Off-Island

by Marlene Hauser

  Krista willed the blood and the throbbing to stop, gripping the injured hand hard with the unharmed one. Then she pulled the frame from the closet. It was a watercolor painting of Ilsa Bourne’s old house, the family’s summer house, viewed from the garden. The brick chimneys, the trellis, the apple tree, the greens, the blues – it was all there. She dragged it into the kitchen. As she bound her injured hand in a tea towel, she regarded the canvas. Instantly, she knew exactly where it was she must go and precisely what she needed to do there.

  Chapter Six

  Krista continued to kneel with one clenched hand supporting the painting. Balancing it across the tops of her knees, she noticed her own reflection in the glass, superimposed over Ilsa’s pristine white clapboard whaling captain’s house. Her hair fell to her thighs, caught beneath the frame. It seemed to flow past the front lawn, encompassing the familiar scene. Krista studied the house, the apple tree, the back garden. Then she looked at her own reflection: the open collar of the white silk shirt, the cuffs rolled to her elbows, her thin face. The eyes she could not see. She recalled the old childhood game of inside-out. How many years ago had she played that with Mary and Deirdre? A lifetime, she thought to herself.

  Krista set the painting against the wall and walked to the kitchen sink, where she rinsed her hand again, wrapping it tightly in a linen towel. The bleeding had stopped. She felt her pulse pounding against the makeshift bandage. Two Gs, she recalled her father saying, two Gs, Krissie. Two Gs, she thought to herself, as she recalled how unbearably hot the cockpit had been, how tightly he had turned the plane, and how the sunlight bounced mercilessly off the massive expanse of sea below.

  She felt herself grow hot as if she were still in the cockpit. Her scalp pricked. I will not vomit, she told herself.

  When she felt strong enough she changed her clothes. She had only one intention: to reach the summer house. She still held the watercolor of Ilsa’s house. The car, she remembered, she could use that. Wasn’t it ready to go? Hadn’t her mother said so?

  She stepped out into the cool early morning and walked to the garage, still carrying the painting. The night attendant nodded as she passed him. The car was ready for the trip to Nova Scotia. How perfectly convenient. With her grandmother’s painting propped up beside her on the front seat, Krista reversed the Toyota Corolla. When the nausea returned, along with the memory of the cockpit, she glanced at the painting. She imagined herself safe; thought about the apple tree, the back garden, the stairs, and every other detail she could recall from every single room in the house. The inventory kept something at bay – what, she was not sure. She pulled her abdomen up and in hard against her spine. She did not want to feel its horrible, deep emptiness.

  The silver sedan was one of the few cars on the city streets at four in the morning. Krista had no difficulty driving despite a mildly numb hand over the deep cut. She imagined the car as her partner. They danced together through the early morning and her very real contemplation of the desire to take her own life. She considered Ilsa, the painting of the house, and how it was really a self-portrait of her grandmother. Silent and sweet with some unspoken mystery. Krista recalled candy found on concealed shelves, the thumping in her grandmother’s breast as she rested against it while Ilsa read aloud fairy tales from leather-bound books. Krista saw that heart as pumping life and energy into the house: turning on lights, drawing baths, setting tables or feeding dogs leftovers from holiday dinners.

  Late-night pedestrians loitered on street corners with their radios blaring. Trucks stopped and started somewhere off in the distance. Krista could almost smell the brake fluid. She rolled down the window. She needed cool air. She needed to breathe. At 72nd Street she turned left and got on the West Side Highway. The Hudson River hugged the road, and the lights of Jersey City looked almost cheerful. This route was familiar to her. She had traveled it every summer for what seemed like forever, and while there was a new building here or a new service station there, it remained virtually unchanged.

  How many times had she taken this same route in her mind? On a lazy day when she wanted to escape, she often chose to imagine herself on this very drive. She recalled summer journeys spent sleeping or dreaming all the way to Martha’s Vineyard, listening to her parents chat about the Island, what was changing there, what was not. The sound of the car’s engine always put Krista to sleep. Her parents complained about the drive and wished they could fly.

  The George Washington Bridge loomed ahead. Krista turned onto the Cross Bronx, and headed for Highway 95. Once she was in Connecticut, the traffic dwindled to almost nothing and the road seemed to turn into a straight line, possibly traveling into infinity. Krista cried as she listened to Pete Seeger sing.

  “Travelin’,” she sang with him, “travelin’ on empty, runnin’ scared.”

  The stars were still out in abundance and despite recognizing their beauty, the profundity of the moment, being alone with the wind in her hair, Krista found herself wanting to drive straight out into the twilight, lose herself there. She could just drive over the line onto the wrong side of the road into the next oncoming car or truck. It would be so easy, she thought. No. Get to Ilsa’s. Just get to Ilsa’s. Don’t think. Just drive. At Providence, she went onto 195, then 28. Wood’s Hole and the ferry would not be far away.

  The seven o’clock ferry waited. Krista felt the blood still seeping into the crotch of her jeans as it had done intermittently for hours. Would it ever stop? I’ll bathe at Ilsa’s, she decided. She descended the paved knoll, paid the attendant. He motioned her forward. Not one car in front of her in the line. She rolled up the center aisle and stopped, pulling on the emergency brake. Don’t let anyone I know see me, she prayed. Krista went above board, hoping to catch the last of the sunrise.

  The drizzle she found did not surprise her; neither did the air, thick with humidity or its tang of salt. She loved every bit of this journey that brought her home. Gulls perched on cabinets inscribed LIFEBOATS, the lightweight deckchairs and the white mast. Other passengers stayed inside, sipping coffee or tea, eating an egg and bagel. Krista leaned over the rail. The mainland receded. She looked towards Martha’s Vineyard, her grandmother’s island. Forty-five minutes. The ferry carved heavily through the water, sending spray fanning out on either side of the hull. Fishing boats headed out to sea and a passing tug sounded. The ferry hooted a low-toned response.

  Down the railing, a young man in a red windbreaker nodded to Krista. She smiled politely and walked to the other side of the boat. The water, the sky, the floor of the ferry – all grey – seemed to engulf her. Just jump. Jump. No, get to Ilsa’s. Krista wished for hard, damp sand where she might walk and not leave a trail. She wanted to live without leaving a trace. She wanted to die without leaving a trace. She simply wanted to disappear. The young man followed her, leaning over the rail beside her.

  “Misty morning,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you Charlie Bourne’s granddaughter?”

  “No, you’re mistaken.”

  Krista walked away from him and sat down in a blue deckchair. He did not follow this time but shrugged, cupped his hands and lit a cigarette. I just want to be left alone. Forever, she told herself. Krista thought about Ilsa’s house, closed up for two summers. It would not be just as she remembered it.

  Her hair curled in the light rain and she dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans, willing the Island to appear. Vineyard Haven, or the Harbor as some called it, appeared on the horizon. Krista practically raced to her car and sat drumming the steering wheel as she waited impatiently to disembark. She was afraid to let anyone or anything get in the way of what she intended to do.

  Because the ferry was all but empty, she was able to drive off quickly and without encountering anyone. She took a left at the top of the hill, not turning back to look at the ferry or the Islanders waiting for their early morning guests as she might once have done. She f
elt she had to hurry, as if someone was waiting for her at the summer house. Out of Vineyard Haven, Krista felt her anxiety lessen. She turned onto Lambert’s Cove Road, and when she saw the familiar stone walls, slowed down to a crawl. She wanted to take it all in. There, on the right, past Seth’s Pond, was the place she loved best. Krista could almost sense her grandmother’s house, stark and white on the horizon, raise itself up in a sort of salute. The house was set back from the road and Krista enjoyed taking it all in: the widow’s walk at roof level, the blue shutters, the gnarly old apple tree. She touched the painting riding beside her as if it were a friend. Don’t let anyone see me, she begged, and left the engine running as she ran to open the garage doors. After parking the car carefully out of sight, she made sure to leave everything undisturbed. The old rake that had been leaning against the garage door was returned to its exact position, and the empty gravel drive did not hint at her presence.

  Carrying nothing but Ilsa’s painting, Krista made her way to the cellar door. Be unlocked, be unlocked, she urged, and was sure that it must be. It had always been left that way for very good reason. The Bourne family was notorious for losing keys and Martha’s Vineyard was a safe place. Everyone knew everyone else. The lightness and relief she’d felt as she left the ferry dissipated. Her steps grew leaden on the brick walk. She hesitated on the pathway, stopped at the garden gate and stared at the wintry apple tree. Ilsa is not here. Had I forgotten? What was I thinking? Hurry. Hurry. I will not lose courage. This is not about Ilsa. It’s about me. Krista lifted the weather-beaten green door, letting it swing closed behind her on its warped hinges. Ilsa is not so far away. She felt over the rough brick for the switch to the single bulb that hung from the basement’s ceiling. She thought about the family graveyard not so far away, and of her grandmother’s grave in particular, nestled beside her son’s, Krista’s father’s grave, which remained empty.

  Summer chairs, neatly lined up under a blue tarp, leaned against the wall. The bicycles Ilsa had called “the dinosaurs” blocked her path to the stairs. Krista stepped over them and passed the random shutters taken off a window here and a window there years ago with the idea of someday painting them. The gas water heater momentarily kicked on, and she froze as if she might not be alone.

  “You scared me,” she said out loud.

  Krista felt her way up the steps. Old beach towels, robes, picnic baskets and plastic ice chests hung from the ceiling. She pushed open the basement door. The stale smell of the closed house enveloped her. The silence frightened her momentarily. Her footsteps echoed cavernously across the wooden floor. In the kitchen she expected to see Ilsa. Grandmother is dead, she reminded herself. Stepping out of her shoes she walked over to the back door, where the ivy, growing unchecked over the last few years, scratched against the screen in the morning wind. In the dining room she noticed her breath hanging in the air. Was it that cold? The shutters, which had always been crooked, hung at an even more dangerous angle. They might fall that very second. Someone had written his or her name in the dust on the stereo and the lid stood open on the piano. Had Grandfather Bourne been here? When? Certainly not Helen. Krista hit middle C and held the key down. In the empty house the sound seemed to reverberate forever. She drew her finger through the dust on the record albums then sat for a while in the alcove, staring at Ilsa’s self-portrait.

  The likeness seemed a little flat today. Krista did not see the customary iridescence in the handling of the paint that she recalled as her grandmother’s signature. Curiosity got the better of her. She rose from the damp cushions. She passed Ilsa’s bedroom, the place where her grandmother had died. Krista knew the room well: the wreath of dried summer flowers on the wall, the painted floor, the lambskin throws, the pink vanity, the endless photographs of family in their silver frames. All would be covered in dust. Too sad to contemplate.

  In the study, she sat down on one of the rattan mats and shivered. She felt weightless, the only breath of warmth in a cold house. Ilsa’s desk lay as it always had, covered in bills, letters, articles, and stock market reports. Old issues of Fortune, Time, Business Week and The Wall Street Journal lay beside the chair that faced the television. From that chair she had monitored a world into which she never ventured.

  Krista pulled the muslin dust covers from the living-room chairs and sat down. The front room was thick with the smell of smoke from the grate. Ash in the fireplace lay at least an inch deep. A draft stirred a small piece of paper from the grate. Krista considered her favorite painting hanging over the mantle. Still there.

  “What season is it?” she asked aloud.

  The shades were drawn. To Krista’s recollection they had always been kept closed to give protection from the sun – or so Ilsa told her family. Again, Krista stood up; she was still carrying the watercolor she had carried with her from New York. She moved uneasily through the house. In the foyer, she stopped before the mirror and closed the neck of her blouse. Who is this? she wondered, studying her own reflection. I don’t recognize you. She was more like a painting of a fragile girl than a flesh and blood one. Leaning on the banister, she mounted the steps, stopping only momentarily at the tight corner landing, crafted by a ship’s carpenter. Curls of dust lifted underfoot.

  In the front bedroom everything lay quiet and draped. Krista’s fingertips felt extraordinarily cold as she turned the cut-crystal handle on the door. She drifted through Ilsa’s studio, past the drafting board, the rows of paintings in progress, the cans full of brushes, the paints dried in their tubes and the wooden screen with the dancing Indian goddess decorating it. A light rain beat against the skylight and a trickle found its way through. It tapped against a large piece of plastic covering a small hand-painted chair.

  The next room had been Krista’s summer bedroom. The walls were painted yellow, and there was a framed picture of a small fleet of fishing boats bobbing in a calm harbor at sunset. Krista looked again at the watercolor of Ilsa’s house. What was it? She propped it against the wall, and lay down on the four-poster bed in which her father had been born. What was it?

  She pulled her arms in tightly and cupped her wounded hand in the good one, pressed together over her heart. Turning towards the wall, she smelled the musty pillow. She felt stiff and sore. Opening her eyes, she smiled. There directly before her was the prayer she had recited with her father. It was framed in driftwood and printed under a drawing of the morning star. She closed her eyes and recited:

  “Now I lay me down to sleep

  I pray The Lord my soul to keep,

  Thy love be with me through the night,

  And bless me with the morning light.”

  Blood dried on the insides of her thighs and along the seams of her jeans. The house stayed as still as if no one had arrived and no one would leave, as perhaps they would not. Krista still intended to die here.

  Chapter Seven

  Krista lay unable to sleep. Fatigue played all sorts of games on her except the one she most wanted: sleep. The pervasive cold convinced her she might be on her way to dying. She recalled that someone once told her life withdraws slowly, first from the fingertips, then the toes. It recedes up the insides of the arms and the legs. The extremities grow cold first, then numb. That was the way a person might freeze to death from exposure.

  I just want to die. Is that too much to ask?

  “So kill yourself,” she thought she heard someone say.

  Kill myself?

  “Precisely.”

  How?

  “There are any number of ways.”

  Any number of ways?

  “Any number.”

  I could slit my wrists.

  “Too messy.”

  In the bathtub?

  “How prosaic.”

  Or hold my breath.

  “Ridiculous!”

  Drown.

  “A possibility.”

  Overdose.

 
“No drugs, please.”

  Gas.

  “Not a bad idea.”

  The oven maybe.

  “No, the car.”

  The car.

  “Or you could always starve yourself.”

  Starve myself? Stay here. Stay here on the Island. Stay here like Ilsa for the rest of my life.

  “There you go. Now you’re making sense.”

  “Stop!” she shouted to the voice she could not quite make out. “Stop.” The house was empty and she knew it would be a while before anyone figured out where she was hiding.

  She rolled over but did not fall asleep. She rested in a sort of suspended wakefulness, feeling her heart pound. She allowed herself to curl up around the steady pounding, the vestigial source of heat. The sound of it seemed incredibly loud, almost deafening. She imagined the valves opening and closing. The pounding turned into the sound of hooves, an easy gallop over frozen ground. She saw marsh hay open in front of her and close behind.

  Where could I ride?

  “To the edge of the world, my darling. To the edge of the world.”

  Krista opened her hand ever so slightly and held it out as if her grandmother were sitting right there beside her.

  “You will not die, my precious darling. You are too strong for that. I know because I was too weak. You will not take your own life. All of this is valuable.”

  “Ilsa?” Krista asked aloud, knowing no one was there.

  She thought of her grandmother and the bed grew warm. She smelled the old days. Baking. Apple pie made with green apples, cinnamon and raisins. She started to cry. Where are you when I need you? What do I do now? I hurt. I want my baby back. I want my body back. My life back. Nobody told me how much it would hurt.