Osprey Island

by Thisbe Nissen

  “You just can’t,” Roddy was saying. “I don’t want you around there. It’s dangerous, besides. You can come back in a few days— when your dad comes back. You want to help with the construction then, we’ll see about that. But not when it’s . . .”

  “Morning!” Suzy called. Roddy had lifted his head when her truck pulled in, then turned back to Squee, no acknowledgment. Now he lifted a hand in greeting before he faced the boy again.

  Suzy came and stood beside Roddy at the open window. “What’s happening here?” She was rested and showered, her hair still wet, pulled back into a ponytail that was leaving a damp splotch on her back. Roddy hadn’t yet bathed, and his beard was getting beyond shadowed to scraggly. He’d at least put on a clean T-shirt.

  “Come on, partner,” Roddy tried again. “Look, Suzy and Mia are here, all set to take you over to Reesa’s. Come on, Squee, OK?”

  Suzy leaned in closer, put her hand on the small of Roddy’s back as she spoke: “You got your swimsuit, kid?” she said. Roddy tensed beneath her touch. “Reesa’s setting up the Slip ’n Slide as we speak . . . Mark and Stacey are psyched you guys are coming over to play . . .”

  And then, suddenly, there in Roddy’s truck in the middle of the driveway, more than a full day after the news of Lorna’s death had been made known to him, Squee began to cry. What broke him right then was anyone’s guess. Most likely he was too tired to hold it in anymore. His face did not contort and twist. He did not look like a child crying. He looked as though his tear ducts had been pierced and left to run themselves dry.

  “Oh, baby,” Suzy said, and she reached past Roddy to open the door, step close, and take Squee in her arms. She cupped a hand around the back of his head and held him to her, stroking, soothing. Instinct drove her movements, and Roddy backed away.

  Squee did not sob, or choke, or cough as crying children do. Suzy held him to her like a slump of towels. Every so often he gave a gasp on the intake of breath, but otherwise he wept silently, too exhausted to do anything but let the tears drain from his body. Then, somewhere in the midst of that outpouring, his body gave a sudden jerk. He seemed surprised. He pulled himself away from Suzy for a second and waited, then spasmed again. Hiccups. It took about three rounds for his brain to catch up and figure out what was going on, and then he began to cry harder, more ardently, as though his own desperation had been fully revealed. And maybe it was that he lost his resolve in the momentary chaos of emotion, but he didn’t put up any struggle at all when Suzy lifted him—a limby, dragging bundle—out of the truck and carried him toward her own idling vehicle. She kept a hand on Squee’s head and craned around to Roddy, mouthing words he couldn’t make out.

  “SHERIFF, GOOD MORNING.” Eden opened the door as though Sheriff Harty paid her a visit every day.

  The sheriff tugged off his hat and clutched it to him as he shifted in Eden’s doorway. “Eden, how are you?” He replaced his hat.

  “Oh,” Eden said, “under the circumstances . . .”

  “You busy this morning? I wonder if I could talk with you. Is it a bad time, Eden?”

  “Coffee, Sheriff?” she said by way of invitation, and held the door as he entered.

  “Oh,” he said, “sure, thanks, if it’s not too much trouble. Haven’t got much sleep . . .”

  Eden went to the kitchen. The sheriff stood awkwardly, then strolled around the living room, inspected Roderick’s gun collection, and finally took a seat in the least comfortable-looking chair in the room.

  “Eden,” he began when they were settled, “I’m not meaning to be like some detective about this, but I’m no good at the sensitive stuff and I’ve got sensitive stuff I got to talk about and I know you’re not one to stand on ceremony or beat around the bush so I’m just going to tell you what I’ve got to tell you and say what I’ve got to say and ask you what I got to ask you, and then we’ll just take it from there, OK?”

  “You go right ahead, Duane.”

  The large envelope he was carrying opened with a crack of Velcro. “There’s something we found at the scene of the fire . . .”—he looked up to make sure Eden was following him—“and it’s probably not exactly one hundred percent police protocol for me to be here like this . . .” He paused. “Well, no, actually it probably is—it’s just, I’m not asking anything in a real official-type way. But here: there was a small refrigerator in the laundry shack—not in operation, but used as a kind of a storage cabinet—totally against the law, and thank god we didn’t have some kid get themselves trapped in there in a game of hide-and-seek—I can only imagine . . . So, but, well, the contents of that fridge survived the fire real well—mostly just junk, but also something else we found, and it’s only been seen now by Deputy Mitchell and myself and we’re both of us tied in knots about what to do and so we decided I’d come and talk to you, on account it seems by the contents of the thing that you’re perhaps familiar with the contents—some, at least, already, and so I guess . . .” From the envelope he removed the thin lavender spiral notebook that had served as Lorna Squire’s diary. “We’ve got this thing,” said the sheriff, “and we don’t know what the hell to do with it.” He passed the book to Eden.

  The sheriff, wiped out by this delivery, sank against his stiff-backed chair, then remembered his coffee and seized the cup as if it held the key to his survival.

  Eden held the notebook, the warped metal curls of its binding like the spine of a small animal. On the cover, the ballpoint letters traced over so many times they were nearly engraved, it read: THE DIARY OF LORNA MARIE VAUGHN SQUIRE.

  “Duane”—Eden looked the sheriff in the eye—“why’re you showing this to me?”

  The sheriff set down his cup. “Like I said, Eden, or tried to . . . There’s mention of you all over in there—says right on the first page you’re the one suggested she write down her thoughts in the first place. Back when it starts at first she writes the date in—late ’seventynine is it?—then it just kind of drops off. It’s right there on the first page . . .”

  Eden opened the cover. Nov. 23, 1979. Right when Lorna was pregnant with Squee. Eden flipped the page. The initial entries were dated, then devolved into July . . . ? Until they disappeared altogether. The notebook was maybe three quarters full, and most of it seemed to be letters of a sort. Dear Diary had given way to Dear Squee, and then later in the notebook the pages began with just My Sweet Baby Boy. “Duane,” Eden said again, “what are you here for? What are you asking me?”

  The sheriff looked as though he’d have liked to climb into his coffee cup and hide. “Roderick was my friend,” he said. “I’ve known you nearly all my life, Eden. Eaten dinner at your table. You know I’ve got nothing but respect for you, Eden—you know that.”

  Whether it was true, and whether Eden believed him, were questions for another time. She nodded.

  “There’s stuff in there that Lorna wrote that concerns a lot of people on this island. It says some things that’re not easy to believe, and even if you do believe them it’s nothing easy to swallow. There’s lots about you in there, Eden, and I won’t pretend to understand all what it says, but I have a real good feeling that it’s not things you’re wanting too many folks knowing about . . .”

  Eden screwed up her face in sudden and nearly comical surprise: “Are you blackmailing me, Duane?”

  Duane Harty’s eyes popped. “Christ lord, no!” he cried. “I just don’t know what in god’s name to do with the damn thing!” His face was pleading. “Police procedure’d be to register that diary and then send it along with any other personal belongings we salvaged, hand it over to her next of kin, and if that’s Lance or that’s Art and Penny I don’t even care who, because I for one don’t want to be around when any of them lay their eyes on what it says in that book. I am at a loss here, Eden. I don’t know what in god’s name to do. I am asking for your help here, is what I’m asking.”

  Eden nodded.

  “There’s part of me thinks I should just burn the damn thing,” the sh
eriff continued. “Let it be one more thing lost in the fire. But I read it, Eden. I read it all. And there’s things in there—I mean, I don’t fully understand all she’s saying, but I’ve got half a mind to go down to the Lodge and haul Bud Chizek into jail and toss away the goddamn key! That book there”—he pointed to it accusingly—“that book makes me feel like I’m going to lose my mind. What it says, I can’t even keep the half of it straight. I don’t even want to know half of what’s in there. But the other part—most of it, really—it’s all those letters, like, addressed to Squee . . . That boy’s going to grow up without his mother. She left him something there, and there’s a part of me feels like if I did one good thing in my life—forget police protocol—if I did one good thing I’d make sure that boy gets that book. Not now, but someday. You know—someday that boy might need to understand that there was someone on this earth once that loved him more than anything there ever was.” Sheriff Harty was fighting back tears. “I don’t know what to do with the rest of all of what’s in there. Part of me should be taking you in for friggin’ questioning, Eden,” he cried. “I don’t know what in hell you were running out here—I don’t want to know—I don’t want to know any of this . . .”

  “I suppose,” Eden began, “I suppose the way one ought to handle something like this’d be to arrange some sort of way to get the book put away until Squee’s of an age to see such a thing—”

  “But then you’re talking lawyers,” the sheriff interrupted. “You’re talking more people seeing this thing. You’re talking about the possibility of what’s in there getting spread here to Menhadenport—”

  “What do you want me to say, Duane? You want me to take this thing and hide it away in my closet until the boy’s eighteen?”

  Sheriff Harty froze, his mouth set in a grim purse. “No,” he said. “I want you to go get a safe-deposit box or some such down at the bank and keep it there until the boy’s eighteen.” And he just kept looking at Eden then, right at her, letting her know that he didn’t get any more serious than that. Eden looked down at the notebook, then back to Sheriff Harty. She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. She said, “OK.”

  COUNTY SANITATION HAD already brought a dumpster to the Lodge, set down—at Bud’s direction, no doubt—so that it blocked the view from Sand Beach Road to the laundry shack’s blackened husk. It was a terrible-looking thing: monolithic charred and melted washers and dryers rising above the rubble, like a miniature city, incinerated. Fire Chief McIntire was there, inspecting the wreckage, collecting data for the reports he would have to file. There were a few construction guys from the island milling around, hired for the demolition. Bud had dressed himself in a pair of old, stained Bermuda shorts and a striped polo shirt splotched with bleach, as if he planned to help with the demolition work, though it was hard to imagine Bud doing anything but bark orders from the sidelines and go inside to make “important” phone calls just when large items needed lifting. Bud was waving Roddy over. “Good morning, good morning.”

  Bud started rattling off instructions when Roddy was still a good distance away. “There’s nothing we can do right here till the insurance boys make it out to have a look. They promised me they’d hustle through—we’ll start tearing it down the minute they’re done.” Roddy stopped about ten feet from Bud and listened to him orate. The construction crew guys listened too, though it seemed they’d already heard the speech. “For now, this morning, we’re waiting for the new equipment—they promised before noon—and we’ll need to get the maintenance shop cleared out. We’ll use this as an opportunity to get rid of whatever crap’s in there we don’t need—toss it all in the dumpster, but check with me first, you hear? Then I’ve got dimensions for the exhaust holes we’re gonna . . .” Bud dropped off. “Ach,” he said. “Screw it, save that for later. Let’s get the damn thing cleared out first. Load it into the pickups. We’ll store everything in the meantime off the staff quarters . . .” He turned and pointed. “That storage shed, there.” And thus a tedious and labor-intensive process began.

  AT THE EAST END of the first floor in the Lodge there was a door without a room number. An index card was thumbtacked over the peephole. On it, in ballpoint pen that had faded to nearly nothing, someone had written “MAID.” Hunting down a key to the door was Suzy’s first order of business, and she walked up the hill to her folks’ house to see if Nancy had any ideas. Her mother was up and dressed and wanted to come down to the Lodge and find the key for Suzy. Making herself useful was an effective form of martyrdom for Nancy. Suzy was too tired to fight. They walked down the hill in silence, watching the men haul tools and equipment. Suzy slowed her pace to her mother’s. Nancy’s face looked thinner; she seemed perpetually near tears.

  The insurance guys had shown up, and they circled the periphery of the burn site, one speaking into a handheld tape recorder, the other making marks on a company clipboard with a company pen. Bud could be heard nearly from the road, directing traffic down inside the maintenance shop.

  In the Lodge office, Nancy mustered a bit of her usual fussiness to search for the maid’s key. She bustled about with an air of downtrodden frailty, like a consumptive on a mission. Suzy found something in a file cabinet labeled “Housekeeping” and sat down to pore over a sheaf of duty rosters circa 1967, which she supposed was probably the last time anyone had kept track of what got done and what went slack.

  “Oh! Suzy . . .”

  Suzy spun toward her mother, whose hand was clutched at her chest.

  Nancy spoke as if the breath might be her last. “I think I found it!”

  “Well,” Suzy said, attempting brightness, “let’s give it a try, shall we?” And she went toward the maid’s room again with the key in hand. Nancy followed, pausing for breath by the main staircase before she continued behind Suzy. Suzy tried to steel herself, not so much for what lay behind the locked door as for her mother’s reaction to it, which, she was certain, would most likely make her want to strangle the woman on the spot. She gritted her teeth.

  The lock took some fiddling, and Nancy tried to edge Suzy out of the way to try it herself, as though Suzy might not know how to use such a fancy contraption as a door key. Suzy held her ground. Too much fight on Nancy’s part would have betrayed health or vigor.

  The room was, of course, a wreck. As bad as the laundry shack had been, only tighter and more cramped. Nancy peered in over Suzy’s shoulder and clucked at the shame of it. “That poor girl.” Nancy shook her head sadly. “She really had control of nothing in her life, did she?”

  That was that—Suzy lost it. “She was a fucking slob, Mom. Your head housekeeper was a total fucking slob! Period. It doesn’t mean she needed saving; it means she was a lousy housekeeper, OK? Can you drop the saint act, please? I just really can’t take it today, all right? I just can’t . . .” Suzy looked pleadingly at her mother. She’d have given a lot at that moment for Nancy to fire something back at her. Anything but continue the martyr act. Which is exactly what Nancy did: her face dropped and her body seemed to contract in a wince of psychic pain. Suzy would not have put a fainting spell past her mother at that moment. But Nancy just turned on wobbly legs and walked back down the hall, leaving Suzy alone in that filthy maid’s supply room.

  When the five o’clock whistle sounded down at the docks, whatever headway Suzy had made in the room was not yet visible to the naked eye. It was highly unrewarding work as such. She relocked the door behind her, tucked the key into her pocket, and started back toward the maintenance shop–cum-laundry. The appliance truck had finally arrived while Suzy had been sequestered in the Lodge, and now a gaggle of burly men in incongruous lavender baseball caps were unloading some less-than-state-of-the-art industrial washers and dryers down the truck ramp and into the shop. Roddy was already coming toward her, pulling off his work gloves as he walked.

  “I don’t know why I’d been imagining new equipment. This is my father we’re talking about . . .” Roddy and Suzy were unclear on how they should gr
eet each other, so they simply did not greet at all, just stopped at a few paces and hovered uncomfortably.

  “How you doing?” Roddy asked, feeling out her mood.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “Get the kids from Reesa’s and go to Morey’s?” Roddy asked. “Squee likes it there.”

  Merle Squire treated Squee like a secretary might treat the boss’s child: fine, but not as her own. That evening she entered Morey’s through the back door, came up behind Roddy and Suzy and the kids at the bar and silently placed her hand on Squee’s head by way of hello. He was nearly asleep on his stool, his dinner uneaten, and he didn’t even start at the surprise of Merle’s touch.

  “How’s everyone holding up?” Merle asked them quietly. She looked at Squee, smoothed his hair tenderly. “Your dad’s missing you something awful.”

  Squee was not the only one confused by this assertion.

  Roddy said, “How is he?”

  Merle shook her head. “He’s OK, I guess. Honestly, I think he needs to get back to the Lodge. I think he needs something to do.”

  “You think he’s ready, already?” Suzy asked.

  “Eh, I don’t know,” said Merle. “When are you ever ready for something like that?”

  Roddy nodded at his plate of clam strips. “So when’s he going to come back?”

  Merle touched the hair at the back of her neck, patting it in place. “Tomorrow, I think. It’s not doing either of us much good having him with me. Bickering . . .” She looked to Squee then, to see if he was listening, but he was zoned out completely.

  “And that means Squee goes home too?” Suzy said quietly. “With that fire pit right outside his front door?”

  “Lance really wants to . . . so soon?” Roddy asked Merle.