by Deb Caletti
“I can’t stand it,” Aimée says. “This is awful.”
“Life in the jungle,” Weary says. “Best not to get attached.”
Listen to him! What a fraud. What a poser and a liar. Weary’s own throat is tight with tears. They were all so fond of Coco, that funny little bird. He wants that hawk dead, honestly. He wants to hunt him with an arrow, shoot him right through the heart. Best not to get attached. Right! So coolheaded and in command! So not the true Weary, who is carefully hidden. Inside, he is scared and unsteady—he’s very, very attached. He has not heard anything from Isabelle and he is going crazy. Inside, he is cawing and flapping and pacing, same as Lotto said Simone did after Coco was snatched. Lotto said that hawk ripped Coco open right there as he watched.
“Onward. Today is a new day.”
And they do go onward, and it is a new day. An astonishing one. He and Aimée trudge into the deep heart of the banyans. They hunch, and then sit. Neither speaks, because their eyes are on Bébé Noir their youngest, six months old. Bébé has been hacking at a Pandanus, and leaves fly every which way. But then, Bébé does something different. Look! It is happening! She is tearing a strip from one jagged-edge leaf. She is pecking and forming it into a perfect spear. It’s a spear she’ll use to capture insects and grubs and slugs deep inside trees or far down in the ground.
Aimée grins like crazy, scritches on her pad. It takes six months of apprenticeship, they are finding, before a young bird can make the hook or the spear. Before that, they are all thrashing and bumbling, inept to the point of comedy. Poor things, they must learn from the ones that came before.
Aimée’s eyes meet Weary’s. What he sees in hers is familiar. Pride, affection—love, even. For months they’ve been watching their chicks. Silently (and sometimes not—some researchers talk much too much in the field) urging. Hoping their little charges stay out of the danger that is everywhere around them. Hoping they conquer the challenges of the wild, and avoid the tragedies of their peers. But then comes a moment like this. Look at Bébé now, Aimée’s face says.
See? They are parents. Loving parents, attached. Weary lacked these in his own life, and he never had a particular desire for children of his own, yet it’s something he still feels stirring in him, the respect and longing for the bond. Why are New Caledonia crows so smart? The same reason many children are. Unlike most crows elsewhere who live together but separate, guests at the same party, New Caledonian crows live as family. Offspring stay with their parents for a very long two years, and sometimes longer, as if they still need dad slipping them a twenty for gas money long after college. The family forages together. They chat. They play, making toys from sticks and pinecones. The parents groom, patiently teach, patiently demonstrate by example.
They invest, as Weary has invested in Isabelle. And while Weary is only a handful of years older than Isabelle, not old enough to be her parent, he is trying, is he not, to patiently teach, to show by example? He urges his own slowly developing charge; he leads, demonstrating what he knows from his experience as the senior, wiser one.
And he worries. He frets. God, how he frets and how his mind tosses. With no photos on ShutR and no useful new information on the credit cards (Front Street Market, gas, Ace Hardware, mundane stuff), he feels a tumble of fear. It’s like every long night in New Caledonia, wondering who in the flock will be alive when you get back to Mount Khogi.
He knows fear. For others, for himself. He knows what it’s like to be so terrified that you separate from your own body; so terrified that when you return, you say, Yes. Yes, there I am.
Still, Weary smiles and nods at Aimée. It’s a sweet moment, this victory for little Bébé.
He only hopes that an owl will not pluck Bébé from his roost as he sleeps helplessly. Those owls—they are one of the reasons the crows are black. Black helps them blend in with nighttime shadows. But an owl does not rely only on sight to hunt. Hiding in shadows is nothing. The owl listens for the slightest sound in the night. He’ll locate his prey by their softest breath. He’s all camouflage and quick capture; his talons will crush a skull and knead a body. His bill will scissor and tear flesh.
As any parent knows, you agonize. So much is out of your control. You can teach and warn and suggest, but the baby is still in the woods. You try not to think about the worst, but the worst always hovers out there, because it’s the truth, too. It’s as much the truth as the surviving.
As far as Weary can tell, Isabelle still sleeps beside Henry in that glass house. He would never judge, though. Sometimes you don’t wake up until the owl sinks its beak into your chest, right before he stops your heart.
Chapter 33
And then something bad happens to Isabelle. Something worse. She is sleeping restlessly beside Henry when her phone rings. And rings.
It’s Jane. There’s been an accident. Joe, socked in by fog overnight in Seattle, took his four fishermen up to Nanaimo at first light and then hit a submerged shipping container when he attempted to land.
“It’s all that shit from the tsunami. It’s a minefield,” Jane says.
“I’m coming.”
“There’s nothing we can do but wait for news. Dear God. Joe…”
“We’ll wait together. It might sound worse than it is. We don’t know…” Isabelle says as she reaches for her jeans.
“Let him be okay. Please. Just let him be okay.”
—
He is okay. He and the four fishermen are at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, and Joe may have broken a few ribs. One of the fishermen is being observed for heart attack–like symptoms, which later prove to be only the shooting pains of a bad scare. His heart is fine. They are lucky. Joe was water taxiing slowly, treating the area as if it were chock full of objects after reports of fifty-five-gallon drums, lawn furniture, and even a drowned motorcycle in the area. Only the de Havilland was seriously injured. It punctured a pontoon, necessitating their rescue by a crab boat.
“Thank God,” Jane says. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.” Jane is an atheist, but these are pesky details in a crisis.
“When I was in Alaska…” Eddie says.
It is lunchtime before Isabelle realizes.
In her hurry to get here, she left the stuff—the watch, the photo, the bracelet—in her boot at home with Henry.
—
The sick feeling starts as soon as she remembers. Then comes the terror. She tries to calm herself with reason. Henry is busy. He’s been working on his poems again. He’s also begun the repair of Remy’s rotting deck. The day before, he’d made two trips to Ace Hardware—to buy lumber, a new skill saw, other tools. She is not sure he knows what to do with the tools, and neither is he. But he was happy with his new toys, and he was in his office all evening, watching online videos featuring home-repair guys.
See? He won’t be snooping around, looking for evidence that she’s slipping away from him. He won’t find it and utterly lose his mind. He has things to do. Even if he went into her closet, he wouldn’t see that watch! He’s probably been in there a hundred times already. She’s even had near misses while she was home, and it was fine. Why would he even reach his hand inside her boot? He wouldn’t.
There are a lot of reasons a seaplane might crash. Lots of ways flight can go wrong. Improper techniques and procedures, landing on water with the wheels extended instead of raised, bad weather, gusty winds, rough water pitching the plane, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, glassy water messing up perceptions of height and depth. But how often is there an actual accident? It’s a rarity, she reminds herself.
Then again, all of a sudden there’s a storm, Maggie says. Out of nowhere.
All of a sudden, there’s a half-submerged Harley-Davidson that’ll kill everyone on board.
Isabelle tries to keep the panic down. She can barely focus as Jane discusses the plans to get the de Havilland repaired and Joe back to Parrish and the fishermen up to Alaska to resume their trip, minus the heart-attack man who wants a shuttle h
ome immediately. (Like there’s a shuttle? What kind of shuttle? Jane says. Sure, I’ll just call him a taxi.) She wonders if Evan felt like this during his affairs; if he worried she might pick up his phone or see some hotel bill or spot a fallen earring in his car. The package-sender is almost like a lover, with the hiding involved—with the secrets and the fear of being found out. But also like a lover for the need of connection, regardless of the risks.
Henry could look right in that closet and not see a thing, she tells herself for the hundredth time that day.
And then she gets a text.
Sorry to bother u at work…Don’t we have heavy gloves here? Looking everywhere.
—
During the drive home, she imagines it: the way she’ll feel the negative electrical charge from down the street. She’ll stand outside the front door, the briny, something-dead smell of the sea wafting past, and she’ll do what she shouldn’t and turn the doorknob. He will be in bed again, his shoulders turned away—
No. He’ll be standing right there as she comes in, face red with rage. He will grab her wrist again. She will try to twist free. More things will break, big ones.
Maybe he’ll just be gone, she tells herself.
Maybe you’ll be number three, Maggie says.
She should have worked harder and faster to find a way to leave, and now it’s too late. Instead of managing the beast and hoping for some magic resolution, hoping he’d leave her after all the distances she’d too gently and politely set around like dishes of candy, she should have just bought a ticket to somewhere and got the hell away. Why did she feel she owed him? Why does she feel she owes everyone? The worse the human, the more she tries. Nothing feels safe, that’s the problem. No plan does.
He won’t hurt me, she tells herself. She still questions if he’s done actual, physical harm to Sarah or Virginia. She knows she must placate him, and she can see his fury sitting just past his insecurity. But she can also now understand the despair that would lead Virginia to her death, and she can understand the anger and alcohol that would lead Sarah to hers. And, well, it’s awful to think it, but if something ever happened to her, his life would be over. She could fall off a cliff of her own accord, and he’d be in prison for good. No one would ever believe a third accident. He would never let that happen.
Like rage is rational? Maggie says. Stupid girl. You must really miss me. Can’t wait to see me again, huh? Hope kills. Naïveté does.
She heads home. Riding along with her is her utter refusal to believe in the truth of her own peril. Peril is for strangers on true crime TV. Peril is not for regular people like her, people who wear flannel pajamas and who eat Grape-Nuts and who get their oil changed when the little sticker tells them to. She knows from the journal that she and Sarah shared the same doubts from the same watch and photo, and that they shared the same demeaning moments, and the desire to flee, but that is all she knows for sure. She and Sarah also both understood Henry. He’s just a wounded little boy inside, Sarah had written.
Stupid, says Maggie.
I know how to handle him, Isabelle thinks.
Arrogance, her mother says. Omnipotent narcissism.
Isabelle keeps her keys in the pocket of her jeans, though. She leaves the car doors unlocked. Just in case. In case she needs to be out of there, fast.
Her chest feels hollow. She is sick with dread. She opens their front door.
“Hi, sweetie!” Henry calls. “Hope you’re hungry, because these potatoes I just made are fabulous.”
—
The potatoes are fabulous, and so is the roast chicken. Her relief has helped her appetite. Henry bought some chocolates at Sweet Violet’s, which he sets on the coffee table, alongside two tiny glasses of amaretto. He is talking animatedly, about two-by-fours and joists, about the call he’d gotten from his brother, about Jerry’s promotion and his niece’s gymnastics meet.
“Maybe you’ll actually like it,” he says.
After the words uneven bars her mind wandered, and she’s lost the thread. She has no idea what he’s talking about. She’s been watching Henry, remembering the reasons she fell for him. Such a handsome man. So smart. So organized and confident. What a wonderful life it would be, sitting on this couch, eating chocolates and drinking a cordial after a meal like they just had, made by this man, with his gorgeous hair and beautiful grin, and his command and wit.
“Like it?”
“The new poem? ‘Renewal’? Are you even listening?”
“Of course I’m listening. I’m sure I’ll love it.”
“Like you loved the others.”
“Henry, no words would be enough for you.”
“Are you saying I’m needy?” he says, but his voice is light. “I am needy. I need you.”
He leans in, kisses her. His tongue is a distant thing to her, an invading, poisonous creature she wants to fend off. His hands are over her, and now he’s on top of her. It’s dark out, but the lights are on; anyone taking a dark solitary walk on the beach will see them. “God, it feels like forever,” he says.
It has been a while. She’s used every excuse, from fatigue to periods. She’s tried all the tricks, from falling asleep to staying up late.
He unbuttons her jeans, works them down her hips. The keys in her pocket clank to the floor. He doesn’t notice. She tries to concentrate, tells herself this is the Henry she first met, the innocent Henry, the one she couldn’t get enough of. It doesn’t work, and so he becomes Evan, and that’s bad, too, so he becomes some stranger, and that’s no good, so he becomes Joe, the early Joe from high school, not the one of today, cherished pal, still thankfully alive but with broken ribs and, after today, with a story to rival any of Eddie’s.
Nothing is working, but no matter, because Henry sits up suddenly.
“Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Is that rain?”
She listens. Yes. There’s the pit-pit, pat-pat of drops on the roof and the garbage can lids and the decking.
“Oh, shit! I left all the tools out there.”
He pops up off her. He pulls his jeans back up, leaving the belt hanging loose.
She sits up, too. Yanks her bra back down.
He opens the sliding door to the deck, lets in the delicious night smell of wood smoke and damp earth. “Hell, I should cover them, at least.”
He hurries off toward the garage, and she gathers her jeans, those keys. In the bedroom, she changes into her robe. She feels down inside the boot and finds the watch and the bracelet and the photo still there. Close call, but everything is fine.
A chocolate sounds nice.
She is choosing. She thinks the square ones are caramel, but she’s not sure. You never can tell, until you poke the bottom, or just go for it and pop it into your mouth. That’s the trouble. Even chocolates are a risk. She knows that round one has the potential for being a revolting cherry, so—
“What the fuck, Isabelle?”
There he is, standing right there, and she goes from chocolates to shock in two flat seconds. She’s in utter disbelief, because after all the worrying and all the imagining of every bad thing, she never imagined this. She didn’t ever foresee him standing there with the tarp from her car in one hand, and the will in the other.
“What. The. Fuck.”
“Henry. Henry…I didn’t—”
“Where did you get this?”
“It came in the mail, Henry. I’m sorry. I should have told you…”
“Oh, you think? You think you maybe should have told me that asshole was sending stuff to you? Instead of hiding it in your trunk?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know who it came from!”
“I know who it came from! New Caledonia? That fucking sanctuary? It came from that asshole Gavin Gray! The fabulous Gavin Gray! Who was fucking my wife.”
So fast, it happens. The slide from peace to fright. From potatoes and chicken to red rage. Of course it’s fast, though, if it’s always
been there, sitting off the coast, waiting for the right drop in atmospheric pressure.
“Henry. I’m sure—”
“You’re sure what? What are you sure about, huh? I told the police, you want to find Sarah? She’s probably there, with him! They went! They looked! They said no way. The prick was too sick to get it up. Wow, look who’s had a miraculous recovery. Look who’s still trying to ruin my life.”
No. No miraculous recovery, but she doesn’t say this. Honestly, she’s too stunned to say anything real or right. She’s too shocked to do anything but ward off.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Henry. He’s just trying to, I don’t know! Tell me something about you, and Sarah’s money…But I already know—”
“It doesn’t mean anything?” He flings down that tarp. His face is right in hers. “I don’t give a fuck about the will. You want to see the will? I got a copy here! I’ll show you! Just ask me! I’ll show you anything, I told you! I don’t care about all those people. Virginia’s friends, Sarah’s people…I don’t even care about him. But you? You! You hid this, Isabelle! You fucking hid this!”
She backs up, bumps the coffee table. She thinks of her keys, now back on her nightstand in the bedroom where she keeps them. His face is huge in hers, and his mouth contorts. She feels his breath on her cheek.
“I didn’t—”
“You did. You did.” He presses forward, and she moves back, and he still comes at her, everything large—voice and body. There is nowhere to go. She is almost over the ledge of that open door, where just beyond, the rain pours and the rotting boards have been yanked off in spots. “You hid this in your trunk, like a suspicious coward.”
“I knew it would upset you. I didn’t want you to see—”
“You didn’t want me to see, because you hide, and you sneak, like a little—”
He grabs a handful of her robe. The satin is in his fist and he is shaking it, and he hates her then, she sees that clearly in his eyes and in his clenched teeth. And then he does it. He shoves. That fist with the robe in it—he pushes her, hard. She stumbles backward, clutches for the doorframe. She is outside, on that deck, and suddenly she is down, one leg falling and cracking through the decaying lumber. There’s a pain as wood rips skin, slashes up her calf, and the splinter and crash of chunks of things dropping, something sliding, some tool, which rolls and tumbles.