father lay on his back with his arms flung wide, chest bare. Her mother was gone.

Even as a child, she met her fear head-on. She stepped out into the chilly air, onto the splintery porch. She saw her mother making her way down to the dock, her white nightgown shimmering in the moonlight. She was ghostly and weightless. Birdie wanted to call out to her but couldn’t. She almost couldn’t imagine her voice slicing the darkness, carrying over the air, probably waking everyone in the process. So she followed behind.

Her mother got into the boat, untied the lines, and soundlessly crossed the channel. A man waited on the shore of the island now occupied by John Cross and his wife; there was no dock back then. She threw him a line, and he pulled her boat to shore.

As Birdie watched, her mother fell into the open arms of this strange man. She tilted her face up, pale and glowing in the moonlight. Birdie gasped, nearly shrieked in surprise, as this man—dark-haired, tall, and slim—pressed his mouth to hers. It looked to Birdie as though he were trying to devour her mother, to swallow her whole. Her mother seemed to give herself over, the white of her nightgown nearly enveloped by the black of his coat.

The stranger and her mother disappeared into the trees. Birdie thought that she’d never seen her parents kiss like that, not even close. There was the occasional chaste peck on the cheek or lips. Randomly, her father might pat her mother on the bottom. She might move the hair from his eyes. But a full kiss on the mouth—never. Birdie could hardly imagine her mother as that kind of creature, one who would be the object of such passion, one who would return it with equal fervor. Birdie found her way down to the dock. She would wait, shivering, until her mother returned. She found an old blanket in the dock box, sat in one of the Adirondack chairs they used to watch the sunset. She waited and waited, but her mother did not return.

Birdie must have drifted off to sleep. When she woke, the sun was breaking the horizon. The boat was neatly tied off as though it
had never left. Would her mother have passed her sleeping without seeing her? Or left her out there on the dock?

“Birdie! Birdie!”

She heard her mother calling and looked up at the house to see her standing on the porch. She was dressed in slim white pants and a blue-and-white-striped shirt, red Top-Siders.

“Mama! I’m here.”

“Birdie Heart!” her mother said, catching sight of her and jogging down the steps. “What on earth are you doing out there? I’ve been scared witless,” she added as they reached each other. Birdie let Lana take her in her arms and basked in that rare moment of her complete attention.

“I’ve been looking all over the island for you,” Lana said, squeezing Birdie tight. “My goodness, Birdie, you’re frozen.”

“I saw you with him, Mama,” said Birdie. She pressed her head into her mother’s shoulder. “You took the boat to the other island. He was kissing you. Who was he?”