Barrier Islands

by Jeffrey Anderson

3

  Brooke sat staring at the artificial Christmas tree Onion had set up in the corner of their garage apartment. It had silver branches and white base and didn’t even try to look like a real tree. A year ago when she’d asked about the possibility of a real, tree everyone had laughed at the thought, claiming such an extravagance would “cost a King’s ransom” to get shipped out here and would likely be salt stained and dried out and dropping its needles even before it got set in the stand. The only family on the island that had a real tree were the O’Rourkes, a wealthy immigrant couple that had built a three-story “mansion” on the furthest point reaching out into the Atlantic and set a tall green tree with abundant lights and ornaments behind their living room’s picture window for the whole village to see. When Brooke had commented on how pretty it looked, Onion had sneered that it was probably fake like everything else the O’Rourkes did—all show and no substance. And it was true that nobody from the village ever set foot inside the mansion to verify the authenticity of the tree or anything else within the house. Still, Brooke couldn’t help but envy the O’Rourkes their gleaming green tree and imagined the pine scent it surely emitted.

  Last year, still in the afterglow of her wedding and caught up in furnishing their cozy cottage and planning for the nursery and their baby’s arrival, Brooke had managed to ignore her pangs of holiday homesickness at the absence of her family and its Christmas traditions dating back far as she could remember, including the live tree picked out and cut down by Father with his bow-saw with the red-painted handle at the farm out in the county and ceremoniously hauled in the borrowed pickup back to their house in the city and set in the stand on Christmas Eve afternoon to be decorated just before bedtime on Christmas Eve night with Brooke charged with setting the star on the top of the tree, in the old days while perched atop Father’s shoulders but more recently off a step ladder after the year she’d caused a pulled muscle in Father’s neck such that he walked around all Christmas with his head tilted to one side like Quasimodo, though even that memory elicited subsequent gales of laughter each future Christmas as Brooke and her sister Leah would walk around with their heads tilted to one side against their scrunched up shoulders.

  But this year, with their apartment now fully furnished and feeling cramped and Jodie now more than seven months old and no fresh challenges to distract or occupy her unless changing Jodie’s diaper for the thousandth time and washing the poop out in the toilet before setting the diaper to soak in the big galvanized washtub out back qualified as a challenge (though that could hardly be called “fresh” in newness or odor), Jodie could not help but stare at the forlorn fake tree with the stark gaze of disappointment and despair.

  And the tree became a convenient symbol of greater holiday-related frustrations. She wanted to collect thoughtful and highly personalized gifts for her baby and Onion and her extensive entourage of in-laws, each of whom would present such a gift to her or Jodie. Most of all, she wanted to acquire such personalized gifts in an island theme to take to her family when she visited them over Christmas. But they didn’t have the money for her to buy these gifts and she lacked the creativity of Polly (with crocheting) or Bridge (with metalwork) or Lil (with knitting) or Greta (with painting) to design and create such gifts. Though she’d so often ridiculed the post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganzas to the malls she and Leah and Momma would take throughout her childhood and adolescence and right up to her last year at home, complaining of the “empty consumerism” and “herd mentality,” she now missed that opportunity, partly for the wide selection in gift ideas it provided but mostly for the shared endeavor it defined. There were no malls on the island or anywhere along this part of the coast. And trips to the mainland’s cities were involved and stressful, all the more so with preparing and packing up Jodie and her supplies. And in any case, they had no money!

  She heard a light tapping on the apartment’s only entry door that had once been the side door before the roll-up doors had been removed (saved for later reinstallation) and those openings walled up to make their residence. “It’s always open,” Brooke yelled, making the double-edged point that the recycled knob’s key had been lost ages ago and, as Onion said, “Who locks their doors anyway?”—an island reality that Brooke had originally considered charming but now felt was presumptuous.

  Daffy opened the door and stuck her head through the crack. “Mind if I stop in for a few minutes?”

  Her sister-in-law’s shy and doubtful expression on that pale face with those large dark eyes turned Brooke’s frown into a welcoming grin. “Come in. I could use the company.”

  Daffy’s face brightened as she came through the door and sat across the table. “I saw Onion had closing tonight.”

  “Everybody has to take their turn.”

  “Got your tree up!”

  Brooke snickered. “I guess you can call it that.”

  “You had a real tree growing up?”

  “Every year.”

  Daffy nodded. “I heard Onion tell Dad. He feels bad you can’t have a real tree.”

  Brooke shrugged. “It’s not just the tree. Everything’s different.”

  Daffy laughed. “All seems the same to me—and the same and the same and the same! I’d die for something different.”

  “Jodie,” Brooke said, her expression lifting as she glanced toward the crib where her baby was sleeping.

  Daffy smiled too. “Her first Christmas.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you really taking her to the mainland?”

  Brooke’s jaw tightened. “My parents haven’t seen her since she was born.”

  “I know. I understand. But we’ll all miss her Christmas Day, and you too.”

  “But you’ll still have your brother,” Brooke said with a note of bitterness. Onion refused to consider leaving the island for Christmas—or any other time for more than doctor’s visits.

  “He’s scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of not wanting to come back.”

  “That’s crazy, Daffy. A few days on the mainland isn’t going to change your mind about your home. Or if it does, then maybe your mind should be changed.”

  “You don’t have to convince me, but that’s not how most folks out here see it. They’re afraid if they surrender even a tiny bit, their whole little world will collapse.”

  “Going to change whether they want it to or not.”

  “Not without a fight.”

  Brooke thought of her shouting match with Onion last night over Christmas plans, but one little skirmish in a much larger war. “Got your Christmas shopping done?” She meant it as a joke to change the subject.

  “Not much in the way of shopping, but I’ve got gifts for everyone,” she said then added, “Except you.” She blushed.

  “You don’t have to get me anything, Daffy. You don’t have any more money than I do.”

  “Who needs money?”

  “Then how?”

  Daffy grinned shyly. “Can I show you something I’ve never shown anyone?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have to come up to my room.”

  “I’ll have to bring Jodie.”

  “Of course.”

  Brooke rose and picked Jodie up from her crib, keeping the pink and white Angora wool blanket, hand woven by Onion’s aunt, wrapped around her. Jodie opened her eyes but didn’t utter a peep. Together they followed Daffy out the door and around the car under the carport to the side door to her in-laws modest two-story house. They scooted through the empty kitchen and went up the narrow stairs and down the hall to Daffy’s room. Brooke had been upstairs in this house only a few times, and then only to Onion’s room—at first for a little pre-marital frolicking on his narrow bed one weekend when his parents and sister were on the mainland for a friend’s wedding, then later to help him pack for the move to the apartment. The rough-board wood ceiling was low and the hall narrow.

  Daffy paused in front of her bedroom’s door at the end of the hall. “
Close your eyes,” she said.

  Brooke hesitated. “No heart-stopping surprises, O.K.? Not while I’ve got Jodie.” The baby still hadn’t uttered a sound.

  “No sudden surprises.”

  Brooke closed her eyes. She heard the door creak open on old hinges then felt Daffy’s fingers grasp her free hand and lead her forward. Once inside the room, she heard the door close behind.

  “O.K. You can open your eyes.”

  Brooke opened her eyes but had to blink twice before registering what was before them. The room’s ceilings sloped in line with the roof above and had a triangular wall with a single window at the far end. The walls and ceilings, like the hall, were covered with wood boards. Covering almost every inch of those walls and ceilings was a dazzling array of beautiful photographs. Most were landscapes, some close-ups, all richly colored. A quick survey indicated that every picture had a living creature—mammal, fish, bird, insect—as the focal point. Even the wide-angle landscapes—a sunset over the water, the harbor in morning light—had a flying pelican or floating otter as a reminder of animate life. Brooke gasped. “Where did you get these?”

  Daffy laughed. “I took them, silly.”

  “And had them printed?” She was doing a quick tally in her head based on the cost of the mail-order developing and printing of snapshots of Jodie. Those 3 x 5’s were expensive enough. She couldn’t imagine the price for these 8 x 10’s and 11 x 14’s.

  “Printed them myself.”

  “Where?”

  She blushed and looked away. “Ralph Hopson has a darkroom he lets me use.”

  Ralph Hopson was one of the teachers at the village school, fresh out of college and working out here on a one-year grant to improve education in the state’s out-of-the-way rural communities. He was an energetic and idealistic charmer who had all the young girls and half the middle-aged housewives on the island in a tizzy. Brooke thought of him as a perfect match for her equally idealistic sister, Leah, which of course meant he didn’t do anything for her. “Where’s his darkroom?”

  “He’s converted the pantry at his cottage.”

  “And you can use it?”

  “Under his supervision at first.” She paused. “Now he lets me use it whenever I want.”

  Brooke strode over and looked at some of the photos taped to the ceiling more closely. “These are incredible, Daffy. They have so much feeling.” She walked slowly down the length of the room, checking out each of the photos. They were all quite striking, but the ones that riveted her attention were close-ups of horses. She eventually realized they had to be of the island’s herd of wild horses that occasionally wandered into the village but generally kept to the sea-grass dunes north of town. Tourists would often ask about riding them, which always made the natives laugh, as one couldn’t get within twenty yards of those feral beasts let alone saddle or ride one. “Do you have a telephoto lens?” Brooke asked, pausing in front of a close-up of a horse’s eye, soft and brown and mysterious, set in a roan-colored cheek.

  “I asked for one for Christmas, but I’m not counting on it.”

  “Then how’d you get so close?”

  “You want to see?” Her voice was edged with the excitement of finally sharing long-held secrets—first this room, now another.

  Brooke, still awed by this revelation, could only nod in silence.

  “We’ll have to leave Jodie with Mom.”

  Brooke had all but forgotten the baby cradled in her arm. But this wasn’t unusual—Jodie on her arm or shoulder was by now like a new appendage. She looked to her baby. Her wide eyes were focused at something beyond Brooke’s face. She turned and saw the picture of a gull standing as a one-legged sentinel on a rough pier post. “Will she mind?” Brooke asked, though she already knew the answer. Lil took Jodie every chance she got, at times annoying Brooke with her constant requests. She could hear the television droning downstairs, where Bridge was no doubt snoring in his recliner and Lil was knitting on the sofa. She’d happily set Jodie beside her to watch the dance of the knitting needles and listen to their click-click. Jodie got so mesmerized by those needles that Lil claimed she’d be a seamstress or a clothing designer when she grew up.

  Daffy laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Twenty minutes later they’d left Jodie with Lil, gone out the house’s back door, and snaked their way along a maze of narrow trails through tall thickets. The night was dense-dark, with low clouds hiding any moon or stars. Daffy had a flashlight but didn’t turn it on, urging Brooke to stay close and sometimes grabbing her hand to guide her through tight spots in the path. The air was thick and cold with a salt-laden dampness. Daffy had tossed her Onion’s fleece-lined field coat as they’d headed out the door; and she was glad she had it, buttoned it all the way to her neck. She was also glad to have on her hiking boots, though they still felt heavy as cinderblocks on her feet used to being unshod.

  By the time they reached the small clearing in the brush, Brooke’s eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark for her to discern not only the clearing but also the silhouettes of animals at the far edge of the clearing. The sharp odor of damp fur and the distinct smell of horse manure identified those silhouettes as the wild horses. Brooke tensed, fearing that the horses might spook and run over them in the dark.

  Daffy pressed her hand into Brooke’s chest and whispered, “Wait here.”

  Just then, one of the horses snorted a sharp warning. Brooke had no intention of moving, not even an inch. She felt Daffy’s hand drift over her coat then away. Then Daffy moved silently ahead until the skin of her pale face merged into the darker brush at the back edge of the clearing.

  What seemed to Brooke a very long interval passed with no sign from Daffy and only the sound of the horses milling slowly to break the absolute stillness of the night. Then suddenly a brilliant light shined at the far edge of the clearing. It was the flashlight illuminating Daffy’s face and upper body. She stood amongst the herd of horses, a dozen or more visible in the diffuse light. And right next to Daffy was the roan horse from so many of the photos. She offered the horse a piece of carrot from the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt then patted the horse’s cheek as it crunched on the carrot.

  “I call her Ruby,” Daffy said in a confident but gentle voice. Though in normal volume, her voice sounded like a shout after so much silence. “After Dorothy’s slippers. I befriended her two summers ago when she was a foal. Her mother kept trying to shy her away from me, but Ruby was brave and curious enough to check out this two-legged visitor. It took weeks of patience, but eventually she got close enough for me to touch her. Now look.” She reached up and scratched behind the horse’s long pointed ears.

  “And the others?” Brooke asked, still not moving from her spot on the far side of the clearing.

  “They’ve sort of accepted me, but they won’t let me touch them. And now I think Ruby’s pregnant, and I don’t know what will happen if she has a foal.”

  Brooke could laugh at that. “A baby changes everything.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Daffy patted the forehead of Ruby, then the flashlight went dark.

  A minute later, Daffy was again beside her, materializing out of the deeper dark like a pale ghost. Without a word, and still not using the flashlight, she led Brooke back over the paths to the house.

  On the side stoop and in the circle of light from the bare bulb on the wall, it seemed again safe to speak. “So those are your Christmas presents?” Brooke said.

  “What? The horses?”

  Brooke laughed. “No. The photographs.”

  Daffy nodded. “Yes. But I need help with the frames. So I’ve got a deal—if you’ll help me put together the frames, I’ll let you pick any photos in any sizes to give to your family. They aren’t world-class art, but they are unique to the island.”

  Brooke all but leapt for joy. “That’s wonderful, Daffy.” She hugged her sister-in-law. “I’ve watched Greta make her frames. I’m sure she can g
ive us some tips and let us use her scrap wood.” She kissed Daffy’s cheek. “You’re a life saver!”

  Daffy blushed then grew serious. “It’s our secret.”

  “The horses?”

  “And the photos. I don’t want people asking too many questions. O.K.?”

  Brooke stared at Daffy and saw at just that moment her sister Leah. And she gave their sign language gesture of absolute secrecy—a cross over her heart followed by a fist closed padlock tight.

  Daffy smiled. “Good.” She turned to mount the two steps into the house.

  Brooke caught Daffy’s hand from behind and waited for her to turn. She whispered, “Do you know how I can get condoms without the whole town knowing about it?” Brooke had grown terrified of becoming pregnant again so soon after Jodie. She’d resumed her period two months ago and worried that her anniversary tryst on the beach might’ve already started a second child in her. Since that night she’d explored means of sexual sharing other than intercourse (much to Onion’s surprise and glee) and was relieved beyond words when she began menstruating this morning. Now she needed mechanical birth control until she could get her mainland doctor to put her on the pill. Asking her sister-in-law for help in this regard was a huge leap of trust.

  Daffy looked down from the first step with a serene gaze far beyond her years. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Brooke said, “Our secret, right?”

  Daffy smiled and crossed her heart then made a fist.