by Lisa Unger
“I’ll meet you at the boat,” Birdie said. “I promise. I have to see if there’s anything I can do to save the house.”
She tried for a smile, though she was sure it didn’t come off that way. Anyway, it was a lie. She wouldn’t meet them at the boat. She wouldn’t try to put out the fire, either. It was too late; she could see that. What did she plan to do, then? She honestly didn’t know. She just knew she couldn’t leave, not like this.
“Don’t do it,” said Kate. There was pleading in her tone that Birdie wasn’t sure she’d ever heard. She tried to hand the gun to Kate, but Kate pushed it back; she handed the flashlight over as well. “They’ll both be ruined in the water. We’ll take our chances. If we can’t get to the boat, we’ll swim to Cross Island.”
The water was frigid. They’d have to swim fast and hard. And Kate had never been a strong swimmer; plus, she was badly injured.
“The key is in the ignition,” said Birdie. “You’ll have to move fast.”
Kate had that look again, the one that Birdie was sure she reserved for her mother. Her expression managed anger, sadness, and bafflement, as if Birdie were impossible for her to fathom. But that was all. There were no more words of protest or argument. Kate had learned long ago—she must have—that there was no arguing with Birdie once she’d made up her mind. Kate started pulling Chelsea toward the water.
“Grandma!”
“Chelsea, let’s go.”
“We can’t just leave her.” The girl was shrieking, and it broke Birdie’s heart.
She heard Kate’s tone, soothing and measured. But she didn’t hear her daughter’s words, because Birdie was already walking away from them toward the main house. A captain didn’t leave his ship just because it was sinking. Birdie wouldn’t leave Heart Island—not to fire, not to intruders, not for any reason except her own.
chapter thirty-four
“Mom,” begged Chelsea. “Please go after her.”
Kate stripped off her jacket and shoes, then pulled off Chelsea’s coat. The heavy outer layers would drag them down in the water. Her daughter was sobbing, and the sound of it was causing Kate physical pain.
“I can’t, Chelsea,” she said. She put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Not yet. When you and Lulu are safe, I’ll go back for her. I promise.”
How could she explain to her daughter that in the choice between whose lives to save, her children would come before anyone, including Sean, including herself? No one but a mother could ever understand. Kate wouldn’t—she couldn’t—risk herself for Birdie, not unless she knew Chelsea was safe. Her children needed her. Her mother, clearly, did not.
“She’ll die.”
Chelsea sounded like she had as a little girl, her sadness so total, so despairing and innocent. Kate thought of a moment a lifetime ago when Chelsea had carried a dead fish from the shore and set it into the ocean. “I’m giving it back to the universe,” she had said in a sweet mimic of something Kate had once said to her. She stood up, looking despondent. “I don’t like it when any creature gets dead.”
“No,” said Kate now. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that. The water felt frigid to her feet as she inched toward it, pulling Chelsea with her. “She won’t die. There’s nothing and no one tougher than Birdie.”
“Chelsea, come on,” said Lulu. She was sobbing, shivering in the cold. She had her hands on Chelsea, too. They were pulling her toward the water while she looked back after Birdie. “She wants to stay on this island. Let her.”
Finally, the girl relented and came of her own volition. Lulu shrieked as she forced herself into the water. Kate, too, felt the painful shock of cold against her skin, tried to ignore the fact that the blackness seemed to stretch into eternity. She knew how that could take you down, how heavy it was, how total was its darkness. She forced those thoughts out of her mind.
“Swim as fast as you can, as hard as you can,” she said. “Don’t look back for me. I’m right behind you. If there’s fire on the dock, or if you see anyone there when you round the island, swim across the channel.”
It would be best if they could get to the boat. If they couldn’t, they’d have to try to get across. The water was rough but, luckily, somewhat sheltered in the channel between the two bodies of land.
Kate had always found that in caring for her children, anything that she was afraid of, or any shortfall she had, simply became irrelevant. She would be what she had to be, do what she had to do, to get them through any crisis, large or small. Adrenaline held all the pain in her head and body at bay. She hardly noticed that she was being tossed by the water, taking in huge gulps as the waves hit her. She ignored the heavy fatigue settling in her limbs.
She watched the two bobbing heads of the girls as she kicked and stroked with all her strength. The water was likely around sixty degrees; it wouldn’t take much longer then ten minutes for their core temperature to start dropping.
She could see the flames topping the trees, and she was almost overcome by fear and sadness. The orange of the fire glowed on the black water. The moon was white and high, the cloud cover clearing. A million stars winked, oblivious. She kept her eyes on Chelsea and Lulu. The dock wasn’t far; she could see it now. It was empty, free from flames. The cuddy bucked and bounced, waiting for them. She almost yelled out at the sight of it.
It was then that Lulu started to struggle. Kate saw her head go under, then come up, then disappear again.
“Mom!” She heard Chelsea’s voice, panicked and faint on the air.
Pure adrenaline allowed Kate to double her speed and come upon them quickly. Chelsea was trying to hold on to Lulu, who had stopped moving. She wasn’t unconscious, but her eyes had a glassy stare, and she was coughing up water.
“Stay with us, Lulu,” Kate said. “We’re almost there.” She took the girl, turned her, and held an arm under her neck, keeping her face out of the water as best she could.
“Swim,” she yelled to Chelsea. “Swim.”
Life’s not so precious, Birdie was thinking as she watched the flames eat the main house from the inside. Everyone always seemed so convinced that it was. Maybe it seemed precious to people like Caroline, who were prone to magical thinking and believed that every moment was a gift and that we were all part of some spiritual net, our actions affecting every other soul on the grid. For Birdie, the world was rock-hard. What you saw was what you got. And she truly believed that when the time came for lights-out, there was nothing. No heavenly light. No “other side.” Just the end. Why was that such a bad thing? Who would know the difference? When she would say this to people, notably her husband, they would look at her blankly, as though the thought had never occurred to them.
She’d pulled the collar of her turtleneck up over her nose. Even so, she could taste the smoke at the back of her throat. She’d never liked the main house, not really. It belonged to Joe; it was a monument to his gigantic ego. It was right that it should burn, that its burning should be the direct consequence of his philandering, his myriad infidelities.
There were fire buckets near the well, a manual pump that would operate even when the generator was down. Inside the house, there were fire extinguishers in every room. All of this assumed that you were there when the fire started, that you could keep a cool head and act quickly. Even if she ran to the well and ran back with two buckets, which was reasonably all she could carry, it wouldn’t matter.
She saw the lights of the police boat approaching. It must have taken them this long because of the weather. Though the rain had ceased, the water was rough, the winds high. They would radio for help from the fire department, but they would be too late to save the main house. Perhaps the other structures could be salvaged.
She found herself running up the stairs of the front porch. The photo album lay on the dining table. It was all she had left of her childhood, the only photos of her parents, of her siblings. Gene and Birdie hadn’t talked in over a decade. He was dead to her and she to him. Still, she didn�
��t want to lose the last remnant of her childhood, even if her parents did have a sham marriage.
The screen door was hot to the touch, but she pulled it open and walked inside. Flames climbed up the drapes on the far wall, were already licking at the landing of the loft. The house was groaning, picture frames cracking and popping in the heat. She saw the album on the table. And then she saw the girl on the floor.
She grabbed the album and clutched it to her chest. Her eyes were watering, and she started coughing from the smoke. She could see that there wasn’t much time, how quickly she might be overcome. The portrait over the fireplace, a younger Joe and Birdie standing stiffly together on the dock, began to burn.
I love them, he’d wept to her a lifetime ago. Martha’s a woman, a real woman. There’s blood running through her veins. She laughs, she cries, she doesn’t stiffen at my touch. Christ, Birdie, I wanted to love you like that.
How she had hated him at that moment. Every breathless moment of love between them—there had been those, hadn’t there?—was a distant memory. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to want him. How she had wished he would leave her and never come back. But no, she couldn’t have allowed it. She couldn’t allow the shame, the disgrace. The very idea that he’d leave her for a shopgirl, someone who worked in a boutique, was intolerable.
And what are you? The fucking aristocracy? he’d wanted to know. What did you come from?
She’d come from more and better than he had. All the wealth belonged to Birdie; the real money was hers, inherited from her father’s real estate investments. Even in the split with Gene and Caroline, there had been millions, though she never would have known it when they were young.
Her father, wise man that he was, had never liked Joe Burke. Her father had demanded that Birdie protect her inheritance with a prenuptial agreement, something that was far ahead of its time. She didn’t understand it then, but she always did what her father told her to do. If Joe were to leave her, he’d get none of her money. Not a penny. He made a good salary, to be sure. But there would be no Manhattan penthouse, no sailboat kept on Long Island or ski trips to Switzerland—not for him. Even the island, which he never loved, really, but about which he loved to say: “Oh, we have an island on the lake.” When it came down to it, he couldn’t give up all of that. Not even for “true love.”
Her cough worsened; the smoke was growing thicker. The air around her was so hot, her body felt soaked in sweat. The house was turning into an oven. An ache had started in her sinuses and was clawing its way over her crown. How long until she would be overcome? It was meant to be fast, mercifully fast. And peaceful. But no, she wouldn’t let Joe off the hook that easily. She fully intended to outlive him. She walked out the door and tossed the album onto the ground below, heard it land with a thud. Then she went back inside.
She grabbed the girl by her hands. For such a tiny thing, she seemed to weigh a ton. It took all of Birdie’s strength to pull her from the room. She didn’t look back at the burning structure, couldn’t care less about the clothes, the furniture, even the jewelry on her nightstand. She dragged the unconscious woman down the stairs and over the rocks. There would be bruising; it wasn’t a graceful or particularly gentle descent. But it was the best she could do. Birdie pulled her down, down and away from the house, until she came to rest on the large smooth rocks at the shore. The girl groaned. No, life wasn’t precious. But sometimes it was the punishment you deserved.
chapter thirty-five
John Cross wasn’t sure what woke him from his sleep. Some type of popping noise. He’d lain there for a while, listening but hearing nothing. He’d just started to drift off again when he saw a strange orange glow from outside. He stumbled down the stairs and to the picture window, where he saw the house on Heart Island in flames. At first he almost didn’t believe his eyes. And then, as if propelled by some unseen hand, he was running out of the house and down to his own dock.
From his right, he watched the slow approach of emergency boats, their flashing lights bouncing in the rough water. On Heart Island, the flames looked like dancers, tall and lithe, reaching up into the sky. He stood at the edge of the dock, heart pounding and panic keeping him paralyzed. What should he do? What could he do?
He heard the sound of voices yelling. Was someone calling for help? Unthinking, he began untying the lines of his boat. He was inexperienced in such choppy water. But he could hardly stand here when people were in trouble. He searched the water and thought he caught sight of swimmers, their cries echoing and carrying over the night. The wind had died down, but the water was rough. And cold. No one could stay in it long without being overcome.
He started the engine on his boat and backed out of his dock, knocking twice against it, then revving the engine to give himself enough power to pull away. He pointed his spotlight and saw two heads bobbing in the water, clearly struggling.
Slowly, he moved toward them, the boat rolling and bucking beneath him. He felt a wave of nausea but bit it back. He felt ill equipped to the task. How could he man the helm and help the people aboard, whoever they were? He couldn’t anchor in water like this. The water would wash in and sink the boat.
As he approached, he saw one of the swimmers waving a frantic arm. Closer still, he could see that it was a woman. With a deftness he didn’t even know he had, he tossed out a life ring and tied it onto one of the cleats. Then he let down the ladder on the side and raced back to the helm to correct the boat, which was veering away from the swimmers. He brought it back around and watched as one of them grabbed the ring and then grabbed the other person and started pulling toward the vessel.
It was the girl who climbed out first. She looked so young and terrified. Her hair hung in sodden rivulets, her wet clothes clinging to her thin body.
“My friend is drowning,” she said, her voice shrill with panic. “We can’t pull her out.”
“Can you take the helm?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I can.”
“Try to keep it steady.”
She took it with a confidence beyond her years, and John climbed down the ladder. He saw Kate Burke trying to keep the head of an unconscious girl above water. He climbed into the water, still holding on to the ladder, and took hold of the girl, then dragged her back onto the boat. It was pure adrenaline. He hadn’t a thought in his head as he lifted her over the side. If anyone had asked him yesterday whether he could have done it, he’d have said no. It was a good thing the girl was light.
He helped Kate up, and she knelt beside Lulu. “Mom,” the girl yelled from the helm. “Is she all right?”
Kate started pumping on her chest; John watched, stunned, as she performed CPR. He walked over to the weeping child and moved her away from the wheel. She fell on her knees beside her friend. “Lulu,” she said. “Please.”
He began steering toward the emergency boat he’d seen. As he approached the island, he heard the girl start to sputter and cough. The other two let out loud cries of joy and relief. He found that his hands were shaking and that his heart was a turbine engine in his chest. Great flames were rising into the sky. It was the most beautiful and terrible thing he’d ever seen.
Birdie was having trouble catching her breath, and the girl was starting to stir beside her. “You burned down my house,” she said.
Emily didn’t move again or make a sound. Birdie found she couldn’t muster any real anger. She felt blank and empty, as if it were all happening to someone else, another Birdie, another life.
That was when she noticed him, standing just as he had when she first saw him. Who was he? What did he want? Was this, after all, one of Caroline’s ghosts? The ghost of Richard Cameron, come to haunt her. If he’d died the summer Birdie had seen him kiss her mother, was she somehow responsible for his death? Had he killed himself? Maybe her father had killed him? Maybe her mother had? All because she’d discovered their affair that summer night? But that was her imagination running wild.
“Who’s there?”
she yelled. “What do you want?”
She took the gun from her waist and held it. How silly, an old woman holding a gun against a ghost as her island burned. Her hands were shaking. If she were smart, she’d get in the water and swim like the girls. If she were smart, she’d have done so when they had. But she was in so much pain, and so tired. She thought, No, I’ll just sit here and see what happens.
The girl was moaning, and the form started moving toward them. It had the purpose of a man. It was no apparition.
She heard voices drawing near. They were yelling, and it sounded like someone was barking orders. But the man kept moving closer.
“Stay back,” she said. “Stay where you are.”
As he came into view, she could see that it wasn’t poor Richard Cameron at all. It wasn’t a ghost haunting Heart Island, not tonight. She realized that he must be the man who’d been chasing Emily, the one looking for money. He didn’t have some generation-old grudge to satisfy. What did he want? The money the girl had mentioned—Birdie didn’t know where it was. Did he want the girl? What could he possibly want with her now? And no, there was nothing in that safe. It was empty, always had been. All of this nightmare, caused by people who knew only how to rob and steal, to kill each other, to set things on fire. It made her angry, so angry. She let that rage fill her and bring her to her feet.
“I have a gun,” she said. Even with her anger, that was all she had the strength to say.
A long time ago, her father had taught her, Caroline, and Gene how to fire a gun. They’d line up bottles on the rocks and shoot. Birdie had loved the loud concussion, the smell of cordite in her nose. Gene was a horrible shot, always flinching from the noise and the recoil. But once they got the hang of it, Birdie and Caroline hardly ever missed. Birdie loved the way the glass shattered.
