by Ellen Block
Janine’s face hardened the instant she saw Abigail.
“Sorry,” Abigail mumbled.
Janine went on unloading heads of lettuce from a crate as if she hadn’t heard her.
No one was manning the registers when Abigail was ready to pay, but she wasn’t about to ask Janine.
“Coming,” a female voice called from somewhere in the store.
A woman with her hair in a ponytail jogged to the register. Abigail immediately recognized her as the one in the truck with Clint Wertz. The recognition was mutual. The woman hastily rang up Abigail’s groceries, jamming them into bags.
“That’ll be twenty-one forty-five.”
When Abigail gave her the money, the woman’s face was awash with shame. She held out the change, her hand quivering. Rage pooled in Abigail’s chest. This woman knew that what she was doing was wrong. She knew she was hurting her friend. Abigail’s anger deflated into empathy as she realized that she saw a similar pallor of guilt in her own face every morning. Surviving the fire was a constant burden, a shadow she couldn’t outrun or leave behind. Abigail wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Not even this woman, who deserved to feel guilty for what she’d done.
Afternoon sunlight was flooding into the caretaker’s house. Since the property was so secluded, there was no need for what little privacy the ashen drapes had provided. That left Abigail in limbo between liberation and loneliness.
“You have new doorknobs. That’s something.”
Insignificant as they were, the knobs were the high point of her day. Before installing them and reassembling the kitchen, she went through the hordes of crockery on the dining table and sifted out what was worth saving. Among the rejects were blackened pans, more ladles than anyone could ever need, and a cracked mug with a cartoon of a fish wearing a sailor’s cap.
“Seems a waste to throw these in the trash. Maybe I could give them away. Though I’m not sure who’d want them.”
All the less-than-desirable dishware went into grocery bags, then Abigail put everything else back in the cabinets. Anxious to install the drawer pulls, she was glad to have the screwdriver Merle gave her. She pitched the other one into the garbage. With the cupboards repainted, the knobs replaced, Abigail reviewed the completed kitchen and said, “Better Homes and Gardens, here we come.”
Finishing the grass and tackling the grout were her next chores. But Abigail had been running a debt with her body, the balance of which was constant soreness. Pushing and pulling the lawn mower might bankrupt her altogether.
“Grout it is.”
It was two o’clock, time for Dr. Walter’s show. She brought the radio and the ungainly tub of grout up to the bathroom. Abigail tuned in as Dr. Walter was announcing that day’s topic.
“For those of you just joining us, we’re talking about how to discipline your children. Our first call is from Sue. She says her five-year-old son refuses to sleep in his own bed.”
“That’s right,” Sue interjected. “He wants to sleep with me and my husband. Every night without fail he comes in crying, begging to stay with us.”
“And you’re wondering if you should continue to allow him to sleep with you or if you should—”
“Put my foot down. Make him sleep in his own room. It’s hard. He says he can’t fall asleep if he’s not with us, and if I tell him no, he cries and cries. I feel awful.” Dr. Walter couldn’t get a word in. The woman was spilling over with desperation. “I’m not a bad mother. At least, I don’t think I’m a bad mother. I don’t want to be a bad mother.”
“You’re not a bad mother, Sue.”
The doctor’s voice was calm, convincing, comforting. He could have said anything in that voice and Abigail would have trusted him.
“The lines are burning up with listeners who want to speak to this issue. We’ll hear what they have to say after this commercial.”
During the break, Abigail read the instructions on the grout container.
“This doesn’t seem too hard.”
Using the trowel Merle had supplied, she slopped a dollop of grout into the far corner of the bathroom, slathering it into the crevices between the tiles. White and thick as cake icing, it was an immense improvement over the dingy grout.
“We’re back,” Dr. Walter said, “and the switchboard is on fire.”
Phone calls were streaming in from mothers who sympathized with Sue. They, too, found themselves unable to turn their children away from their beds at night. Each was more racked with worry than the woman who preceded her.
A fearful mother asked, “Am I ruining my kid for life by letting her sleep with me?”
“There are hundreds of ways you can ruin your child for life,” Dr. Walter assured the woman. “Letting her sleep with you on occasion isn’t one of them.”
He went on to give suggestions about how to wean children into their own beds and instructed the women to be gentle yet firm. Abigail nodded in agreement as she continued to grout, edging toward the door.
“Hold on, we have a listener who has a differing opinion. Go ahead, Charlene, you’re on the air.”
“I think your callers are sick,” she began. “Children have nightmares. Comes with the territory. As soon as you let them start sleeping with you in your bed with your husband, you’ve crossed a line. A very sick line. I have five kids, and I never let them sleep with me and my husband. They’re grown and there isn’t a thing wrong with them.”
“I’m sure they’re right as rain,” Dr. Walter said.
The woman continued her tirade, unaware that she was being made fun of. “And that’s because I didn’t let them share my bed. I can’t understand these mothers today. They let their kids run wild in the stores, mouth off, scream in restaurants—behavior that shouldn’t be tolerated.”
Abigail stopped grouting. She was growing more and more agitated by the woman’s arrogance, her insensitivity. She envisioned her as the type who threatened to get a switch if her kids didn’t do as they were told.
“You want my advice?” Charlene boomed.
“I’m all ears,” Dr. Walter replied.
“Women today need to be stronger. Children want discipline. They need it. If they don’t have it, they run right over you.”
Unlike the rest of the women who had phoned in, Abigail wouldn’t get the chance for her child to crawl into bed with her again. She’d never get the chance to cuddle with him after he had a nightmare or feel him sleep against her in the shelter of her body. A spike of sorrow shot through her.
Charlene was winding up for another diatribe when Dr. Walter put her on mute. “If anyone is interested in responding to these statements, please feel free to call in.”
“Interested?” Abigail said. “Let me at her.”
She threw aside the trowel and went for the stairs as Dr. Walter relayed an 800 number. Her hands were shaking so violently, she couldn’t get her finger into the rotary slots. The harder Abigail tried, the more frustrated she became. Incapable of dialing, she slammed down the receiver.
“Is this ‘Abby’? Is this who you are now?”
Abigail had to conjugate in Latin to regain her composure.
Invenio, invenire, inveni, inventum.
Operor, operari, operatus sum.
Beside the telephone lay the newspaper article about the Bishop’s Mistress. She’d moved it while clearing the table. Sadly, the weight of the skillet hadn’t removed the wrinkles.
“I’m going to make it up to you,” she told the clipping.
Grabbing the flashlight, which she’d left beside the phone along with the hammer, Abigail made for the basement door, set on learning more about the ship’s demise. She dragged the crates into an open area of the basement and searched their contents for a reference to the Bishop’s Mistress. Eventually she found a ledger that corresponded to the year the ship sank, 1909. It was shoved at the bottom of one of the crates, out of order from the rest. The first portion of the ledger was reminiscent of the others. Details of the tides and the weat
her were scrupulously penned in a rigid script that was plumb with the margins. Then came the date of the sinking of the Bishop’s Mistress.
The page appeared to be written in an entirely different hand. Notes about the morning tide and wind were at the top in a wavering scrawl. From there, the writing turned illegible. Abigail held the flashlight close to the page, trying to decipher it. A single sentence mentioned the Bishop’s Mistress, something she was able to deduce only because she recognized how Wesley Jasper formed his S’s. The rest of the words were too mangled to decode, except for a pair toward the end: oil and pail.
The entry ceased cryptically. Abigail flipped the page. The ledger returned to normal. The penmanship was clear and upright and didn’t meander outside the lines.
“Three weeks are missing between these entries.”
As she spoke, the flashlight flickered. She rapped it against a crate. “But these are brand-new batteries.”
Exactly. They are brand-new batteries.
Clutching the ledger, Abigail ran to the first floor and flung the basement door shut. She contemplated locking it. That was what Lottie would have done.
“For the record, I’m not going to lock the door the way some people would. Nope. No need to lock the door.”
Lottie was scared of the basement. Abigail didn’t want to be. Still, she tested the handle to make sure the door was closed tight.
The day the Bishop’s Mistress sank was etched into the soul of the ledger. The entry made the perfection of the others pale, and that page felt thinner than the rest. Abigail spent hours poring over every inch of it, mindful not to touch the paper. From her work with antique dictionaries, she knew that the oil from human hands could seep into the paper fibers, causing deterioration. Under normal circumstances, Abigail would have worn cotton conservator’s gloves. Her rubber dish gloves would have to do.
Unable to puzzle out most of the words in the entry, Abigail studied the drastic change in penmanship. The acute slant of the script indicated the speed at which it was written, while the low pitch of letters and the hasty slashes that topped the I’s and T’s confirmed her theory. The entry had been dashed off, the author distracted.
From the article, Abigail had gleaned a general sense of what happened. A vicious storm had blown in, assailing the Bishop’s Mistress and sealing her fate. Yet there had to be more. Whatever truly transpired that night had affected the lighthouse keeper to the point of altering his handwriting. Abigail knew that only tragedy was powerful enough to transform a person that thoroughly.
Night had swept in, and she’d been scrutinizing the ledger entry for so long her eyes hurt. Abigail would soon have to leave to do Merle’s rounds.
“Oh, no. The grout!”
Upstairs, the radio was playing and the trowel was lying on the tile where she’d discarded it. The layer of grout had dried into a meringue-y mess. In her fervor over trying to call Dr. Walter, Abigail had completely forgotten to wipe the excess grout with a damp cloth, as the directions dictated. However, her watch said it was time to go.
“I’ll deal with you later,” she told the floor.
That evening’s route began with the modern houses on the southwest end of the island. They were a warm-up, as they were closer to the lighthouse than the others, easier to inspect, and far less foreboding. Because the homes were new, the foliage hadn’t grown in, meaning fewer places for anyone who didn’t belong there to hide. It was the older homes Abigail hated. She imagined they must be lovely during the day, the trees swagged with Spanish moss, flowering shrubs nestled in close. That beauty turned ominous come nightfall.
Abigail sped through her rounds until she got to Timber Lane, the road where the burglary had occurred the night before.
“They wouldn’t come to the same place,” she reasoned.
Would they?
Lottie’s cottage on Timber Lane was the quintessence of charm. Roses dripped from trellises and a hammock swayed from an elm tree in the backyard. Abigail could imagine Lottie describing it to potential renters as an adorable love nest, the perfect setting for a romantic getaway.
“And prime for a thief’s picking.”
After a quick whirl around the cottage, Abigail deemed the property untouched and hurried to the next unit three lanes over. She checked the windows and gave the back door a shake, then her flashlight faltered.
“Not now. Please not now.”
Tapping the head of the flashlight against her palm, she attempted to resuscitate it. The bulb dimmed, leaving Abigail in the dark. The crickets seemed to grow louder in the absence of light.
“Thanks for the faulty merchandise, Merle,” she griped. “Just get to the car and you’ll be okay.”
As Abigail pushed through the shrubs into the front yard, arms held out as antennae, she heard the steady sound of footsteps. Between the shadows of the trees ahead, she glimpsed movement. It was the figure of a man walking in the street.
Abigail accidentally stepped on a branch, and the man stopped.
Did he hear you? Can he see you? Don’t scream. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.
Seconds later, the figure strode onward while Abigail stood, holding her breath, less than twenty feet away. If the flashlight had been working, she would have been seen. Abigail was thankful the batteries had died on her.
Once the footsteps faded, she sprinted to her station wagon, locked the doors, and switched on her high beams. There was no sign of the man. Her whole body was quaking, more with adrenaline than fear.
“Where did he go?”
Since the man could effortlessly have slipped into the woods and been hidden from sight, he might still be in the vicinity, so Abigail took off for town and came to a skidding halt outside the sheriff’s station, which was in a corner of the square. The fluorescent lights were on inside the shingled one-story building, but the glass door was locked. A Post-it on the pane read, Back in five minutes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Every store in the square was closed except for the bar across the street, the Wailin’ Whale. A far cry from a haunt for Captain Ahab, the exterior looked more like a Wild West saloon. All that was missing were the swinging half doors.
Bars weren’t the sort of places Abigail frequented. The gloomy lighting, sticky tabletops, and cigarette smoke depressed her. However, there was a chance that was where Sheriff Larner would be. If not, maybe someone would know where he was. Abigail was willing to give it a shot.
While she ratcheted up her nerve, the front door to the Wailin’ Whale burst open. Hank Scokes lurched out, with Nat Rhone hard on his heels. Nat caught Hank by the shoulders before he could lose his balance.
“Let’s get you home,” Nat said in a gentle voice.
“I don’t want to,” Hank slurred. “You can’t make me.”
Going home meant having to endure the emptiness of his own house, the void left by his wife’s death. Abigail felt sorry for him. She also envied him. At least Hank had a home to go to. Sure, she had the caretaker’s cottage, but that wasn’t her real home.
“You’re tired, buddy. You’re ready for bed.”
The tenderness in Nat’s tone didn’t jibe with the image Abigail had of him brawling with Denny at the Kozy Kettle.
“I’m not tired. I swear I’m not,” Hank whined.
Nat helped him into the passenger seat of a gray truck, saying, “Upsy-daisy.”
Rounding to the driver’s side, Nat noticed Abigail across the street. Hank spied her too. Abigail stood motionless, ready to make a beeline for her car.
“You,” Hank said, brightening. “You know my boys. You seen ’em. In that picture. Remember? She knows my sons,” he told Nat excitedly. “Tell him what you said.”
After Hank had yelled at her at the bingo game, Abigail was afraid to utter a syllable.
“Tell him. You said they were handsome. She’s a nice lady,” Hank insisted. “Isn’t she a nice lady?”
Nat stared at her without blinking, a wordless war
ning not to speak of what she’d witnessed, then climbed into the truck’s cab and drove away.
“Wow. After that, I could actually use a drink. Guess I’m going to the right place.”
She shook her head and ventured into the Wailin’ Whale.
Honky-tonk music played while pool balls cracked. The blue glow from the jukebox gave the bar the aura of an aquarium. Abigail definitely felt as if she was on display. The patrons, most of them men, turned to look when she entered. Some went back to their conversations or their drinks. A large part of the crowd continued to stare.
Hold it together, she told herself.
“Is Sheriff Larner here?” she inquired at the bar. “He’s not at the station.”
“Doubt it,” the bartender replied. He was heavyset and sporting suspenders. Abigail thought he looked familiar.
“Are you the one who was calling the bingo game?”
“That’s me,” he answered, refilling a shot glass for the guy three seats over.
“You work here too?”
“A fella has to wear many hats in this town to get by.”
“Understood.” Abigail had been wearing a lot of hats since she’d arrived. None of them seemed to fit or be flattering.
“Caleb might’ve gone home for a bite to eat.”
“What about the deputy?”
“Teddy? Probably his night off. Why? You got an emergency?”
Those who weren’t already staring began to pay attention when he said that.
“Um, no. A question. I have a question for him.”
“You can wait here if you want.”
“No. Thanks, I mean. This is a great place. Don’t get me wrong. It’s fantastic. Really, um, fun. I, uh, have to get going, though.”
The bartender waited patiently until Abigail was able to shut herself up, then asked, “You managing okay at the lighthouse on your own?”
She suddenly felt exposed. He’d told a roomful of men where she lived and that she lived there alone. But if the bartender knew, everybody else did too.