by Deb Caletti
This is a mistake. There are much better places to open this package, places less haunted. Her mother roars to life. Even with the large, dusty-warehouse-ness of this building, Isabelle smells her. She sees her, propped against that headboard. She sees her, bent over that box, putting an ornament that Isabelle made in elementary school on the tree—a clay angel, a broken wing hot-glued back on by Maggie herself. A tender gesture, because, of course, there were those, too.
Remember yourself? Maggie says.
Yes.
Open the fucking thing.
Isabelle sits in the leather chair. The leather is freezing at first. She takes the package out from under her sweater.
Postmark: Nouméa. She examines the stamps. Nouvelle Caledonie. Three kinds of exotic birds, plus one large fish with a concerned expression. Zone Du Grand Lagon Nord.
She feels it, squishes. Another fat clump. Letters, maybe? A document? Something grips her heart, tight, tighter. She rips open the envelope.
It’s a stack of paper, folded in half. It’s long, legal-sized.
Last Will and Testament of Sarah Banks North.
Isabelle takes the hit, which is a solid punch in her gut. Is she even breathing? Barely. She lays the will open on her knees, because her hands are shaking so badly. She thinks she hears the rattle of the doorknob, but it’s just her nerves.
I, Sarah Banks North, of the City of Boston, County of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, being of full age and of sound mind and memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament…
Isabelle reads quickly. She can’t hide in here long, as Liz will be arriving at any moment with the opticians. She scans the pages. Clothing, personal effects, automobiles, the house, bought in her name—it all goes to Henry, of course, her husband. Now, her personal trust fund. Forty-five percent to Henry. Five percent to the Archdiocese of Boston College, her alma mater. Twenty-five percent divided amongst Alice Reynolds, Jared Reynolds, and Janice Reynolds. Twenty-five percent to the New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility and Sanctuary.
What does this mean? Isabelle already knew the house was in Sarah’s name; she knew about the trust fund, and Sarah’s money. She knew Henry received a large portion of it, plus more when the New Haven Providence policy kicked in. She already understood this. Everyone did. The police did. None of this is shocking. What is she being told here? Who are these Reynolds people? No idea. Sarah was an ornithologist, and so money to a bird sanctuary does not seem surprising or revelatory. Isabelle doesn’t know what the will is trying to tell her, but perhaps she finally knows who is trying to tell her? Someone from the New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility and Sanctuary. Because New Caledonia. Those stamps. Then again, why be this obvious and not leave a name? It’s a trick, she’s sure.
She feels unwell. She is shivering, from the cold in there, and from holding this horrific document. She leaves the storage unit, locks it up. The package is in her sweater again. She heads to her car; hides the envelope in the wheel well in the trunk, under the tarp that covers the spare tire and the jack. She locks everything up. By the time she is halfway to the Island Air office, she’s convinced herself she left it unlocked, and heads back to do it again.
She isn’t sure of anything. Not the locking of the car or her own intentions or even who she is. You are so sensitive, Henry tells her. Here, let me help you with that before you hurt yourself, Henry says. Well, there isn’t much point doing nice things for you, is there? Henry says.
In the sky, the Beaver roars, and the body of the plane grows larger and flies lower as it approaches, ready to splash down. Jane has noticed her absence. Isabelle can see the angry huff of Jane’s shoulders as she stalks out to the dock to do the job of the missing lineman. The Beaver lands, neat as a dragonfly on a pond, and Jane gets the ropes. Isabelle is halfway down the dock when Jane spots her.
“What the hell!” Jane is too old to be hunched on her knees like that. Tying those lines will test her cranky finger joints.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Where’ve you been?”
“I don’t— I’ve got some—”
“What’s wrong?” Jane has to shout. The propeller still spins, a blurred and dangerous circle.
“Fever. I’ve got some fever.”
She does. A fever or something, because she is hot and cold at the same time, and she’s shaking all over. It feels like fever and like panic, and like standing close, too close, to that propeller.
“For God’s sake, go home, Isabelle. Go home and rest and eat and—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Go.”
She does. Who is this person, stumbling down the dock? It’s a ghost woman. Remember yourself? Yes. No—that person on the dock is so tiny, Isabelle can barely see her. She is a memory, that’s all. Wait. Can you have a memory for something that never was? Maybe that figure is a specter of lost potential.
Isabelle unlocks her car again, locks the doors when she’s in. The thunk-thunk is reassuring, but it makes her think of the sound of locks, all locks, the pointlessness of them, like the time she tried to lock her bedroom door against her mother’s rage and she shoved through anyway. The pointlessness of locks, and the need for them—big locks, mighty ones, the permanent kind that come on prison cells.
Her head throbs. Of course, she doesn’t go home. The sky is spring blue, but she drives in a blind, gray fog to the library. Her fever-palms are clammy, and her shaky legs make her foot press too hard on the accelerator. She’s a dangerous driver now, and Remy, who Isabelle spots drinking coffee in the window of Java Java Java, is watching her intently. Remy—she’s one to talk, driving five miles an hour on the blind corners of Deception Loop.
Isabelle almost expects the document to have vanished when she opens her trunk. She questions her own sanity. Did she really just hide a will in her wheel well? Did she really just get a package from the other side of the world? Does she live with a man with two dead lovers? Is her mother really gone, or is Isabelle just here at home, visiting on spring break, heading to the library to stock up on a few good novels?
Wake up, wake up! Maggie sings, same as she used to when Isabelle was going to be late for school.
—
She finds a computer at one of the back tables. She takes the will out of her purse. She hunches over it, like a prissy schoolgirl protective of her test answers. She was actually kind of like that in elementary school, if she’s being truthful. If she’s taking a hard look at her failed self. My God, she’s made so many bad choices.
She types: Alice Reynolds. Too many hits. She types Alice Reynolds, Boston. Nothing. Then, Alice Reynolds, Sarah Banks North.
An article about Sarah’s disappearance, from The Boston Herald. A quote: Alice Reynolds, the missing woman’s aunt, said, “I always thought Henry was a fine man. They always seemed happy. As a Christian, I won’t leap to judgment.” Reynolds lives with her son in Yorba Linda, California.
Son. Jared? Jared and Janice, cousins?
She types: Sarah Banks North. Will. Too many hits. Sarah Banks, of Staten Island, will marry…Junior champion, Sarah Banks, will compete…
She types: Sarah Banks and Henry North. Money. Trust fund.
Disappearance of Local Woman Stirs Debate. The Boston Globe, this time. Police are still seeking answers in the disappearance of Sarah Banks North. Close friend Hannah Fallahi calls yesterday’s press conference held by husband Henry North and Police Chief Ross Buckley “a total sham.” “One only needs to understand the amount of money involved to seriously question Mr. North’s claim that Sarah ‘ran off.’ I can state unequivocally that her trust fund was significant,” Fallahi stated.
No. Isabelle doesn’t believe this. If Henry had a role in Sarah’s disappearance, money wasn’t the reason. She rejects this idea outright. Henry may like his fine things on occasion, but he’s not motivated by a driving force for more. In spite of the money he has, there are holes in his socks. His favorite sweater is an anci
ent brown cardigan from the Gap. He tells her she spends too much after seeing the new swimsuit on her Visa bill—her private card, not the shared one he insisted on giving her for dinners out.
She types: Nouméa. She types: New Caledonia. She looks at images of a remote island. She types: New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility and Sanctuary. It’s a bad, out-of-date website, featuring a map of the area with a big red star marking the location of Mount Khogi. There are images of crows in trees and crows in cages. There are only three tabs: Contact, About Us, and Research. She clicks Contact, sees an email address, [email protected], and a phone number. She tries the About Us tab. The personal vision of Dr. Gavin Gray, the New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility’s mission is to preserve the earth’s biodiversity and to secure the future of the corvid species in its natural habitat. We work to fulfill that mission through research, field and captive studies of corvids, particularly Grande Terre’s Corvus moneduloides…
The library computers are slow. It takes minutes upon minutes for a page to load. Jesus, she could run home, she could do some errand, do impossible shopping for another bathing suit even, come back, and still be waiting. She hears a clock ticking, but it’s possible the sound is in her own head. Isabelle looks over her shoulder, but only sees librarian Sasha with her spiky Mohawk and her Smashing the Patriarchy Is My Cardio T-shirt, shelving in the biographies.
Dr. Gavin Gray.
The name is familiar, but she can’t remember why. This speaks to the state of her mind, because the name is very familiar. It’s an important name. It has a bad feeling around it, but what? The library has become noisy and she can’t concentrate. There’s the scurrying and chatter of little children, the motion and rearrangement of stuff, strollers and bags and jackets. A baby wails. A kid whines. Story time, she guesses. She types it in the search box: Dr. Gavin Gray. The results go for pages and pages. She could be here for weeks. She types: Sarah Banks North and The New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility.
Nothing.
She types: Sarah North. Dr. Gavin Gray.
An article. “Corvid Survey Techniques Through the Measurement of Biotic and Abiotic Features,” and all at once Isabelle remembers.
Oh, shit. Of course. Of course! Dr. Gavin Gray, Sarah’s friend, focus of Henry’s jealousy. It always seemed silly, this idea of an affair. At least, more ridiculous the longer she knew Henry and understood the depth of his insecurity.
Dr. Gavin Gray, she types again. Could he be the one sending these packages? From various, what, lecture circuits, or something? What do ornithologists even do? Are there universities in the French countryside? Dr. Gavin Gray, Rochefort-en-Terre, Bretagne, she adds.
Nothing.
Lourmarin. Dr. Gavin Gray.
Nothing.
Dr. Gavin Gray, Australia.
Surveys and Research and Yookamurra Sanctuary, Australian Wildlife Conservancy. Industry Group Seminar, La Trobe University, Featuring Drs. Kenneth Rich, Genevieve Rich, Dr. Gavin Gray…LaTrobe University Graduate Research Group adviser, Dr. Gavin Gray…Spontaneous Metatool Use by New Caledonian Crows “…differs from Torresian crows (Corvus oruu)…”
Isabelle’s neck aches. The throb in her head has become something more solid, an iron wedge, hot-cold and pressing. She does not understand what she is being told, and it seems that Gavin Gray is a busy man. Too busy to be sending her mysterious packages with the personal effects of a dead colleague.
There is a smattering of applause and the sounds of bodies in motion again. Story time is over. A toddler in a denim jacket peeks around a corner at her and then disappears.
Isabelle does that thing frustrated searchers do—she hits a random number on the line of search results. It will be a last pull of the slot machine before she gets out of here. She can’t stand even one more slow-loading page.
But, then…Wait. Maybe she can stand another slow loading page, because what is this? Is this the same Dr. Gavin Gray? Because if it is, Dr. Gavin Gray is not nearly so busy as she just thought.
If this is the same Dr. Gavin Gray, he is not busy at all. He’s dead.
Famed Researcher Loses Cancer Battle. The Boston Herald this time. Famed ornithologist Dr. Gavin Gray, best known for his research on tool use in crows, lost his battle with cancer on Tuesday. Gray, 47, a longtime Boston resident and professor at Boston University, founded The New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility, in the Pacific, and was instrumental in the discovery that crows manufacture hook tools to aid prey capture. University President Shauna Vicars said, “Gray’s contribution to the scientific community and to the greater understanding of animal intelligence is one that Boston University is very proud of. He will be missed by family, friends, and colleagues.” M. Weary, who will continue Gray’s work at the facility, said, “It’s a loss. A great loss.” In lieu of flowers, sister Denise Fredericks of Needham asks that donations be made to the New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility, BP 8145, Nouméa, New Caledonia, 98846.
Isabelle leans back in the library chair, ends her session on the computer. Her best lead, Dr. Gavin Gray, could not be sending her packages, unless he’s sending them from the grave. Certainly, he would need more stamps for that. She feels a hit of disappointment. She’s back to the same large and empty unknowing she was at before.
She can’t go home yet. It’s early, and she feels too disturbed, too unwell. She can’t bring this into the house—this strange chill and heat and headache. She makes another dangerous drive back down Deception Loop; she loses speed and then picks up speed from distraction. There’s a swerve around a dead opossum carcass on the road, the near miss of gore and guts on her tires. She spots the moon in the sky, weird and white in daytime. She knows this road so well, but it’s like she’s somewhere she’s never been before, which of course is true.
She heads for the other side of the island, the Straits, where the Hotel Delgado sits, and where the entrance to that trail is, the one that heads to the McKinnon family plot. She parks in the hotel lot. Hardly anyone’s out there, just the employees of the restaurant setting up for dinner inside, a man staining his boat, a solo tourist on a bike ride.
She sits on the bench overlooking the marina. She stays for a very long time. She’s forgotten all the body stuff, the hunger and the need to pee, the usual functions of a human in a day. All of that has shut right down, and there’s only the pumping of her heart on some sort of invisible life support. She is thinking too much about Clyde Belle and his blood on that rock, that’s for sure. Clyde Belle was likely this exhausted.
The sky dims, and the horizon earns a crown of gold. The crows come. Here they are, and she must be still alive after all, must be wanting life, because there’s that awe. Awe lifts in her, a sunrise. She watches the birds fly in their endless black line, looking like a forever swath of smoke. She listens to the whiff-whiff of wings. She thinks of other crows in a far-off place, New Caledonia, crows in a jungle, carefully fashioning their hooks. Here, she watches the swerve and dip of certain individual birds. Most flap with seriousness and steady industry, but a few veer and drop and rise again before resuming.
She has veered and dropped, but has no idea how to rise again. She watches, hoping to learn. It looks so easy. But she can only imagine what it takes to make this trek every day. When the fog is thick, they caw and caw and fly low to make their way through it, and when the wind is strong, they beat hard against it, and when it snows, they still go forward, white flakes melting on black satin. What it takes to keep on like that—Isabelle has no idea. Right then, she has no clue.
—
“Isabelle, thank God! Where have you been?”
“Just, late. I had to stay late.”
“How could you do this to me? You couldn’t call? You know what it’s like for me! After Sarah, how can I not go mad with worry? I rang and rang…”
He did. On that bench, the phone buzzed and buzzed like a dutiful but despised alarm clock until she turned it off. “I’m sorry.”
“I was scared to
death!”
“I’m an hour late, Henry. I got caught up at work…”
“Is that what they call it now?”
Her coat is still on. Her purse is still over her shoulder. Her head hurts so bad, lopping it off sounds all right as an option.
“Isabelle?”
She’s dizzy. The floor tilts, and the walls shimmer. It might be her own body, attempting to shake some sense into her.
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t feel well.”
“Oh, darling. You poor thing. You look awful.”
“Maybe it’s the flu,” Isabelle says.
“Who have you been kissing?”
“No one, Henry. No one.” She is so tired.
“Only kidding, my sweet! It’s a joke. I’m just so relieved you’re here. I thought…Oh, never mind. Get in your pajamas. Get into bed. I’ll bring you soup,” Henry says.
She does what he tells her to do. She gets into her pajamas and climbs under the covers. Every part of her aches. It aches because the fog is heavy and the wind is hard and because there is only cold. Henry sits beside her on the bed. He gazes into her eyes. He rubs her arm. She can barely stand his touch. There is a watch in a boot in her closet, and a will in her trunk. She has to get out of here. Right now, she’s not sure which one of them has more secrets.
Chapter 32
So many dangers, that’s the problem. So many ways things can go badly wrong. The clasp of talons, the swoop of a river, mortality just lurking around, waiting for an opportunity. Last year, the crows they followed had eleven new chicks. Of the eleven, there are only four left—Chouchou, Bijou, Bébé Noir, and Poli, short for Polisson, rascal.
The owls and the torrential rains don’t help. A goshawk got Coco as Lotto watched. Poor Lot can barely share the news. His big face squinches up, and he rubs his eyes to keep from crying.