These Granite Islands

by Sarah Stonich

  Louisa was shy as she offered her mother the knife she’d dipped in warm water.

  “After you blow out the candles, can I help cut?”

  Victor cleared his throat. “Wait a sec. Isn’t anybody going to sing?”

  When they were in bed Victor pulled the magazine from Isobel’s hands. “What is it?”

  “Harper’s.”

  “No, I mean, what is it?”

  “What is what?”

  “Izzy. You’ve been short with the children, you’re… ”

  “I’m what?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Victor.”

  Victor stared at her.

  “It’s my birthday. You know I’ve never liked my birthday.”

  “It hasn’t been your birthday every day for the last five months.”

  Isobel sat up and gathered her nightgown around her ankles. “Fine. Do you want to have one of your talks?”

  She pursed her lips and examined the lace of her sleeves.

  He struggled to his elbows. “You’ve lost your sense of humor.”

  She laughed.

  When he asked her the third time what was bothering her, she shrugged and gave him a pained smile. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m not just worried about you, I’m worried about all of us.”

  “Oh Lord, Victor. Please.”

  Victor suddenly heaved himself to the edge of the bed. “I don’t know what’s going on with you.”

  Guess, she wanted to say. Guess what’s going on with me.

  He snapped off his light and snorted into his pillow, “Haphy birfday.”

  She thought of touching him. He would look at her then and she could ask, what do you know of me?

  She stared at his back for a long time before turning off her own light. She sensed the faint movement of his shoulders and the slow rise of his back as he breathed, saw by moonlight the vulnerability of breath that matched her own. Air in and air out. Same air. She would touch him, finally. She would apologize, get him to talk. It had gone on long enough. As she reached over, he took in a serrated breath and exhaled with a gentle snore.

  She fell back on her pillow. They hadn’t spoken of the island since the day he drove her to Chalmer’s Point. The island. It topped the list of hazy unrests she did not want to think about. In the darkness her discontent seemed ripe, a thing to be turned away from before it burst and rotted.

  Victor began preparations to outfit the island. Isobel watched from the back porch as he and Henry loaded the flatbed trailer. Onto it went precious sacks of flour, salt, rice, cornmeal, dry macaroni, a case of tinned beef. She crossed her arms, silent as half her kitchen went onto the trailer — pots, cutlery, jelly glasses, most of the blue willow dishes. She waited. When Victor went into the cellar, she dashed out to retrieve a painted china teapot, slipping in a chipped brown replacement. She winnowed through the box of bedding, pulled out the better linen sheets that had been wedding gifts, and tossed in cheaper flannel.

  The mercantile had delivered a barrel of kerosene, five gallons of lamp oil, coils of hemp rope, canvas sheeting, rough planks, several folding cots, and a two-burner cookstove. All on credit, Isobel thought grimly. Victor and the boys somehow fit all these items onto the trailer with inches to spare. Louisa brought out a few things her father wouldn’t have thought of and placed them on top of the neat palisade of boxes — straw hats, a first aid kit, mosquito netting, a wax bag filled with cakes of soap.

  Henry declared himself the only one to be trusted with the new camp spade and wrenched the tool from Thomas’s hand. Isobel sat down on the wicker porch swing and shook her head. It looked for all appearances as if they were preparing for an expedition to the Klondike, not just a few weeks of camping.

  After lunch they pulled the trailer behind the Ford to Chalmer’s Point, where its contents were transferred to the boat that carried mail to the lake’s island residents and the Ojibwa families living along the remote north shore. As they loaded the bow, Isobel hung back near a piling.

  Doug Green, the skipper, leaned against the railing, intently smoking a cigarette down to its end. “Quite a haul you got there, Victor.”

  He grimaced as the boys and Victor unloaded more from the trailer, as if puzzling how and where on deck he would ever disperse so much weight.

  Once everything was in place, Victor paid Doug for the overweight and slipped him a dollar tip.

  “Well, you’re off to Lucy Island, then.”

  Doug looked up. “Lucy Island still? So you haven’t renamed it? I thought you’d be calling it Howard Island by now, or Isobel Island. Something.”

  Thomas ducked around the mail boat’s steering wheel, touching everything he could reach on the greasy control panel. “Yeah, Papa. Let’s name it after Momma!”

  Isobel pressed herself into the piling, pretending not to hear. Victor cleared his throat but did not speak. He scooped Thomas up under one arm and lifted him out to deposit him on the dock, climbing out after.

  Doug saluted and promised Victor the load would be left on the island’s dock to await their arrival the next day.

  “How’s the forecast, Doug?”

  “Dry as a bone, Vic. You won’t be needing that tarp.”

  Sunday they all piled into and onto the old Ford. The boys stood out on the running boards and clung to the car as it bounced along. Isobel embarrassed Thomas by holding tightly to his wrist as he clung to the side mirror. She didn’t let go for the entire trip, even though they crept slowly in the loaded car. Items thought of at the last minute sprouted from the open trunk along with bedrolls and cartons of clothing. Two thin horsehair mattresses were rolled and tied to the roof so that the car appeared weighted by a giant scroll. The children yelled and waved to anyone walking along the road leading down the hill. Victor leaned on the horn at every passing car or truck. As they traveled down Main Street, Henry swayed from the car to slap each lightpost. They rolled past the closed post office, the imposing facades of the bank, the land office, the library. The fry cook at Jem’s Diner leaned against the brick wall, one leg up like a stork, oven mitt dangling at his belt and a curl of smoke at his lip. The only other downtown business that was open was the movie theater, and matinee patrons milled on the sidewalk to form a ragged line to the ticket window.

  The car slowed as they passed the tailor shop, where Victor punched out a rhythm on the horn and waved furiously at the darkened windows. Another block and the car left the pavement to sway along gravel past the lumberyard. They passed the road to the marina and the steep trail leading up to the mine. Woods enveloped them for a few miles and the children settled, holding their arms straight out to swipe at the tags of birch leaves. Bluebottles and mayflies met quick deaths on the windshield and grill.

  At Chalmer’s Point, Isobel kissed her sons good-bye. When she rubbed the grime on Thomas’s round cheek with her thumb, he squirmed from her reach. She turned to Henry.

  “You have the first aid kit? Remember, butter on a sunburn and Vaseline on wood ticks, not the other way around.”

  She handed him a bulging paper sack. “Apples and carrots. Keep them in a cool spot. And try to get Thomas to eat something besides potatoes.”

  Louisa hung back. Victor loped to the shore, where he swept his daughter up and whispered into her hair. She giggled and kissed him on the ear before she slipped blushing from his embrace.

  Every available bit of space in the boat had been loaded with mattresses, boxes, boys. They were ready.

  Victor made a great show of throwing his arms about Isobel and dipping her back in a dramatic swoop. Louisa covered her eyes and the boys moaned as their parents kissed. Victor pulled her up, whispering, “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

  A warm wind caught Isobel’s hat, and it cartwheeled across the grey boards. Louisa scampered along to retrieve it before it could sail off the end of the dock. Victor’s glance caught Isobel squarely, a smile ticking briefly at the c
orner of his mouth as he turned to jump into the stern.

  As the boat coughed away, Victor saluted and called out above the din of the motor, “See you at the end of August!”

  Louisa and Isobel stopped and turned. Isobel cupped her hands and yelled, “August?!”

  As if he hadn’t heard, Victor did not stop waving or smiling. Smoke spewing from the outboard motor rose to veil him in a yellow-green haze the colour of an old bruise.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I’ve been talking again, haven’t I?”

  Thomas shifted in the hard plastic chair next to Isobel’s bed. “Only for a while, Mother. Go on if you like. Please.”

  “You were falling asleep.”

  “I was not. I was listening.”

  Isobel looked at her son, the sheen of baldness creeping through his grey hair. “You’re a busy man, too busy to listen to an old woman prattle on.”

  “You weren’t prattling.”

  “I do that now, sometimes. I’ll be thinking and suddenly realize I’m prattling aloud like an old crow. Sorry.”

  “It was interesting. The things you said about us, the island.”

  “Oh yes, the island.”

  Thomas waited, but she didn’t finish. Often now she seemed to just drift away, lose the thread. Sometimes it seemed deliberate, as if she were using her age as some corner away from the world when she found it tedious. The entitlement of years, the decades piling up. Hell, she was a sliver away from being a century old! When her doctor first spoke with him he had used the term senility. Thomas had laughed aloud at that. “My mother? She’s anything but.”

  He’d shaken his head. “Don’t let the numbers fool you. She’s sharp as a razor.”

  Was she being evasive now? They sat in strained silence until a candy striper came in. She offered his mother a snack, but she waved away the Ritz crackers and apple juice. She knows what she wants and doesn’t want. Never a question there. As the girl swung around Thomas with her tray, he playfully snatched up the little paper cup and popped a cracker into his mouth. He winked at the girl. After he’d watched her walk out the door, he turned back, his voice suddenly serious.

  “When you were talking earlier, you didn’t mention that dead man again.”

  Isobel sighed. “First we chew and then we talk, Thomas. Dead man? You mean the missing man.”

  “Yes, the one you said looks like your doctor.”

  “Oh, Jack. Jack Reese. Hmm, I was thinking of him just yesterday. You must’ve missed him. Don’t worry, he’ll be back later in the story.”

  “So this is a story? I thought it was real history. I even remember something about a search party.”

  There was an edge in his tone that made Isobel look quickly up at him. Suspicion?

  “History. Story. It’s all the same, isn’t it?”

  Isobel put on her glasses and peered over their rims. “You can’t remember that summer, can you?”

  “On the island? Sure I do. That first year… how ungodly hot it was.”

  Thomas smiled into the paper cup in his hand. “Dad made hammocks out of old blankets so we could sleep outside. He made us strip each night, and we picked the wood ticks off each other by firelight. Dozens.

  We’d drop ’em into the coals and listen for them to pop. Phweet, phweet, that’s exactly how they sounded.”

  Isobel shuddered. “Nasty.”

  “We thought it was great.”

  Thomas laughed. “I caught my first fish there, on a leech. Now, that was nasty. Henry tried to make me bait the hook myself, but Dad ended up doing it for me. I caught a little sunfish. Couldn’t have been more than this long.”

  Thomas spread his thumb and forefinger. “Henry thought I should fillet the poor thing, but Dad came to its rescue, said throw it back, let it grow up and become a decent meal.”

  His mother’s eyes fluttered as if they might close. Thomas felt a flash of tattered emotion that surprised him. He crushed the paper cup in his hands and closed his own eyes. He could see his father that day in the boat, the hair on his brown forearms gone blond from months on the island, sleeves rolled high to show his wiry biceps. His nose had peeled from sunburn, and his fishing hat was cocked low, the little cigar clenched sideways between his molars as he grimaced over the squirming leech.

  Sixty years? Something like that. But it was as if his father were there in the room, slouched between his chair and his mother’s bed. Thomas could almost smell the cigar, its smoke cloaking the stink of bait drying between the ribs of a wooden boat. The memory was so precise, so brightedged, that Thomas opened his eyes quickly, as if ready for the ghost.

  But there was only his mother, staring past his shoulder to the window, as if she were alone.

  He wondered if she ever thought of him.

  Isobel made herself look at her youngest child. Sometimes it was like seeing a ghost. Thomas’s shoulders had begun to round, his jowls had thickened, and his eyebrows were wild. Victor, if he’d lived. She felt very tired.

  Thomas had been her last baby. After Victor died she’d felt his eyes move away from her in a cool, confused shift, as if — in the mired reasoning of a grieving ten-year-old — he held her somehow accountable for his father’s death. When he had most needed her and she him, he had refused her solace and bore his sorrow in more silence than any child should.

  He’d come back, of course, but never the entire way, not with her. He was kind and dutiful, loving really. She knew he loved her. He joked with her just like Victor used to, and they occasionally sparred, but he never forgot flowers on Mother’s Day and always bought her expensive Christmas gifts. He came for dinner every Thursday and they played Scrabble in companionable silence. They watched the news and sometimes they talked, even about personal things, fears, hopes. But she’d never won back the fierce shimmer that had once passed between them.

  “You better get back to your office, Thomas. Go count some beans. They’ll be bringing my lunch soon.”

  Thomas brushed her temple with his mustache. “Yes, ma’am. Still the boss.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Driving home from Chalmer’s Point with Louisa beside her, Isobel was silent, her mouth a hard line. She realized she and Victor had never actually discussed how long he would be gone with the boys. He had tried to speak with her only that morning, but she had busied herself tending to a cut on Thomas’s arm. Just a scratch, but she made a great task of dabbing iodine and searching for gauze and scissors. She had walked away from Victor, ignoring him as she had every time he’d started a conversation regarding the island.

  Had he simply forgotten to mention how long they would be gone? Was their absence meant to be retribution for her indifference over the last months? She clutched the steering wheel. She did not know. Could not. In the same way she couldn’t know how a man could be married to a woman — live with her, sleep with her, and move through the world at her side for nearly half her life — and not know of her dread of water.

  In their first days alone, she and Louisa cleaned, scrubbing the house and tucking away toys and clothes and books, room by room. Their work dredged up forgotten treasures lodged behind radiators and nested in parcels of dust. Long-forgotten items suddenly offered themselves up… orn jackknife, old coins, a tiny crucifix, crayon stubs, a tarnished silver chain, and, oddly, a chipped glass eye that must have belonged to some previous tenant. With each of these items rubbed clean and laid away, Isobel felt she was preserving some small history.

  The house sparkled as if it indeed were a sort of museum, its atmosphere one of anticipation, as if people were on their way but somehow delayed. As she and Louisa worked, the walls absorbed their echoes: the squeal of windows being polished, the snap of linens unfurled over airfreshened mattresses, the slurring and slopping of mops being rinsed, wrung, and rinsed again.

  With the boys away, the voices of the house began to make themselves heard. She and Louisa took to pausing when faint whisperings interrupted their tasks. Mice nested fiercely in the attic walls, c
onstant in their chewing of newspaper insulation. Bats seethed, settling in the eaves each morning. A low chorus of water pipes sang odd rhythms in the walls. The structure seemed a nervous giantess, shrugging and shifting her beam-and-rafter bones, as if trying to better fit into her garment of clapboard and cedar shakes.

  At night Isobel walked the hallways, placing her hand on the doors of the boys’ bedrooms, picturing them sleeping on the island, limbs tangled among bedding, damp cheeks puffing gently. Victor would be draped awkwardly on his cot, an elbow or knee jutting over the side. He would snore a little, perhaps fluttering a hand out in his sleep to brush a spider or a hair from his face, dreaming.

  After a week Isobel realized that the house, with minimal dusting, was going to stay clean, possibly for the summer. The usually daunting task of laundry was reduced to rinsing out a few undergarments, stockings, and the occasional frock that Louisa wore while weeding the garden.

  Meals were simple and small, and as the weather grew warmer their appetites withered. They abandoned the formality of the dining room to eat on the porch or at the kitchen table. Louisa harvested the first greens from the garden while Isobel boiled a vegetable or two, cut and buttered bread, and poured lemonade in the quiet kitchen. She took to drinking her coffee over ice. She sent a note to the dairy asking them to deliver a quart of milk Mondays and Thursdays instead of the usual two gallons.

  One early evening Isobel sat in the kitchen reading newspaper accounts of the bad weather in Oklahoma and Arkansas. She pitied the mothers in the grainy photographs, dead-eyed migrants bending in blighted fields or leaning hard against unpainted buildings. They peered at the camera so unabashedly Isobel knew there was no vanity left in the gaunt faces. The women were hollowed by merciless winds and nursing babies. Their exhaustion groaned from the pages, and Isobel felt a twinge of guilt for her own full belly, her comfort.

  Her own children were safe. Her fears that the boys weren’t eating properly or being carefully watched suddenly seemed ridiculous as she examined the faces of migrant children. Of course Victor would take care of them; had she thought otherwise?