An Island Between Us

by K'Anne Meinel

  “She isn’t staying?” Brenda asked at the same time.

  “I’m not sure who she was, and no, she’s not staying,” Marion said evasively, cupping her children’s heads fondly with her hands. She realized her hands were dirty from work, and she looked at all three of the children. Their hair looked a little scraggly and unkempt, and it was obvious Brenda hadn’t been able to reach the rat’s nest that her hair became during the night. “Let’s get back to work. The sooner we get finished, the better.”

  “You aren’t going into Franklin?” Barbara asked, walking to catch up with Marion as she pushed the children ahead of her.

  “You’re going into town?”

  “Can I come?”

  “Me too?” three voices rang out simultaneously.

  “No, I’m not going into Franklin today,” she admitted, glancing at Barbara to include her in the conversation. “We have work to finish today, and if you are good,” she directed that at the children, “maybe I’ll take you with me.” The children ran ahead to get back to work, racing each other as they did quite often. In fact, the two women often thought that their speeds were run or stand still and nothing in between.

  “Why not today?” Barbara asked, walking a step behind Marion as she started up the path. The gravel they had placed crunched under their boots.

  “I’m not going to rush this. I’m going to think it through. We can finish up some of the work and wash up properly for tomorrow. If I panic and go rushing into Franklin, maybe that’s what they are hoping for.”

  “Okay,” Barbara agreed, nodding at her reasoning. “But you thought she was from the state too?”

  “Oh yes, I did, and the verbal attack on her has her buffaloed for now, but she’ll be back. Oh, yes, she’ll be back,” she said musingly. She wondered if they had gone too far and if this would cost her. For a second, she resented Barbara’s interference. She worried that it would be held against her.

  “With artillery of her own?” Barbara said in a humorous voice.

  “Yes, but I intend to have my own to return fire.” She laughed, trying to remove the sinking feeling from her stomach, which she had begun with the original letter that had sent her to the lawyer in the first place. She wasn’t sure she had what she needed to win this battle. The Whitings had a lot of money and wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Still, that woman could have been an actress, sent by them to scare Marion.

  It was a good thing they hadn’t let the woman up to the cabin. They found out later that the cats and dogs had made a mess in the cabin, tearing apart one of the stuffed animals belonging to the children. The fluff from inside the stuffed toy was everywhere. They found it when they stopped for lunch, and it took quite a while to get it all cleaned up. Then, Marion insisted on cleaning the entire cabin, making sure everyone did their own rooms. They all scrubbed and cleaned the already neat and orderly cabin. After, she had the boys sit down while she attempted to cut their hair. Barbara took over when she saw the mess Marion was making of Brian’s hair, trimming it with the shears they used to cut material to make the curtains for the various cabins. She even trimmed Brenda’s hair ends, working out the rat’s nest at the back of her head without too many tears. Finally, she tackled Richard’s mop. When she finished, each of the children was much neater in appearance.

  “You’re next,” she said to Marion when she had finished with the children. The blonde reluctantly sat in the chair, a dishtowel around her neck to keep the hairs from falling into her collar.

  “Do we have to wear our new suits?” Brian worried later, already touching his neck as though he could feel the tight collar his mother had insisted upon.

  “Nope, not this time,” Marion assured him, pleased with the haircut Barbara had given them all and rushing to help clean up the mess from the floor before the dogs or cats tracked through it.

  “Why are we going into town?” he asked, curious.

  “You don’t want to go?” she asked, surprised.

  “Well...” he began, fidgeting a little at her intent look.

  “You don’t have to go. I’m going to check our mail, see my attorney, and send these letters,” she indicated the little pile they had prepared to go out. She had written a couple when Barbara took over cutting the children’s hair since she was too agitated to do a proper job.

  “Are you stopping by the school?” Richard asked eagerly. Brenda looked up hopefully at that question, and even Brian suddenly looked intrigued.

  “Well, if we go in early enough maybe Mrs. Larsen will let you stay in class for the day and you can get to know the other children better?” she musingly asked in return. Barbara thought that was a good idea and hoped the teacher agreed. It was important that the children make friends their own age. They had so much time alone with only each other, and they needed outside influences and interactions. She was certain that would also look good to the state when they finished their investigation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Marion found herself driving confidently across the water with the children in the boat. Barbara had finished sewing the cushions, choosing a hearty material that repelled water but had been a pain to work with and made it hard to sew the seams. She’d been tenacious after she got the first cushion made. She tried it out, found some changes were in order, and continued to redo all the dilapidated and ripped cushions. Now, the boat appeared clean and dapper, and Marion felt poised as she drove along in their polished and updated boat. She was wearing her dress again, this time without safety pins as Barbara had tucked in and sewn the extra fabric after the weight she had lost. It had been amazingly intimate as Barbara measured and touched her as she refitted the dress to her, but their sensuality had to wait until they were alone in their bedroom behind a closed and locked door. It had been like foreplay as the children watched her dress being remade, and she modeled it for them all. The only one who was truly interested besides Barbara was Brenda, although each of the children was fascinated by the sewing machine as Barbara feverishly worked the pedals while she sewed. She gave the children small scraps of material to make pouches and other things, talking tales as she worked. The children now had a small haversack each. The sewed-on pouches and pockets held shells, pretty stones, or other things that caught their imaginations. The only things both Marion and Barbara forbade were lizards, frogs, or snakes. Luckily, they hadn’t seen any snakes on their little island, and for that, both women were grateful.

  Mrs. Larson was surprised when Marion and the children showed up so early, but after listening to Marion explain about the socialization, she allowed the children to stay and observe and interact with the other children in the one-room schoolhouse. They would be expanding the school next year to take in higher grades using a second teacher. With all the people moving into the area, the building boom was on, and they needed to expand.

  Marion hurried off to her lawyer’s office. She had to wait two hours to see him and spent her time jotting notes to herself about things she wanted to get done around the island and points she wanted to discuss with the lawyer. She knew her notes drove Barbara crazy as they made her feel like Marion was ordering her about, but she tried to explain these were suggestions and ideas, not commands. She wanted and needed Barbara’s input on her ideas and thoughts.

  * * * * *

  Barbara felt the island was abnormally quiet without the others there. She did the children’s normal chores: feeding the chickens and guineas, letting out the sheep, which she noted were in bad need of a haircut of their own. The gunk from childbirth was still in the wool, and she was determined to wash them that day. She was tired of cutting trees, and while the day wasn’t quite hot enough for washing sheep, she really didn’t want to do anything else. A day off was a rare thing for her, and she felt a little lost without Marion and the children there.

  Gathering soap shavings from their winter usage, which she had left soaking in water to soften them, she shook them up well. She took the sheep down to the cove, and the dogs kept them nea
rby. She didn’t want to wash them in the ocean water, but a new run-off channel had come to light this spring where she had created a dam using boards. She had built up a little foundation for the bathtub she was going to use. Plugging the hole, she let the runoff fill the little tub. It was ice cold, and she didn’t envy the sheep as she put them into the tub one at a time and soaked their overgrown wool, then she soaped them up using the almost liquid soap from the shavings. Plunging them back into the water time and again, she got all the suds out before letting the miserable and protesting sheep go off to dry. She grabbed another one, and the dogs looked on with little cocks of their head as she started the whole process over again. She wryly wondered if washing the wool on the sheep and letting it dry might cause it to shrink. Chuckling aloud at her own humor, she continued washing the sheep. She was just as soaked and miserable as the sheep when she finally herded them back up to the meadow. The sun came out between the overcast for a while, so she had the dogs hold them there in the sunshine while she went in and changed, washing her own patched dungarees and layers of flannel. She was shivering from the cold and could only hope she hadn’t harmed any of the sheep. She’d never heard of sheep having the sniffles, but she supposed, like many other animals, they could get pneumonia.

  * * * * *

  Marion felt much better after she left the attorney’s office. He didn’t like that she and Barbara had been confrontational but agreed that the state should have made an appointment, so they could be prepared. He warned her, even after that first visit, they might still make a surprise visit to see if the women were keeping the children’s home environment healthy. He thought it too far-fetched that her mother-in-law might hire someone to pretend to be a state representative, but he promised to send a letter to the appropriate people involved.

  Marion still had half of the day until the children were out of school. She filled their grocery list and noticed the proprietor looking at her oddly in her dress. He had never seen her or Barbara in anything but trousers or dungarees. After asking him for help, he directed her to a place where she could buy shears for their sheep. They were going to try to shear the sheep themselves, and she found not only the shears but also a spinning wheel, and a source to sell their lambs. She resisted buying the spinning wheel for now. With the shears in the truck and the information in hand, she headed for the hardware store. Again, she felt herself getting stared at for her girlish attire. After that stop, she went to the lumberyard with the same resulting stares. She wasn’t sure she was enjoying the unwelcome attention.

  “Mrs. Whiting?” The guy they usually dealt with at the lumberyard gawked at her, his always present cigar nearly dropping out of his mouth.

  “Yes?” she asked frostily as she took out their list of supplies.

  “Wow! You look wonderful,” he told her and took the list hurriedly, blushing a deep red.

  She took pity on the man and was friendlier as they discussed what they needed to order from the list and what they had in stock that he could put in her truck for her. She even took the time to go over to the library in the next town, checking out books she knew the children would particularly enjoy and choosing some for her and Barbara. She looked longingly at the movie marquee, determined to remind Barbara that she wanted to see a movie. By the time all her errands were fulfilled, it was time to pick up the children. They never stopped talking as they helped her load their things in the boat.

  “Mrs. Whiting?” a voice called as they put the last items in the boat. The children and Marion looked up. That was the second time that day someone had addressed her this way.

  “Yes?” she asked, shading her eyes from the sunlight that had come out and squinting up at the man.

  “I understand you are looking for a boat?” he asked, looking at the woman in a dress, balancing between the boat and the dock and not convinced she knew what she was doing. She looked completely out of place on the white dock.

  Marion turned and got back on the dock, so she could talk to the man. “Yes, we are. Do you know of one?”

  “My parents have a Woody for sale. It’s a boat like this one. Would you like to see it?” He frowned slightly at the children gawking at him.

  Marion could tell the man must not like children, but she couldn’t let this opportunity pass them by. They had been looking for a boat for quite a while. She wished Barbara was with her to look it over, but she nodded and gestured to the children to get out of the boat and back on the dock. “Do you have it nearby?”

  “It’s on the lake. You can follow me,” he said, gesturing to a sedan parked at the end of the pier by their truck and trailer. He would have offered to give her a ride but seeing the children, he thought twice about that.

  Marion smiled and loaded the children in the truck, which took a little while. She could tell he wasn’t used to children and looked impatient as he tapped his fingers on his steering wheel in obvious agitation. She followed him through town, past the lumberyard, and up beyond the hills immediately surrounding the town towards the mountain. They turned north when she would have normally gone south to the next town. She worried that perhaps he was leading her farther away from civilization, then realized her truck was better suited to the dirt road he was leading her on than his sedan; it was getting very muddy on this track. She saw his tires spin in the endless puddles more than once when her own truck merely bounced through them as she followed along the overgrown drive. Finally, the road opened onto a nice set of cabins. Most looked to be summer cottages, and there was a nice, little lake hidden in these hills. As she got out, she looked kindly at the various shacks, realizing she and Barbara had done a good job. Aesthetically their cabins were nicer looking and appeared sturdier, and these cabins were more established! She did see a few things she wanted to incorporate in their own plans as she perused these. The lattice work on one inspired her. She turned back to the man and gave him her full attention.

  “It’s down here,” he said, gesturing towards the lake.

  Marion was pleased to see the boat houses dotting the small lake and cautioned the children to keep back, sensing rightly that the man didn’t appreciate their presence. She admired the boat in the water by the dock, wondering what the difference was between the Runabout and the Woody. They looked the same to her. She could see it had been well taken care of, and she wondered how much the man was asking. “Why are they getting rid of it?” she asked instead as she left the children on the shore and went out on the dock to inspect it closer.

  “They are selling their cabin and don’t need it any longer. Someone in town mentioned you were looking for a boat, and as I saw you at the dock, I thought I’d mention it.”

  They discussed the various features as well as the price of the boat, and she looked around, spotting several rowboats and a canoe by the boat house. She could sense his agitation as the children played on the grass since she hadn’t allowed them on the dock. Finally, she asked, “I’m going to have to ask my partner. Would you mind if we came out here to look at it and test drive it?”

  He breathed through his nose, loudly, to show his annoyance, but he nodded. “Are you selling the rowboats or the canoe?” she asked, trying to remain on cordial terms with him.

  “Yes, everything,” he admitted.

  “Mind if I take a look?” she asked, gesturing towards them, and again, he nodded. The children went with her, but the man stayed back. He acted almost as though the children were a repellant. The canoe looked to be in good shape. It was made of wood and had the paddles clipped inside under the ridge. The rowboats were in decent if well-used states, and she asked how much he wanted for them. At his price, her eyebrows went up. Gesturing at the canoe, she asked its price and was puzzled to hear it was less. She agreed to take the canoe, and he helped her put it on the roof of her truck, tying it down with rope that he produced and looking very unladylike in her dress as she got up in the bed of the truck to make sure it was tight. “Do you have a phone number I can call when my partner and I are i
n town? We could come out and look at the Woody then?”

  “Do you know when that would be?” he asked, looking almost suspiciously at the check she had written him for the canoe.

  “We come into town every few days or so,” she assured him, wondering if the boat would still be available. It was a good deal from what she had seen of other ads. “If I give you a deposit, will you hold it for us until my partner sees it?”

  He seemed pleased with that idea, and she wrote him another check with the understanding they would apply it to the balance if they bought it.

  As she drove back down the long and overgrown drive with the canoe balanced on the roof, she worried about it coming off when branches scraped against the truck and the wood of the canoe. Then she worried more about scratches on the beautiful wood of the canoe. She knew the canoe purchase wouldn’t upset Barbara, but had she bought the Woody, it would have strained not only their ready funds but their tacit agreement to discuss all major purchases.

  She debated about towing the canoe behind the boat or tying it on top. She decided tying it was the best idea and fussed with that for a while. Although the children were trying to help, her dress was a decided disadvantage in climbing onto the front of the boat. She was finally ready to get going and stopped to top off their gas cans and tank. While there, she inquired about getting a small tank on their island, and the guy at the shop promised to have his rep call on them. She paid for her purchases, and they were on their way. The wind was picking up, and the bucking of the waves required her full attention. Twice, she had to reach out and pull the canoe back into place as it slipped from where they had tied it when the battering of the boat against the waves rattled the straining ropes loose. Driving back was long and arduous, and she worried about making it home before dark with this load. She was never so relieved as when she spotted their island, the cove, and then their dock. Barbara looked happy to see them. Her hair was slicked back like she had bathed, and Marion looked at it curiously as she explained she had washed the sheep.