The Golden Hour

by T. Greenwood

  * * *

  Avery got bored with “helping” me paint after only a few minutes, and so I set her up at the kitchen table with a plastic box of children’s watercolors and some paper. I had brought along the baby monitor I couldn’t seem to relinquish, and put it unobtrusively on the kitchen counter. I listened to her happy babble and singing as I painted around the windows, edged along the ceiling, and rolled the violet color across the walls.

  I ran out of paint just as I finished the fourth wall and the sun was beginning to set. I had only brought a gallon, thinking that would be enough to cover a small bedroom. But the walls were porous, and it took two coats for the color to become the shade Avery had wanted. I didn’t have blue paint for the floor/sky yet since I wasn’t sure if the floors would even be amenable to being painted. Luckily, they were made of wide pine boards. I figured a good sanding and a coat of primer would be all they’d need before I painted the “sky.” I’d need to either buy some glow-in-the-dark stars online or just use some of the glow-in-the dark acrylic paint I had in my stash of craft paints.

  After I put her to bed, I checked my Facebook and e-mail on my phone. I also realized I hadn’t checked my business e-mail account since we left the city. I had set up an address just to receive my Etsy orders, messages sent via my miserably out-of-date Web site. Usually, I’d get a few a month. Things generally picked up before the holidays; I had created a line of Christmas cards with a snowy version of the birches.

  There were a couple of inquiries about commissions, one order for a small print (thankfully, I’d packed some of my inventory). And then an e-mail with the subject line: looking for you.

  I clicked to open the e-mail, trembling as I read:

  I need to talk to you bout some things. You no what. If you think you can just ignore me, that’s not very smart. Cuz I no where you been living in New York city. And I also no where your parents live.

  I felt my stomach turn, bile burning at the back of my throat. Tears burning in my eyes, I clicked out of the e-mail. I thought of my Etsy page, the profile picture of me. Gus had taken the photo right after I’d had Avery. In it, my cheeks are as full and pink as the knit cap on my head. It was late spring, and I was holding Avery, kissing her forehead. Under my profile picture, it said Wyn Davies, Queens, NY. And my stupid bio. I’d read online how important it was to personalize this page, to make yourself likeable. Friendly, accessible artists sold more work than elusive ones. All anybody had to do was click on this page and learn that I lived in Queens, that I was a mom, that I’d grown up in New Hampshire and studied art at RISD.

  Quickly, I went to Google’s home page and searched “Wyn Davies Queens, NY.” For under five dollars you could have my current address, phone number, address history. For thirty bucks, you could get everything shy of my dental records.

  I thought about deleting everything: social networking accounts, my Etsy account, my Web site. I wanted to systematically destroy the platform I’d spent the last several years building. But the damage was done.

  An image search of my name revealed the same photo from my Etsy shop as well as the one head shot Gus had taken of me ten years ago when I had my first and only solo show, at a small gallery in Durango. There were maybe a dozen of these same images of me as I scrolled down the page, but most of the photos were of Robby Rousseau: the mug shot taken that night after they arrested him, his face acne-riddled, bearing scratch marks, downcast eyes, and the faintest hint of an adolescent mustache. The photo of him being led to the courthouse in shackles, chin to chest.

  I reread the message, trembling, and tried to comfort myself with the fact that at least it seemed he had no idea I’d left Queens, that I was here on this remote island. I was safe here. Avery and I were safe here. That had been the whole plan, hadn’t it?

  That night I curled up with Avery in “my” room. My back ached from painting, and I couldn’t get comfortable. I tossed and turned, sleeping fitfully. When I did sleep, I dreamed of trees, of that dense and terrifying forest. But then the leaves and green gave way to water, waves crashing against the sand, the tide creeping closer and closer, climbing up the cliffs, depositing the tears of a sorrowful mermaid held prisoner by an angry god.

  Inquiry

  “Do you recall anything different about that day? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  “No. Only that Carly Noone got . . . um . . . sick. During algebra. I went with her to the nurse during last period. We were still in the nurse’s office when the last bell rang.”

  Mrs. Valencia had me walk Carly down to the nurse’s office, my sweater tied around Carly’s waist to hide the red splotch blooming on the back of her white capris. I was squeamish, and the idea of bleeding like this made me feel faint. I didn’t have my period yet. The nurse sent her into the bathroom with a pad. When the bell rang, she told her she could wait there, she’d call her mother to come get her so she wouldn’t have to walk home.

  “And you?”

  “I stayed with her until her mom showed up. She asked me to. I was bummed because I wanted to go hang out with my other friends.”

  “Who? What did you normally do after school?”

  “Hanna Lamont. Sara Richards. Usually, we would be gossiping, playing with somebody’s Tamagotchi toy.”

  Talking about the new boy who’d just moved here from North Carolina. Hanna said she’d blow him, if he asked her. I didn’t know what she meant, but I acted like I did. But not that day.

  “But not that day?”

  “No. Everybody had gone home except for me.”

  Her white jeans ruined, the red burst right at the center of her. When she gave me back my sweater, I saw some of the red had seeped onto it. Like spilled ink. Like a contagion.

  “Did you see Robert? Was he outside the school?”

  “It’s Robby. Nobody called him Robert.”

  “Yes. Robby. Were you aware of him being on the campus?”

  The pounding of the bass always preceded the car. I remember I could feel it in my jaw, the pavement throbbing like a heartbeat. I didn’t need to look up to know he was rolling the window down, leaning toward us like a flower toward the sun. We were so bright, weren’t we? All of us, such shining girls?

  “Miss Davies?”

  I could feel the bass in my throat, in my shoulders.

  “Let me try this again. Did you see Robert—Robby—on campus after school? Or had he already left?”

  Before he had time to roll down the window, before he could hiss and lick his lips, make those sounds at me, I crossed the street and started down the road that would take me to the lower playing fields. Teeth clacking, jaw snapping, like a dog growling.

  “Miss Davies, when did you realize he was following you?”

  “Who?”

  “Robert. Robby Rousseau.”

  Bluffs Island

  I put him out of my mind. I had no choice. I wasn’t going to engage him in whatever conversation he wanted to have. I needed to focus on making our life here. On just getting settled in. I’d worry about all of this after the court made its decision about the retrial.

  I would paint Avery’s room. I would paint the birches. I would get the house ready for Pilar. Everything would be okay if I could just stay focused on these simple things.

  While it was unlikely this little island would have its own hardware store where we could get the paint, I thought if we went into town we might find some of the other things we needed. It would also be a chance to check in with civilization.

  I made a quick mental list (excluding the paint), in the off chance there might be some sort of general store, a la Little House on the Prairie, where we could find the things I’d forgotten: toilet paper, ibuprofen, bleach.

  After breakfast, I bundled Avery up into a thick Aran sweater she hated but my mother had knitted for her and made her look like the little Irish girl on the cover of the knitting pattern. Chestnut hair, green eyes and all.

  As we were headed out the door, I remembered the
Epitaphs and Prophecies box, which I had put on the kitchen counter earlier. What I hadn’t noticed before was each roll of film had a date marked on its side in ballpoint pen. How strange. I lined them up in date order, finding the oldest one first: 7/12/76. I grabbed that one and the next one, labeled 7/13/76, on the highly unlikely chance there was someplace in town that could develop film.

  I took the same road we’d driven to get to the house from the ferry, noting it was just as desolate as it had seemed in the dark of night. I counted only five turnoffs, all of them marked PRIVATE. And it only took a few minutes to get to the place where the main road split. Going straight would take you toward the water, toward the docks (where the ferry was notably absent). Turning left would, apparently, take you into “town.” A hand-painted sign hung on the side of the road announcing BUSINESS DISTRICT with an arrow to lead the way.

  I put my blinker on, though for whom, I have no idea. There didn’t seem to be another soul out today. The road hugged the rocky shore and did, indeed, eventually arrive in a small village with one main street populated with both people and a few shops and restaurants. Civilization! My heart sang at the sight of a small market and a drugstore. A post office, and an old phone booth now filled with books and marked PUBLIC LIBRARY.

  I angle-parked the car and almost gleefully unbuckled Avery from the backseat. It was pathetic; I’d only been away from the city for a few days. But something about these signs of commerce, of life, was such a relief. How I planned to make it through an entire winter here suddenly baffled me. I thought of Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining, slowly going mad inside the old hotel while his family could do nothing but try to survive. At least Pilar would be here soon.

  As I locked up the car, no fewer than four people nodded their heads at me, mumbled hello, and tried not to stare at the New York plates on the Honda. They probably figured I was just a tourist. Pilar had told me in the summertime, the island’s population grew upward of two thousand people. But in the winter, there were only a few hundred. I figured these shops and restaurants were likely designed to cater to the summer residents, a sad fact confirmed as we made our way down the street only to realize more than half of them had signs saying CLOSED UNTIL MEMORIAL DAY hanging in their doors. Memorial Day was six months away! My singing heart went silent.

  “Oh, look, Mama!” Avery said, stopping in front of a tourist shop where there was a display of stuffed lobsters, fishing buoys, and nets. Brightly colored T-shirts and plastic sand buckets. “Can we go in?” she asked. But again, CLOSED FOR BUSINESS announced the hand-written sign on the door.

  Three restaurants, a coffee shop, and a high-end jewelry store with empty display cases (as if a burglar had come and pillaged the velvet necks and hands) were also closed. I was about to give up when we got to a small drugstore near the end of the block and saw people moving around inside.

  “Come on, sweets,” I said, motioning for Avery to come. She had her hands pressed against the cold glass of an abandoned candy shop, her eyes forlorn.

  I pushed open the door to the drugstore, and the sleigh bells hanging on it jingled. There was a man behind the counter, busy ringing up an elderly woman’s purchases. I smiled. Avery skipped down the aisles, which were sparsely stocked. I managed to find a few things we needed: a plunger, for one (none of the toilets seemed to be fully operational), as well as toilet paper, some bleach, ibuprofen, a couple of postcards to send home, and, from a dusty display near the back of the store, some sand toys for Avery. I brought our items to the counter and noticed a Kodak kiosk. I rummaged through my purse for the rolls of film and said to the man behind the counter, “Excuse me?”

  He turned away from what he was doing and offered a sort of half smile. “Aftah-noon,” he said, his accent as thick as the dust on those sand buckets.

  “Hi,” I said, realizing this was the first adult conversation I’d had in a couple of days. “I saw you guys have a photo, um, department?” I gestured to the enlargement kiosk. “I was wondering if you also developed film?”

  “Film?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Camera film. 35 mm?” I looked at the canisters to verify.

  “Used to have a one-hour shop set up, but don’t nobody use film no more.”

  I nodded, still smiling. “But can you send it away or something?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I got some envelopes. In the back.”

  “Okay?” I said as he continued to look at me quizzically. “Envelopes to mail away film?”

  “Ayuh,” he said, slowly turned around and looked back over his shoulder, as if worried I might rob the till if he left it unattended, and then disappeared into a back room.

  He emerged again with a handful of large preprinted envelopes. “You might want to check on the computer and make sure these addresses are still good,” he said. “These must be fifteen years old.”

  Online. Of course. What an idiot I was. There must be places you could send your film to get it developed. Still, I took the envelopes from him and studied them. “Do I just bring these here? Or do I need to mail them myself?”

  “The post office is the next block o-vah,” he said.

  * * *

  After we’d paid for our things, I sat in the car, checked via my phone to confirm this was still the address for film processing, and popped the film canisters in one of the envelopes along with my credit card number, hoping my most recent payment would free up enough credit to cover the cost. Then Avery and I made our way to the post office.

  I explained to the postmistress that I had just moved into the house on the bluffs and that I was wondering if there was mail delivery. The woman raised her eyebrow.

  “You mean the house up to Bluffs Drive?”

  I nodded, smiling.

  She scowled and her mouth twitched, and she looked down at Avery, who had been collecting handfuls of green certified mail receipts and change of address kits.

  “Av,” I said. “Just one of each.”

  “Mail trucks don’t go up there,” the woman snapped. “You gotta rent a box, hon.” And she pointed to a wall of bronze boxes, each with their own spinning lock.

  I filled out a form with my info and wrote a check for twenty-five dollars I hadn’t planned on spending, but I figured I would likely need to be able to receive as well as send mail. I had no return address to put on the film envelope otherwise.

  Avery was getting antsy and whiny after running all these errands, and so I said, “Do you want some cocoa?” I’d found in my brief history as a mother that I wasn’t above bribery.

  We found a small restaurant open on the opposite side of the street and went through the heavy doors. Inside it was dark, more bar than restaurant, and for a minute I worried Avery wouldn’t be allowed inside. But a young woman ushered us in and put us at a table near a window that looked out at the incredible view of the ocean.

  The other patrons were mostly men, fishermen, I supposed from the looks of them. Flannel and beards here were practical necessities rather than hipster fashion statements. Just as Avery’s cocoa and my coffee arrived, one of the older men hobbled over to us. He had to be nearing eighty. He had a vague sort of limp and wispy hair that blew about in the forced-air heat coming through a vent over our table, liver-spotted hands, and pale eyelashes.

  “You the one who bought the house up on the bluffs?” he asked.

  Well, I guess it was obvious we weren’t locals. But not quite tourists either.

  I thought about explaining it was actually Pilar’s house, that she was just letting us stay there, but it all seemed so complicated and unnecessary to explain this to a stranger, so I just said, “Yep.”

  “Glad somebody finally moved in. House’s just been sittin’ there for the last thirty-five years,” he said.

  Thirty-five years? Well, that explained the state of things.

  “I remember her,” he said, nodding.

  And I thought again of Pilar. But that made no sense. Pilar had been on the island a whoppi
ng two times, once to look at the house, and once when she closed on it.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “What was it, back in ’80, ’81?” He rubbed a hand across his freckled head as though he were trying to conjure up some distant memory.

  I was getting more and more confused.

  “Never fit in here, ya know. Kept to herself mostly. Didn’t talk to nobody.” He was caught up in some sort of distant reverie now. “’Course folks like that don’t last long here. Still, the way she just disappeared. Very strange.”

  He wasn’t talking to me, not really, but it felt like an accusation.

  “What happened?” I started, but then Avery gasped. She had spilled her mug and the cocoa was running across the laminate tabletop.

  I jumped up, grabbing a wad of napkins from the dispenser on the table to sop up the mess.

  “You might ask your neighbor that question,” he said.

  Avery was crying now. Big, gulping sobs.

  “It’s okay, honey,” I said. The cocoa was running down the front of her white sweater. Luckily, we had bleach now.

  I patted futilely at the cocoa and, with a fresh napkin, at her tears.

  I looked up again, wanting to ask the man what he was talking about, whom he was talking about, but he was already at the register paying his check. He tipped an imaginary hat at me on his way out the door.

  I sighed and stared out the window at the waves pummeling the sand below us. I ordered another cocoa for Avery, even though this would ensure a sugar crash in about an hour. Sometimes, I took the easy way out. I always had.

  * * *

  That night, I dreamed of the pathway that led between our house and the mansion across the way. I was walking on the beach, gathering sea glass. Avery was with me. It was dusk in my dream, and the big house was bathed in a sort of orange light as the sun set behind it. I was so consumed by the beauty of this, the mystery of who lived there, I didn’t see Avery disappear. But in a moment I was overcome by the truth that she was gone. That she had taken the stone steps without me. I ran to catch up, calling her name, following a path of blue and green sea grass to the top, where I stood at the entrance to the woods. Paralyzed, unable to go forward, though I knew Avery was in the woods.