by Callie Hart
In the end, the decision had been obvious, though sad.
And so here I was, on another plane. Wheels up. Thirty thousand feet. Another gin and tonic, and another bad airplane meal.
I’d had plenty of time during the seven-hour journey over the country to review the children’s files. Connor and Amie. Through the yo-yoing and the indecision of the past few days, I hadn’t really considered the small people I was being charged to care for. Normally the children were all I ever considered. From reading the files, both Connor and Amie seemed like your average five and seven-year-olds. Connor loved soccer and apparently wanted to be a zookeeper when he grew up. The first part of his file held records of his favorite food (pasta), his favorite color (orange), his favorite animal (Zebra), and many other small facts that would undoubtedly make it easier to build a bridge with the boy. The later part of his file, however, was way more comprehensive. It contained what turned out to be notes from numerous sessions with a Brooklyn child psychologist by the name of Dr. Hans Fielding.
“Connor demonstrates an unwillingness to comply with authority. Upon speaking with his father, I have confirmed Connor was a happy, lighthearted, fun-loving child before the death of his mother five months ago, but since then has been belligerent and often prone to bouts of anger and depression. This is all to be expected, of course.”
And—
“Eight months after his mother’s death, and Connor is showing little sign of movement in what might be considered a positive direction. Connor is unfortunately yet to acknowledge the death of his mother. His refusal to believe she is gone denotes an underlying emotional flux within the child, whereby he is not yet emotionally mature enough to handle the deep and painful realities of grief and loss. It is crucial that Connor accepts his mother’s death, and soon, otherwise the fantasy in which he maintains she is still alive may become a deep seeded and vital aspect of his personality.”
Ten months after Mrs. Fletcher’s death, it seemed Connor had a breakthrough, though.
“The time Mr. Fletcher has been spending with Connor has clearly affected a change in the child. Brighter, more responsive, and generally more positive, Connor appears to have emerged from the fugue of sadness that has gripped him since last May. I’m relieved to hear Connor talk about his mother during our sessions now. Though admitting that she is dead obviously still causes him great distress, Connor frequently mentions her in the past tense. During the joint session where both Connor and his father attend my offices, Connor has expressed a desire to lay flowers at his mother’s grave. I encouraged this whole-heartedly. While difficult for Connor, I can only imagine that visiting Mrs. Fletcher’s grave would provide a sense of closure for the child. Perhaps even for Mr. Fletcher, too.”
My heart ached for the poor kid. The last entry in the notes from Dr. Fielding’s office was dated October seventeenth, a month ago, and in his entry Fielding raved about the remarkable progress the boy was making. That made me less anxious to meet him, but still. To lose a parent so young? God, it didn’t even bear thinking about.
I was less worried about Amie. She had the same amount of paperwork in her file, the same amount of detail. She wanted to be the tooth fairy when she grew up. Her favorite color was green, and her favorite animal was a dinosaur. She’d clearly spent just as much time with Dr. Fielding as Connor had, too, although his records of their meetings were far less intimidating.
“Amie, like many children her age, has adjusted to this new circumstance very rapidly. Her sadness over her mother’s death is something that overcomes her on occasion, however for the most part she remains a calm, happy, bright child. Mr. Fletcher’s concern over her is understandable. I have advised him that he should make sure to spend plenty of quality time with her, to ensure she doesn’t feel abandoned by both parents. I have urged him to reconsider taking a leave of absence from work, even if only for a short period of time. He has informed me he will do his best to make that happen. In the meantime, I am happy to advise only a biweekly appointment for Amie, unlike Connor, who I would still like to see twice a week.”
The photos of the children that had come with the file were rather odd. I’d have thought Fletcher might have sent one of the two of them, smiling and happy, perhaps from before the mysterious tragedy that had claimed their mother. Instead the pictures of Connor and Amie were taken separately, each of them on their own. Connor had a look of his father about him—a halo of dark hair that flicked and curled all over the place, and dark, soulful eyes that stared straight out at me from the image. Both cheeks were heavily dimpled, and must have been even more so when the boy smiled. As it stood, Connor remained stony-faced as he stared down the camera lens, no flicker of emotion caught in the shadows and highlights of his face. He wore a white button-down shirt, done up high under his chin, and a pair of plain khaki shorts that showed off his gangly, skinny legs. It was clear he was going to be tall, just like Ronan.
In Amie’s photograph, she was sitting Indian style on an Adirondack chair, propped up with a blue and white striped cushion behind her, and she was looking somewhere off to the left, away from the camera. Just like her brother, she wasn’t smiling, though her delicate, incredibly fine features seemed less weighed down than Connor’s. If anything she looked impatient, ready for the moment to be over so she could move onto the next.
“Another gin and tonic, Miss?” I hadn’t even noticed the stewardess standing next to me in the aisle.
“No. Thank you, though.” I wanted to accept the drink, and I wanted to tell her to keep them coming, but the very last thing I needed was a buzzing hangover when I touched down in Knox County.
******
I’d thought I’d get a fairly decent feel for Maine as I traveled from the airport, north, toward Port Creef, where I would be catching a ferry to The Causeway, however the world was shrouded in darkness when the plane touched down, and the sky remained as black as pitch out of my taxi window until I fell asleep. No town car service for me here. There had been a rather overweight, balding guy with a huge green, waxed canvas coat that came down to his knees waiting for me in arrivals, though. He’d held a piece of paper loosely in one hand, on which my name had been scrawled hastily in black Sharpie. He’d looked like he was about to fall asleep, leaning against the railings, with dark circles under his eyes. Turned out this was Carrick, and he was my cab driver. He was also Irish, and it was next to impossible to understand him.
The first thing he’d said to me was this: “Where’s your coat, Miss? Colder than Satan’s ball sack out there. You’ll catch your death if you step foot outside wearing that flimsy thing.” He hadn’t seemed all that impressed with the oversized woolen sweater Mom had made me carry on the plane just in case I had gotten cold. I’d been too tired to argue with him, to tell him I was fairly warm blooded and I wasn’t going to need a jacket, especially if we were just going from the airport to the car, so I’d just unzipped my luggage and pulled out the thick, hulking coat I’d brought with me. Overkill, I’d thought. Way too much fleece lining, and the hood was just plain ridiculous.
Ridiculous until I’d followed Carrick outside and the frigid wind had tried to suck the air right out of my lungs, that is. How cold had it ever gotten in Manhattan Beach in winter? Fifty-five degrees? Maybe in the forties, though that seemed unlikely. The wind cutting across the concourse at the tiny Knox County Airport could barely have been more than ten degrees. Lower, probably. It stabbed through the swaddling of my jacket like a hot knife through butter, instantly chilling me to the bone. I’d been frozen by the time I’d climbed into the back of the fat, oddly shaped taxi waiting for us a couple of hundred feet away, and Carrick had chuckled under his breath.
Not much passed between us by way of conversation—a fact I was glad of, since I could barely understand a word he was saying. Sleep seemed like the most reasonable course of action.
An indeterminate period of time later, I was shaken awake by rough hands. Carrick shot me a toothy, mirthful smile and said,
“We’re here, Miss. Don’t want to miss this boat now.” Out of the window now, weak light was cutting through a swollen bank of dirty gray, weighty-looking clouds—thunderheads, Mom called them. A sure sign of a storm. An age worn coastline stretched out to the left, grass sprouting in between the cracks and crevices of huge tors of stacked rock. Even in the pale, half-hearted dawn, the hills rolling off into the distance looked incredibly green and lush, way brighter, fatter and more vibrant than anything I’d ever seen by the beach. Beautiful. It was truly beautiful.
Carrick had parked the taxi in what appeared to be the parking lot of a dock. The concrete underfoot was cracked and buckled all over the place. Small two-man boats lay on their keels in a makeshift dry dock close by, rusting, sprouting shoots of ryegrass out of their hulls and weatherworn decks.
I’d lived by the beach all my life, and yet I had never smelled anything like this before. The air was filled with salt and brine, raw and powerful at the back of my nose.
“You’re on the six-forty crossing. I’ll carry your bags down to the boat, Miss. Do you think you’ll be fine from there? Better for me to get going back to the city, see.”
Thanks to the fresh, snapping breeze that was tearing in over the water, I was wide-awake, but my brain slowed down so rapidly that it felt like it was almost in reverse whenever I tried to understand the words coming out of Carrick’s mouth. I nodded, throwing my purse strap over my head. “Of course. Thank you.”
The boat service to Causeway Island was more fishing trawler than ferry. Wet plastic seats. Slick deck, with diamond plate panels drilled to the floor for grip. Rusted handrails, painted over so many times that a rainbow of colors were visible in the lengths of steel that had been scraped here and there—festive bruises to the ship’s décor that made me smile.
The old guy captaining the ship was surly, toothless and unfriendly. He didn’t say a word as I got onto the boat, and he still didn’t speak as we sat there, pitching to and fro while he apparently waited for more passengers who never came. It was close to seven o’clock by the time he abandoned his post and gunned the boat’s engines, pulling out of the tiny harbor. Port Creef disappeared behind us, to be replaced by a swathe of gunmetal gray water, frosted with white peaks.
The ride was short and choppy. God, I felt so sick. Turned inside out, to the point that I considered leaning over the side of the boat and puking at one point. Wouldn’t have gone down well, though. The wiry guy behind the wheel at the front of the boat kept casting shifty glances in my direction, as though he was expecting half as much from me and was prepared and ready to throw me overboard if he needed to.
The Causeway emerged on the horizon, a smudge of color, dark and black. The island wasn’t a charming swathe of land that rose gracefully out of the ocean like the arched hump of a whale; it was the angular bunched muscle, tendon and bone of a clenched fist, punching its way toward the sky with a defiance that seemed at odds with the lazy, quiet way the people who occupied its surface generally went about their day (according to Google). The color of the sky was still bleak and promised rain, but in spite of myself I couldn’t help but find a savage beauty in the place.
On a shore of ocean-rounded rocks and coarse sand, an old man named Hilary was waiting for me. Dressed in a prim suit with a deep purple tie, there had never been a man so out of place in all the world. He didn’t look like he belonged here, in this strange, wild, mystical place, but then again I’m sure I didn’t either. “I see you made it safely, then, Miss Lang.” He took my huge hard case luggage, packed to the point of bursting with clothes and books, and carried it off easily in the direction of a mud-splattered Land Rover that was parked twenty feet away.
“Looks that way,” I agreed. I wasn’t too sure if I meant it, though. Part of me felt missing, like I’d carved out a chunk of my heart and forgotten to bring it with me on the flight from California.
“Ronan and the children are already up at the house. If you like, we can drive around the island and I can point out where the amenities are before we head back there. You won’t be expected to start work until tomorrow, so today’s all yours. You can sleep if you’re jetlagged, or you could go for a wander, have an explore or whatever.” It sounded like the idea of exploring the island bored the back teeth off him.
I opted for a quick tour and then back to the house. Sleep wasn’t on the cards after dozing all the way from the airport in the back of Carrick’s taxi, but the effort of being on the road for so long had wiped me out. Lying on my bed, reading and relaxing in the quiet, sounded perfect right now.
Hilary showed me where the local grocery store was, the post office, the bank. He drove me from what he called the Church Quarter all the way across the other end of the island—a grand total of twenty minutes in the car—to a town called Richmond, to show me a beautiful, sweeping lake there. After that, he announced that it was time to go back to The Big House.
“The big house?”
“That’s what everyone calls it, the Fletcher’s place. It’s been in the family for generations. Real old Irish estate money, apparently. A lot of people from the island used to be employed there back in Victorian times. Cooks, service staff, groundsmen, that kind of thing. No one’s been living there for a long time now. I think the residents are still in shock when they see the boss tearing around on his motorcycle.”
Huh. Ronan was old money. That explained a lot. He exuded an air of entitlement that went beyond his position as director of the Fletcher Corporation. He wasn’t New York businessman arrogant, as Mom suspected. He was wealthy third generation Irish landowner arrogant. And where the hell did he even get a motorcycle out here?
I was nervous about seeing him. Nervous in a strange, girly way, which was absolutely crazy. He’d been shitty to me in my interview. He’d managed to strip me down and somehow make me feel less than an inch tall in a period of fifteen minutes, and still his looks and his confidence unsettled me. I shouldn’t let it happen, but every time I remembered him entering into his office and sitting down at his desk in front of me, I was helplessly undone. Six months I had to live in the same household as him. Six months was a long time. I was either going to be helplessly in love with the asshole by the time mid-April rolled around, or I was going to hate him more than anyone else on the face of the planet.
When Hilary turned the Land Rover into a long, arrow-straight road and suddenly “The Big House” appeared in front of us, I understood why everyone called it that. The building wasn’t a house; it was a mansion. A huge sandstone monstrosity, three stories high, with eight pillars, four on either side of the massive entranceway, propping up a deep lintel that ran from one end of the building to the other. I counted a total of eight windows on each of the floors. How many rooms did that equate to? The place was obscene. It made perfect sense that the Fletcher family, circa 1890, had needed to hire half the island to run the place.
“Seriously?” I couldn’t keep the comment in as I sat there, blinking up at the house, which only kept getting bigger and bigger as the Land Rover sped up the driveway. “All this? For Ronan, me, you and two small children? We’ll be lost half the time.”
Hilary laughed under his breath. “Not for me, actually. I’m heading back to New York tonight. Ronan’s asked me to keep an eye on things back in the city for him and report back if anything goes awry.”
So, Hilary was more than just a driver. That didn’t surprise me. He had a way of holding himself and of speaking that made me think he was highly educated. Weird that he’d been the one to come and collect me from the beach, but then again Ronan Fletcher obviously didn’t mind doing things a little differently. “If you need anything, you can always give me a call, though. Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black leather wallet. “I have some business cards inside. Take one,” he said, holding the wallet out to me.
I did so. I flipped the wallet closed and returned it to him once I had the card, but not before noticing the photograph slid into the clear p
lastic window inside: Hilary and Ronan, both wearing sweat-stained t-shirts, covered in mud, heads tilted back, both laughing raucously at some unknown hilarity that I was never going to be privy to. It was strange to see Ronan laughing; he looked like another man altogether.
No one greeted us inside the house. I didn’t know what I’d expected of the interior—maybe something along the lines of a faded, aging manor house, with wingback chairs, chaise longue nestled into the bay windows, heavy, thick curtains with rich brocade, fastened back with gold tassel ties. What I was not expecting was the height of modern luxury. Cool, polished marble floors. Expensive looking flat screen TVs and sectional sofas so big you could fit at least seven or eight people on them at once. Everything smelled new, and looked like it had been shipped out from Pottery Barn or Macy’s, from the wildly shaped glass vases to the thick pile rugs underfoot and the fur throw that was arranged neatly over the back of a plush cream armchair.
“Don’t worry. It’s not real.” Ronan Fletcher’s voice echoed around the cavernous lounge space, bouncing off the walls so that it took me a moment to figure out his exact location. Standing in a doorway by the window, he was dressed in a simple plain black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. His feet were bare, which, for some reason made me blush. What the hell was that about?
His dark hair had been slicked back when we met last, full of product, but now it was swept back out of his face in thick waves that any girl would have killed for.
“I’ll take your bags up to your room, Miss Lang.” Hilary’s hand on my shoulder almost made me jump; I’d completely forgotten he was there.
“Oh, don’t worry. I can do that.” I tried to rescue the handle of my luggage from him, but he was too quick for me.
“It’s not a problem. I have to go and pack up myself anyway. And I’m sure Ronan wants to have a quick word with you as well.”