Heartbroken

by Lisa Unger

  The storm that threatened had never come. There was just a persistent drizzle and a strong chop that made the boat ride back from the mainland somewhat rough. A less nautical person might have found herself nauseated. Not Birdie. She docked the small boat with ease, tied her off, and proceeded to unload the groceries onto the dock.

  “Take it easy on yourself, Birdie,” Joe had said at the train station. “Take it easy on everyone.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Was she not supposed to shop, prepare the menu, and create the itinerary for the week? Was she not supposed to pick up the clean sheets from the laundry and change all the bedding, scrub the bathrooms, put fresh flowers in the vases? She asked him as much, and she saw him shutting down, turning away.

  “Okay,” he said. He gave her a dismissive peck on the cheek and then stepped onto the train. She didn’t wait to watch it pull away. She just got in the car and drove to the market. He was useless, anyway. All he did with his slovenly ways was create more work for her. In the city, they had help—twice-weekly cleaning, an occasional cook. Their laundry was picked up and delivered to the apartment. Here it was just her, doing everything. Why didn’t anyone seem to care about that?

  She unloaded the groceries and the laundry from the boat onto the dock, then started the trek with as much as she could carry to the main house. It would take two, maybe three trips to complete the job. She was still on the dock when she saw him again. This time he was standing on her porch.

  Who was it?

  Now, in the gray and with the wind howling, with Joe long gone, she didn’t feel as brave. She stood frozen, her stomach bottomed out, her heart racing. He didn’t move; neither did she. She couldn’t see his face. He was nothing but a dark blur. She put down the groceries and started to back away.

  As she did, she lost her footing and fell on her rump, saving herself with her elbows from falling all the way back and hitting her head on the hard wood. She heard him laughing. It sounded like a woman’s laughter, a voice she recognized.

  “Birdie!” Who was that? Another voice sounded small and far away.

  She found she couldn’t move as the form disappeared inside the house. She heard the familiar squeak and slam of the screen door. She wanted to call out, Get out of my house! But no words came.

  “Birdie, are you all right?” The distant voice carried on the wind toward her.

  She turned to see that it was the young man from the closest island to the south; he was waving extravagantly and yelling something that she couldn’t quite hear.

  He had told her that his office faced her dock. He could see them coming and going, he’d said. This had annoyed her. She’d rather not have known what he could and couldn’t see, which was why she didn’t socialize much in the area.

  She found she couldn’t answer him. A shooting pain traveled from her lower back down her right leg. Sciatica: the bane of her existence. She lay back as she saw the young man—what was his name?—get into his boat and race across the two-hundred-yard channel that separated them. Oh, John Cross, that was it—the publishing man who knew Kate’s ex-husband somehow.

  He tied off and bounded up the dock to her. She didn’t remember what it was like to be that young and fit, with every confidence that you could manage any terrain before you.

  “Birdie, what happened?” He bent down beside her. “Can you move?”

  Shouldn’t he be calling me Mrs. Burke? she thought. Wasn’t that more respectful? These young people were so casual, so familiar, as if everyone were equal.

  “Mr. Cross,” she said, finding her voice. “There’s someone on my island. I saw him earlier today and just now on the porch. Please, call the police.”

  He looked uncertainly at her and then around the island. “Are you sure?” he said. “Did you hit your head?”

  “Young man,” she said, “I did not hit my head, and I am quite sure of what I saw.”

  He gave her a deferential smile and helped her to her feet. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll call right away.”

  She stared at the house. The wet brown shingles glistened, the huge picture windows reflecting the trees from John Cross’s island. She expected to see the man come to the glass.

  John pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his Windbreaker and called the authorities. Cell phone service was spotty at best in the area, but it seemed to work for John. When he’d completed the call, she told him, “He’s in my house.” She grabbed his wrist. “I saw him walk in the front door.”

  There it was again, that patient skepticism that the young reserved for the old. Suddenly, the children were in charge—the doctors, the lawyers, the neighbors were all shockingly young, thinking that they possessed some knowledge that you did not. Suddenly, your ways and ideas were dated, your memories were fuzzy, your opinions were silly and badly informed. John gazed up at the house. He had a large nose and a weak jaw. His blond hair looked as though it could use a wash.

  “I’ll go up,” he said. He was not comfortable in the role of hero. A lover, not a fighter. Well, what could you expect from someone who worked in publishing?

  “Don’t,” she said. “Wait for the police.”

  “I’ll be fast,” he said. He thought that she was afraid and that she didn’t want him to leave her alone. And maybe she didn’t. He was gone before she could stop him. Should she tell him that the gun was in a cabinet over the refrigerator? But he was quick, already on the porch steps. Then he moved through the door. “Hello?” she heard him call. “Is someone in there?”

  He disappeared inside. But the door was silent. This time she didn’t hear the loud squeal and slam. Of course not. That was a noise from her childhood, from the other house that they now used for guests. The main house was newer, the door well oiled and on a hydraulic hinge. The door on the main house closed with a gentle hiss. She felt tears spring to her eyes, that horrible hollow of sadness and uncertainty in her middle that she’d felt as a child. What had she seen? What had she heard? What was wrong with her?

  A few minutes later, John was back on the porch. “It’s clear,” he called. “I’m going to check the other house and take a quick circle around the island. Are you okay?”

  She gave him a wave because she didn’t trust her voice. He looked off into the distance and pointed out toward the mainland. “Here come the police, Birdie,” he said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  She followed his line of sight and saw the white boat moving swiftly toward them, the red light flashing on the flat bimini top. Her hair was wet; the plastic bags on the dock were gathering pools of water in their folds. Drizzle was like that: It could almost fool you into thinking it wasn’t raining. She brought her hood up, folded her arms around herself.

  As the boat drew closer, she could see old Roger Murphy at the helm, and she felt a ripple of distaste. He’d grown up in the area on the mainland. But he was a townie, not one of the summer people, like Birdie’s family. They’d known each other a long time. Apparently, he was quite high up in the police department, but she remembered him as a young man working in Blackbear marina, helping her father load the boat. He must have jumped at the chance to come out to Heart Island. Everyone did. There was no place to dock with both the cuddy and John’s boat at the dock, so he tied off to John Cross’s boat.

  “Birdie Heart,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  He climbed from his boat to John’s. She offered her hand to help him stabilize as he stepped onto the dock. The years had not been kind; he had an enormous belly, an atlas of lines on his face. His skin had the pasty cast of someone who didn’t eat well.

  Birdie Heart. She hadn’t thought of herself that way in a hundred years. What a silly name. What had her mother hoped to accomplish by giving her a name like that? It’s a sweet, pretty name for a sweet, pretty girl. Only her mother had ever called Birdie sweet. And other than her mother only Joe had ever called her pretty. Handsome, striking, attractive … she’d heard all of that. But she was never truly pre
tty, not like Katherine or Chelsea or Caroline. She’d never minded. Pretty didn’t buy much these days, in spite of the way people chased after it.

  “Birdie Burke now, Roger,” she said. She gave him what she hoped was a friendly smile. Joe always accused her of grimacing when she thought she’d been smiling. Why are you always giving people that appraising look, that tight sneer? Birdie had no idea what he meant.

  “Of course, of course.” He cleared his throat and gazed up at the house. “Your neighbor John Cross said there was someone on the island? An intruder?”

  John came through the trees then and jogged down the dock. The two men shook hands.

  “I checked both houses and the bunkhouse, walked the perimeter. I didn’t see anyone.” John sounded a little breathless. “I think it’s clear.”

  The men helped Birdie bring the groceries and laundry up to the house. One benefit, she supposed, of scaring herself witless. She was tired, and her sciatica was brutal, so she didn’t fight Roger when he took the bags from her hand.

  Up in the main house, she made coffee and told Roger what she’d seen that morning and again this afternoon. She didn’t mention the screen door. She knew they both thought she was losing her mind, that she was old and dotty. Why confirm their suspicions? John Cross seemed to feel he was needed and hung around, looking at the artwork hanging on the wall, taking books from the shelves, glancing at them, and carefully replacing them. Nosy. He was a nosy man. As she watched him fondling her things, Birdie remembered hearing that he had more than a passing interest in the history of the area islands. She couldn’t remember what the old woman at the marina shop had said about him, that he had a connection to someone eccentric who had lived here long ago. The woman had said that he’d been asking a lot of questions. A chatterbox, that’s what she had called him. Bringing up things that people would rather forget. There had been something pointed about the way she said it, as if she were inviting Birdie to gossip. But Birdie didn’t gossip, felt that it was beneath her.

  “We’ve had breakins, some vandalism, as I’m sure you both know,” said Roger Murphy.

  He sat at the long oak dining table. He looked too big for the chair; she imagined that if he leaned hard against the railed back, it would break into splinters. Birdie found herself remembering Roger when he was young. He’d often been shirtless, his well-muscled body the color of caramel. She and Caroline had always giggled, watching him, as he gassed up the boat or helped unload their luggage from the car. There had been something so handsome and virile about him then, something earthy and hardworking—so unlike the rich private-school dandies who populated their lives back home. And even though there were deep lines etched in his brow and under his eyes, and he was a shadow of the young man she remembered, she could still see him as he was. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.

  “Mostly, these breakins are occurring in the late fall or after the first thaw, when many of the islands are empty.”

  John made some kind of affirming noise, and Birdie stayed silent. This wasn’t news to her. The person she had seen wasn’t a marauding teen or a vandal.

  “What did you see from your place, Mr. Cross?” asked Roger.

  “I was at my desk, which looks onto part of the Burkes’ island and their dock. I saw Joe and Birdie leave; then a few hours later, I saw Birdie return alone. I happened to see her fall and came right over.”

  Roger wrote in a little leather book. “Nothing at the house?”

  “I can’t see up to the house from my island,” John said.

  Thank goodness for small favors. The whole point of having an island was privacy, wasn’t it?

  “Did you hear anything, Birdie?” asked Roger.

  “Like what?” She hadn’t meant to sound sharp.

  He gave her a curious look, a little shrug. “Like a boat racing away?”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”

  “That’s the only thing I can think of,” he said. “Whoever it was got away on a boat they had tied off on the other side.”

  Or that you imagined the whole thing. She was certain that was what he was thinking but didn’t say. She wanted to rail that she had seen someone, flesh and bone, standing there this morning and just now. She wasn’t crazy or senile. But she couldn’t manage the appropriate bluster. They all knew no one could tie off on the other side of the island, which was treacherous and rocky. John’s skeptical expression said it all.

  “Maybe so,” said Birdie unconvincingly.

  Roger found it necessary to look through both houses and the bunkhouse again, as well as to take another turn around the island. She wondered if he did this to satisfy his curiosity about the new house. John Cross accompanied him, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, looking grim and purposeful. His jacket was a pricey Burberry. She’d bought one for Theodore. He’d returned it. It’s not my style, Mother. Thank you, though.

  Birdie knew they weren’t going to find anything or anyone. There wouldn’t be any evidence that someone had been there. And they didn’t, and there wasn’t. To their credit, neither man sought to make her feel like a fool. She was glad Joe wasn’t there to give her a hard time for inconveniencing everyone, causing a fuss. He’d have everyone joking around, cracking open cans of beer.

  “Well, there won’t be anyone heading out here tonight, that’s for sure,” said Roger. “Big storm coming.”

  Those clouds had been looming all day. They didn’t seem to be moving at all, just a thick black cloak hanging over the mainland.

  “Are you alone here tonight?” John Cross asked. He regarded her with an annoyingly concerned frown.

  Birdie gave a quick, tight nod. She’d been weathering storms on this island since long before John Cross was born. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Really. And I’m sorry for all of this. I don’t know who it could have been. Or where he went.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” said Roger. He gave her a gentle pat on the arm. Then he climbed gracelessly over the Cross boat and onto his own. “Make sure your radios are charged in case you lose power tonight,” he added. “Landlines will go down as soon as the storm gets bad, like they always do. And I know we’re supposed to have cell service now, but it seems to be spotty.”

  Birdie hadn’t been able to make a call since they’d arrived. They’d been communicating mostly via e-mail, Joe having bought them each a “rocket stick” that allowed them Internet access on their laptops. And the landline had been working fine, which hadn’t always been the case.

  “Something to do with the mountains.” Roger was going on about the cell service and how bad it was, though Birdie had stopped listening.

  “I hope you both have plenty of fuel for your generators and boats. Marina’s still open, if not. Storm’s still a few hours east.”

  John looked at the sky, then back at his house. He seemed worried. He was new to the islands. He and his wife were inexperienced, both as boaters and as residents. All their gear, boat, kayaks, outerwear, was expensive and brand-new. Birdie wasn’t sure what the woman did; she hadn’t paid much attention to her when they’d dropped by to introduce themselves. She was petite and plump, didn’t seem to have much to say.

  “You have my number, right, Birdie?” said John.

  “I do. Thank you,” she said. She had it somewhere. In a desk drawer, she thought. She’d find it if she needed it. She wouldn’t need it, though.

  First Roger pulled away. Then she watched John traverse the channel, tie up at his dock, and go ashore. He gave her a wave, pantomimed that she should call him, then disappeared.

  She looked back at the tall pines and the rooftops peeking through the foliage. She listened to the boat bumping against the dock. In the distance, she could hear the hum of the generator, which, combined with the solar panels, powered everything on the island—all the electricity, the water pump, and the heater. She felt her isolation. She was alone with Heart Island. It was exactly—as she’d said so many times—the way she
wanted it.

  chapter ten

  Emily knew that people made choices. She understood that. You chose to do well in school by studying hard and following the rules. You picked your profession, succeeded or failed by the amount of effort you put into it. You decided on the person to marry, whether or not to have children, how many. And all of those choices tangled and wrapped around one another, mingled with and impacted one another. And the resulting ball of twine? Well, that was your life. It all sounded right and perfect to Emily. You don’t always choose what happens to you, but you choose how you deal with it. That’s what her mother always told her, and it seemed true. Except that life, real life, wasn’t like that. Moments spun out of control, looked like one thing and were really something else. You made mistakes, and there were consequences that could not be reversed. There were accidents of circumstance.

  She was thinking about this as she sat in the backseat of her own car, with Dean in the driver’s seat, Brad again on the passenger side. She was so tense that she was afraid she would throw up. Her stomach churned; she could taste the bile in the back of her throat. That had always happened to her, ever since she was a little girl. Whenever she got too worried or upset, whenever things were going really, really bad, she puked. It always made things worse.

  There were some late diners in the restaurant. Emily recognized them as the husband and wife she’d waited on a few times. They’d recently had a baby, a sweet and pretty little girl. This was their date night; once every other week since the baby turned six months, they had a sitter. They always looked so giddy, so excited to be out, even though it was just for burgers at the Blue Hen. Emily loved the way the man looked at his wife when she ordered, as if she were the most fascinating creature he’d ever known. When they were there, Emily could hear them laughing, whispering. Once she’d seen the woman wiggle her foot out of her shoe and touch his calf with her bare toes. She watched them get into the car. He didn’t open the door for her, and she shot him a look over the roof. He gave her a sheepish grin and ran around, made a show of sweeping his arm and offering a deep bow as she got inside. Her laughter carried on the cold night air, weird and echoey.