Lost on Brier Island (10 page)

Staring at the spot where Rooftop had been long after she had disappeared into a tiny speck, Alex wondered where the baby whale could be.
Was he hurt? Was he lost?

What if Daredevil never came back?

“What's the matter?” Rachel said. “You look weird.”

“Nothing,” Alex muttered.

“You keep looking where that whale was,” she said. “Are you sad about the baby?”

“He'll be okay.”

“Not likely,” Rachel said sadly. “I read about it before.”

“What did you read?”

“That the babies can't live without their mothers.” She pointed to the table with the reference books. “They need milk. If he's not with her, he's probably…” Rachel's voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Dead.”

“No,” Alex choked. Images flooded her head. The hospital, Adam's pale white face, the closed eyes Alex would have given anything to see open again.

“Sorry.”

“He's fine. He has to be.”

“Sorry.” Rachel's face crumpled.

Alex's hands trembled and her legs started to shake. “Adam can't be dead.”

“What did you say?” her mother asked from her seat on the opposite side of the deck.

“Nothing.” Alex curled up on the bench, shivering, and gazed out to sea. It was Adam's face, rather than the image of Daredevil, that hovered in front of her blurred vision like a ghost.

Rachel sat down and clasped Alex's hand. Her heat felt good on Alex's icy skin—the one warm spot on her shivering frame. Neither one of them said a word all the way back to port.

At Eva's, Alex sat at the table with everyone else. Eva put a glass of milk in front of her—she drank it. Rachel buttered a scone and passed it to her—she ate it. She said please and thank you in the right places.

But it felt strange—as if she was there, but at the same time she wasn't.

No one seemed to notice but Rachel. It was kind of funny, since Rachel knew her the least of anyone. Gus was making googly eyes at Eva. Eva was batting her eyelashes at Gus and giggling like a girl. Her parents were concentrating so much on ignoring each other that Alex was sure the building could have fallen down around them and they wouldn't have noticed.

So, that left Alex…and Rachel. After they'd eaten, Rachel grabbed her by the hand and tugged her down the aisle to the back of the store, away from the adults.

“My parents are divorced too,” Rachel whispered in her ear. “It's not so bad.”

“What?” Alex was startled. “My parents aren't divorced.”

“They're not?”

“No!”

“Really?” Rachel looked puzzled. “They act just like my parents.”

“They do?” Divorced? The word echoed inside of her head. Well, wasn't this what she'd been scared of ever since they'd started arguing all the time? It wasn't really a surprise, was it?

“My parents aren't very nice to each other either,” Rachel murmured. “They fight all the time and they stopped holding hands and kissing a long time before they got divorced.”

That was exactly how Alex's parents were, at least since Adam's accident. Before that, they used to hug and laugh all the time. It was her fault, she knew. Her fault that Adam was dead, and her fault that her parents hated each other. And now divorce! She'd have no family at all.

Rachel lagged behind with Alex as they all headed back up the hill to Aunt Sophie's after lunch. Her mom and Aunt Sophie walked far in front. Her dad was walking behind the two sisters, talking on his cell phone again. Rachel and Alex walked even slower, getting farther and farther behind.

“Why did your parents get divorced?” Alex asked.

Rachel shrugged. “I don't know.”

“There was no reason?”

“Mom always yelled at Dad that he worked too much.”

“Oh.”

“After they got divorced, Dad married his secretary, Ren
é
e.”

Alex sighed with relief. Her dad didn't have a secretary.

“Let's go to the lighthouse,” Rachel said, pulling Alex by the hand. They passed Aunt Sophie's and continued on the dirt road for several minutes. “It'll take your mind off things—it's really cool.”

“I've seen lighthouses before.”

“Yeah, but this one's different.”

As they rounded another curve in the dirt road, the lighthouse appeared. They walked through the wildflowers and were suddenly surrounded by small rock piles.

“Where did these come from?” Alex asked, amazed. Each one was an inukshuk. She recognized the shape. Her mom had a sculpture of one.

“Tourists make them” Rachel said. “It's the basalt rocks. See how they're broken in kind of rectangles? They make great building pieces—they don't fall over!”

“How do you know about basalt?” The rocky shoreline looked like it had been made of rectangular columns with tall, narrow bricks loosely fitted together.

“I read about it in a book about the island that Gus sent me for Christmas.”

“Really?”

“Do you want to make one? An inukshuk, I mean?” Rachel picked up a loose piece of the basalt rock and offered it to Alex.

“Inukshuk means something like ‘we were here,' doesn't it?” Alex said. She remembered that part from an old ad on television.

“I think so.”

That was kind of neat—leaving a sign that they had been there. “Okay,” she said. Alex picked up more of the loose basalt.

They followed the pattern of the many other inuksuit scattered around them. Alex watched Rachel first before she tried making her own. Alex placed two rocks vertically to form the base for her inukshuk and thought about Adam. Then she placed two long pieces sideways on top of the base, ones for her mom and dad, and a smaller one on top for herself.

She stood back and surveyed her finished work. Maybe this could be some kind of sign—something to show that her family wasn't falling apart after all.

“Ours are the best!” Rachel danced in a circle around their creations. “Don't you think so?”

“Yeah, they're kind of neat, I guess,” Alex said. She dug through her bag and pulled out Aunt Sophie's extra camera. Rachel posed by hers and Alex took a picture. Then she took a few of her own inukshuk. She looked at it on the screen—a sculpture of her family.

Rachel chattered all the way back to Aunt Sophie's. They cut across the lawn, passing under Alex's bedroom window.

Rachel stopped suddenly. “What are those?”

“Huh?”

“They look like the flowers I picked for you.” Rachel held up a handful of the Eastern Mountain Avens.

“Um…” Alex stared at the blooms. What could she say?

“You threw them away?” Rachel said in a hurt voice. “It took me all afternoon to find them.”

“Sorry…I have this thing about dead flowers.”

“But they're still green, and the petals—”

“Once you pick them, they're dead.”

“Oh,” Rachel said in a small voice.

Alex looked at Rachel's sad face. She was about to say something when she heard angry voices coming from inside. Her parents were fighting again.

Alex and Rachel tiptoed through the hallway from the back door.
The voices got louder as they got closer to the kitchen.

“Colleen, I can't figure out what you want!”

“What I want?”

Alex was peering around the doorframe with Rachel pressed against her back. Aunt Sophie was nowhere to be seen. Her dad was sitting at the kitchen table and her mom was leaning against the counter

“You wanted me out…so I left. You can't seem to stand the sight of me, and now you think I'm seeing someone else?” Her dad pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“Where were you last night?”

“We've been through this already. I thought I'd missed the last ferry.”

“So you said.”

“Enough of this, Colleen! No more games.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Let's be honest and get to what this is really about.” Her dad stood up and paced back and forth. “I miss him too.”

“This is not about Adam!”

“Of course it is!” Her dad stopped in front of her mom. “You just won't admit it. How are we going to get past this if we never talk about it?”

“Douglas—”

“I see it in your eyes every time you look at me,” he declared. “You blame me.”

“That's not true.”

“You didn't want him to have that skateboard. But he wanted it so badly I bought it anyway. He'd been asking for one for years. I remember, at his birthday party, you said he was too reckless and almost refused to let him keep it.”

“He thought he was invincible.” Her mom's voice was shaking.

“You see, I knew it!” he said.

“You wouldn't listen to me…” she trailed off, staring out the window. “He was so fearless. My little daredevil—I shouldn't have let him have it.”

“I guess it doesn't matter now, does it? It's too late.” Her dad took his keys out of his pocket. “Look, I rented a place in the city. I'll get the rest of my stuff out when I get back.”

“You're moving out?” Alex raced into the room and grabbed her dad's sleeve.

“Alex, where did you come from?” her mom gasped.

“I'm so sorry, Munch.” Her dad gripped her shoulders and stared intently into her eyes. “We didn't want you to find out this way.”

Alex pressed her face into his shirt. “You're leaving 'cause of me, aren't you?” she mumbled.

“Of course not,” he said, stroking her hair. “We love you very much.”

“Is it because Mom isn't nice to you anymore?” Alex cried. “Say you're sorry, Mom.”

“Munch…” her dad sighed.

Alex stared up at him with teary eyes. “Don't leave. If you love me, you won't leave.”

“It's not that simple,” her mom whispered.

“Yes it is!”

“Your dad and I just can't be together right now. We're arguing all the time. That's not a good environment for you or for us.”

“Are you getting a divorce?” Alex hiccuped.

Her parents looked at each other. Neither one said anything.

“We're broken, but we're still a family. If you leave, we won't even be a broken one.”

“I'll still see you all the time,” her dad said.

“I heard you talking about Adam,” Alex said to her mom. “It wasn't Dad's fault. He wasn't even there. It was me. I did it. And now you're getting divorced because of it.” Tears streamed down her face. “So this is my fault too.”

“No, sweetheart, that's not true.” Her mom tried to hug her. “None of this is your fault.”

Alex pulled away. “It is. You know it is!” she cried. She turned and ran from the kitchen.

“Alex, wait…” her mom called.

“Let her go, she's upset.”

Her parents' words followed her as the screen door slammed behind her. Alex raced blindly up the hill. She had to get away. She wasn't even paying attention to where she was going.

“Alex, wait up!” Rachel cried.

She ran and ran. Then the lighthouse was looming in front of her. Alex ran towards the cliff, not watching where she was going. She veered off the path. Thick bundles of purple thistle scratched her arms and legs.

Alex struggled through the brush, focused on her goal. She rushed up to the inukshuk she had created just a short while ago. Rage and frustration surged up within her as she stared at it. It wasn't a symbol of her family, it wasn't anything at all.

With a loud cry, she kicked it. The inukshuk collapsed, the rocks scattering wide. Grabbing them one by one, Alex heaved them over the cliff and into the sea. “Why did you have to die?” she screamed. Sobbing, she fell to her knees.

Arms wrapped around her. “Everything's going to be okay,” Rachel murmured.

“It's not fair,” Alex moaned.

“No, it's not.”

“I miss him so much.”

Alex cried into Rachel's shoulder. Rachel stayed by her side until Alex's tears finally stopped. She must have really run out of them this time. They sat quietly afterward and watched the waves.

“I don't want to go back yet,” Alex said.

“We don't have to. We can go for a walk the opposite way, if you want. Look, there's a path over there.”

“All right.” She was so glad not to be alone right then.

Alex slowly got to her feet. She realized she still had her pack over her shoulder. Switching it to the other side, she followed Rachel along a beaten-down path through the tall grass. The narrow trail hugged the shoreline.

They walked farther and farther away from the lighthouse, winding inland for a bit before curving back out along the cliffs.

Alex gazed out over the ocean and was surprised to see the horizon had vanished.

The fog had returned.