An Island Between Us

by K'Anne Meinel

  The two women had taken a length of string and were measuring out the cabin. It looked huge but they didn’t want it too large, just comfortable. They also knew they couldn’t build it too big since they were following a book on how to build, and they weren’t sure how much they could do on their own. They began to dig down with their shovels, throwing the dirt to one side or the other. It became a competition, but they eventually had to stop because they were tired from their very full day. They also needed to wash up, make dinner, and eat.

  “I’d say everyone did a good day’s work,” Barbara told the children. “I think tomorrow we should figure out how to set some fishing lines, so we don’t have to stay there all the time to fish. Then, when we want to check them all or reset them, we’ll have fish waiting for us.”

  “We’re going to eat them?” Brian asked, sounding enthused.

  “Well, you will all have to learn to clean them. I’m not going to do it all.”

  “Why not?” Richard asked, genuinely puzzled. “If you are going to cook ‘em, shouldn’t you clean ‘em?”

  Barbara’s first thought was to give the young boy a sharp retort, so she took a deep breath before replying. “No, I think whoever catches them and brings them in has to clean them.” She could see he badly wanted to say something like, “But that’s a girls’ job,” but he knew better than to say anything like that around his mother.

  “I’m going to need a bath soon,” Marion complained good-naturedly as they got ready for bed after getting the children settled in the tent and off to sleep.

  “I think it’s going to rain. Can you smell it?” Barbara spent a few minutes rigging a sheet of bark to protect their fire from the oncoming storm. Even if others couldn’t smell the rain, she could, and she didn’t want to waste matches to restart the fire. They had to conserve wherever possible.

  She was right. It started to rain at some point during the night, and they woke to the pitter patter sound of the rain on the tent. They had a bowl of dry cereal each with what Barbara referred to as armored heifer or canned milk.

  “Where in the world did you hear it called armored heifer?” Marion asked, sputtering in laughter over that expression.

  “Some of the kids at the store where we stocked up called it that,” she smiled as the children guffawed over the words. Despite the rain, they kept the children entertained before finally letting them out to play in it.

  “Now, it’s cold and we must work, so I don’t want you going in and out of the tent and tracking mud in. If you are coming out to help us, you will have to hustle to stay warm and that means helping us. We could have a contest,” Barbara challenged them.

  “What kind of contest?” Brian asked, not too enthused about working but willing to go out in the rain.

  “How about we see who can make the biggest pile of rocks?” she asked him.

  “That’s no fair; they’re bigger than I am,” Brenda sulked.

  “Well, then you will have to gather for all the girls on the island,” Marion put in, to waylay the tantrum she sensed coming on.

  “But I am the only girl on the island,” the wise, little girl pointed out.

  “Yes, you are, so you have to represent all the little girls.” She smiled, to show she was teasing.

  “Can’t we play?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, absolutely, but you can’t come back into the tent to change your clothes until we get finished,” she answered him, pointing with her thumb at Barbara and herself.

  They didn’t realize how cold the rain would be. Barbara built up the fire, but everything was wet from the rain, and the wood smoldered, causing lots of smoke. Everyone wore rain ponchos, and the children loved the novelty of it...at first. The adults helped gather rocks, using the wheelbarrow to carry them and help build up the various stacks. The hole they had dug the previous day was a quagmire.

  “We don’t dare dig in that,” Marion lamented.

  “Well, it is spring,” Barbara pointed out.

  They gave up mid-morning, defeated by the cold rain as everyone’s teeth were chattering. They returned to the tent, leaving their shoes under the bark by the fire to dry. Barbara made sure the shoes couldn’t catch on fire and were steaming under the canopy. Her own bare feet were squishy as she made her way into the tent where they were all gathered to change out of their wet clothes.

  “I’m s...s...s...sooo cold,” Brenda chattered, and Marion grabbed her with a towel and rubbed her briskly.

  “Boys, turn away,” she called, so she could strip the little girl, get her in dry clothes, and then tuck her into her sleeping bag.

  “I’m not sick,” Brenda protested being put to bed.

  “None of us are sick, but we are all going back under our covers to stay warm. Somewhere, I have cards, so we can all play games,” she promised.

  Barbara made sure Richard was dry and warm dressed in clean clothes while Marion got Brian sorted. They hung their wet clothes outside on a line she strung up, her own long johns going on last as she changed into pajamas. The pajamas were shorter than the long underwear, but at least she was dry.

  “The rain is washing our clothes,” Richard quipped, laughing. The other children joined in, thinking he was hilarious, and the two adults smiled.

  The adults taught the children how to play various card games as they whiled away the rainy day. When they got bored with that, Barbara and Marion took turns reading to them from adventure books they had brought along for this very reason. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss were going to be favorites, they could tell. The children enjoyed themselves after all the hiking and work they had done the previous day.

  The rain lasted three days, and by the time it ended, they were all sick of the tent.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Barbara insisted that Marion and the children clean up the tent and their clothes while she dug, since she was the sturdiest of them. After their expected protestations subsided, Marion agreed, and she told the children they could go play when their work was done. The children’s version of getting their work done and Marion’s version were vastly different but soon the tent was aired out, their sleeping bags were hanging on the line to air, their dirty clothes were hung up, and the children were chasing each other around the meadow. Marion was amazed how much work Barbara got done while she did the camp chores. She hadn’t liked how the jobs were assigned, but she knew her partner was right. Barbara was bigger and stronger and could dig more than the rest of them.

  “Is the ground easier?” Marion asked as she came up to the widening hole, picking up her own shovel to help.

  “The rain loosened the dirt. I’m just glad it drained fast, and we don’t have a mud hole,” she said from her position in the bottom as she pulled down more of the edges, widening the hole to where they had stretched their strings.

  “Maybe we’ve bit off more than we can chew?” Marion fretted.

  “Absolutely,” Barbara agreed and then smiled to show she wasn’t worried. She continued her slow and methodical digging, throwing up shovels full of rich, dark dirt. “This should make for great gardening when we dig up part of the meadow for our seeds.”

  “What seeds?” Marion asked as she got down in the hole with her own shovel, put on her gloves, and began digging sideways to widen it. They didn’t need to be under each other’s feet.

  “I packed a bunch of seeds for the garden, so we wouldn’t have to buy them up here. We’ll decide when it’s best to plant them.” As an afterthought she added, “after it warms up.”

  They chatted as they dug steadily. Each stopped now and then to get up out of the deepening hole and check on the children. Admonishing them to stay in the meadow, they were surprised when the children, on their own, began to pile up rocks.

  “Thank you. I’m really proud of you,” Marion told her two.

  “Atta boy,” Barbara encouraged her own son.

  As the island dried out, they watched the clouds begin rolling in,
threatening more rain. That night, they were warm and dry, but the fog was cold, and they were all in sweaters, woolen socks, and even wore mittens.

  “Maybe we came out too early in the season?” Marion fussed, trying to warm up her feet by rubbing her socks together beneath the sleeping bag.

  “We have so much to do, and it would have rained all spring anyway. We just have to make do until we can get some of the work done,” Barbara consoled her, reaching out to squeeze her arm and show her support. They had both lathered lotions on their hands, which were blistering from the work despite wearing gloves. They had known this wasn’t going to be easy, and while they had been mentally prepared, the reality was the blisters, aches, and pains.

  Still, bit by bit, they were getting little things done. The children could only help so much as they were too young, but they were good about spotting things on the beach. They weren’t allowed to go down by themselves, but the adults checked on their boat daily, to make sure it was okay and hadn’t been thrown on the rocks by the storms rolling in from the west. After the first rain, they had to bail out a lot of water, so they learned to stretch a tarp across the top of the boat to keep the rain out. The good thing about the storms was the bounty it brought them. A friendly competition was building between them all as they brought boards, planks, and even an unbroken window up from their beach. Sweeping the beach became a challenge and they all enjoyed the camaraderie.

  “We should really take the boat out, so it doesn’t just rust in the cove as we build. We could check some of our other beaches,” Marion suggested after their first week there. All they had done basically was work, or so it seemed.

  “Don’t we have to worry about the rocks and the reefs?” Barbara fretted. They were so far from civilization, and it worried her. Maybe this had been a mistake. Still, she wouldn’t say that aloud.

  “We’ll be careful as we learn our island,” Marion promised. She had been reading the tide books, learning when they would be high or low and how the moon affected them. She’d already determined they would have to build a pier after their cabin was finished, so the boat would be free of low tide. In addition, it could be used for a fee by any visitors who wanted to tie up in their sheltered cove.

  Everyone wore their life preservers as they carefully drove the boat around the island, looking over their beaches and watching for anything floating or washed up on these little spits of land. It was quite fascinating to know they owned the entire island. It was also dangerous if they didn’t watch the rocks, and more than once they heard a scraping that caused them alarm. This taught them to watch the waves, the current, as well as the more obvious things like white water. Still, they were compiling quite a collection of items.

  “Think the ocean could send us something like chickens?” Barbara lamented as she fished a coop out of the rocks one day.

  “Is it useable?” Marion asked, indicating the coop as she carefully drove the boat.

  “I think it may be,” Barbara responded.

  “Can we have chickens?”

  “How about a kitten?”

  “I thought you said we would get a dog?”

  The kids started in, but Marion shushed them and their exuberance. “We need to have a home for them before we get them.” Still, she worried they would run out of time as the season passed quickly.

  Their new basement had come to a sudden and unexpected end. It was only six feet deep, but apparently the meadow had built up over time and was now sitting on a shelf of granite. When it rained, the water found underground channels that ran off the large shelf. They dug the entire basement down to this slightly uneven shelf and then began placing rocks along the walls, one rock high, before they finally admitted they needed to go back to the mainland to get cement and other supplies. Covering the hole with a large tarp, they hoped no rain or animals would get into it as they began to plan their trip to town. The children were excited.

  “Do you think we can afford to buy...?” each of them started as they made their lists. It was a common phrase. They had allotted a certain amount to spend on this trip, and Barbara was determined they would stay within the budget.

  “Aren’t we going to build with all the wood we found?” Brian asked, looking at the growing pile on the side of the meadow.

  “Of course, but we need other kinds of wood too.”

  “I thought we were going to have a log cabin?” Richard asked, having listened in on many conversations between the two women.

  “That too,” his mother assured him, leaning over to ruffle his hair.

  “Shouldn’t you be cutting trees down?” Brian asked, looking at Barbara and not his own petite mother.

  “Yes, we should look for dead ones first, or ones that have fallen and are leaning against other trees,” she explained to the children, turning it into a teaching moment.

  “Why?” Brenda was the one that asked the inevitable question when Barbara didn’t continue.

  “Because some of those trees are seasoned and would be perfect for our cabin. We must be careful they haven’t rotted though. We don’t want bugs. If they are on the ground, they are more likely to be something we can’t use on the cabin. They might make good firewood though,” she said enthusiastically as she expounded on what she knew. “We are going to want to leave some where they lie as well since the rot is good for the forest.” She explained how it provided a home for bugs, rodents, birds, and once it started to compost, it provided nutrients to other trees and plants. The children were fascinated.

  They started out early the following day with their lists, waiting for the sun to rise before casting off. All the children were checked and rechecked as their mothers made sure their vests were fastened, much to their disgruntlement. With their own vests safely on as well, the family headed out carefully through the passage to the open ocean. They steered toward their nearest neighbor island before veering off and using the other islands as landmarks as they made their way to Franklin. They were pleased how quickly the trip went with the tides in their favor and the weather so nice. They waved to the early morning ferry and the passengers that were awake waved back. Tying off the boat, Barbara and Marion were hard-pressed to keep up with their children as they ran to the truck and got in. Barbara unhooked the trailer and checked the tires before getting in to drive.

  “Where to first?” she asked, her own list in hand as she saw Marion with hers. She lit two cigarettes before driving off, handing one to her girlfriend, who took a drag from hers with an audible satisfied sigh. It was impossible to smoke on the boat with the ocean winds.

  “Can we go–?” the children started, but they were shushed by the adults, who had things they needed to get done.

  One of the first places they went to was the lumber yard to price some of the supplies they needed.

  “Everything is so expensive,” Marion breathed to Barbara as they examined some of the things they would need, comparing them to what they had seen back in the village near Boston.

  “Well, we are a long way from big cities where people use more of this,” she agreed. It was going to blow their budget if she bought everything here. They settled for the concrete they needed and then worried about getting sand to mix it with.

  “You dem dames that bought Whimsical Island?” the man at the lumberyard asked as they checked out. He started to light a cigar, something both women thought was dangerous with all the wood about.

  “I am not a dame,” Marion said loftily, angry at having been addressed as such. Barbara looked thunderous, ready to hit the man.

  “I was just bustin’ yer chops,” he grinned cheekily. “Ya don’t need to buy no sand. Ya got plenty of sand on dem islands. Ya just gotta look.” He turned out to be a nice guy and explained how to mix the concrete, how much sand they needed, and how much grit they could use. He even helped to load the heavy bags into the back of the truck. “Ya two got some moxie taking on an island like that,” he complimented them as they finished up.

  “Thank you,
” Marion said as she got in the truck. She still sounded a little frosty, irked at being called a dame.

  “You know anyone looking to get rid of some chickens or other livestock?” Barbara asked him since he had been friendlier.

  “Rid of? Nooo,” he said in slow way and then smiled around the disgusting cigar he had in his mouth. “But cha could go see Granny Lavender, that widder woman. She got chickens.”

  “And where would we find her?” Barbara asked, trying to be pleasant. Understanding him was getting more and more difficult as he chewed on the end of the cigar as he puffed. She repressed a shudder looking at the soggy thing.

  He gave them directions and saw them on their way.

  “Is this it?” Marion asked as they made their way to what looked like a junkyard. She was immediately suspicious of the man and his motives. She was still fuming at being called a dame.

  “There is someone. I’ll ask,” Barbara answered, seeing a fairly young woman pottering around among the rusting stoves, beds, cars, and other things spread out over at least half an acre that they could see. Everywhere they looked was all overgrown with weeds. “Excuse me, ma’am. We’re looking for Granny Lavender? She’s a widow?” She was certain there couldn’t be two little old ladies that would fit that description.

  The woman stood up stiffly from the work she was doing and said, “I’m Grady Lavender, and I’m a widow.”

  Realizing her mistake immediately, Barbara apologized. The man at the lumberyard, with his disgusting cigar, had gotten the name wrong. “I am so sorry. That’s the name we thought we were given.” She quickly changed the subject. “I understand you have chickens for sale?” Barbara stopped the truck and parked. Marion and the children looked out their windows at the woman and her junk.

  “I usually do have chickens for sale but somethin’ got in and killed my best rooster. You know how hard it is to raise a good rooster?”

  “I’m sure it is difficult.” Sensing the woman was annoyed with the misunderstanding over her name, Barbara was inspired enough to add, “A good rooster is the heart of your flock, isn’t it?”