The House on Fripp Island

by Rebecca Kauffman

  Poppy said, “That was a terrible thing to see.”

  Kimmy said, “Poor Daddy, having to hold that poor thing while it dies.”

  Rae snorted.

  Kimmy stared at her sister. “You don’t feel bad for Daddy?”

  “He would have left it alone if he had half a brain,” Rae said disdainfully. “It would be dead already, and it wouldn’t have suffered as much if he’d just let it go.”

  “Rae!” Lisa said. “Jesus Christ!”

  Poppy coughed. “OK, everybody. We saw something terrible. Let’s not fight.”

  They walked in silence for a while, and eventually Alex murmured, “She’s right.”

  Ryan was the only one who heard his sister speak, and he leaned down. “What’d you say?”

  “Rae’s right.”

  Ryan nodded and placed a finger over his lips, indicating that he agreed but it did not need to be restated.

  At the lagoon, as soon as the others had disappeared down the path, John approached Scott, who was still cradling the fawn against his chest. Its breath was thin and uneven.

  He said, “Why don’t you set that poor thing down.”

  “I know she’s lost a lot of blood, but I think we can save her. Here . . .” Scott made a move to hand the fawn off to John. “Here, you hold her a sec. If I take off my shirt, we can wrap it . . .”

  John took a step back, refusing to handle the animal. He said again, “Set that poor thing down.”

  Scott sputtered, “Well, but we can’t just leave her here to suffer.”

  “I don’t intend to,” John said, drawing his Swiss army knife from his pocket.

  “Oh God,” Scott moaned from deep in his belly. Saliva drooped from his bottom lip. The fawn squirmed against Scott, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Oh God,” Scott said again. He looked like he was seriously contemplating running off into the woods with the fawn, never to return.

  “Get a grip,” John said, and he examined the blade of his knife. He spat on it.

  Scott said, “Please don’t.”

  Disgusted, John said, “You don’t have to watch, but you’ve drawn this out enough.”

  Scott blinked, suddenly aware that John’s ire was directed at him. “I just wanted to save her,” Scott said, talking loudly over the terrible sound of the fawn’s labored breath. Its nostrils twitched, its eyes rolled in semiconsciousness.

  John grunted, “For crying out loud, put that animal down.”

  Scott put the fawn down, turned his back, and hiccupped as John drew a swift, deep cut through the animal’s neck. It was dead in two seconds. John rinsed his bloody fingers and the blade in the water of the lagoon.

  Without turning around, Scott said in a broken voice, “Should we bury her?”

  John rose to stand, and his knees cracked. “Not sure why you’re so convinced it’s a her. Anyhow, I reckon we’ll leave it right where it is so that gator can finish it off.”

  “You kidding me?” Scott hiccupped again. “After all this, you’re just gonna let her body get ripped apart by that bastard in there?” He nodded toward the dark water. “You really want this precious little thing to go out in the most undignified manner—”

  “Reckon you already accomplished that,” John interrupted him, pitiless.

  Scott was flabbergasted. He turned toward John, and his face was slimy with tears and mucus. “You’re the one that hunts,” Scott said venomously.

  “Yeah, I do.” John nodded. Proud. Not a speck of remorse or chagrin. “Maybe that’s why I understand the importance of a fast kill. And the virtue of eating the meat, or letting some other hungry creature at it, putting it to good use one way or another. That’s how the food chain works, you know.” John was fuming now. He spat. Not at Scott or the dead fawn, but angrily into the water. “Maybe that’s why I’d rather let nature run its course than prolong some poor creature’s suffering just so you can cradle it in your arms and whisper sweet nothings.”

  Scott stared at him. “You are sick,” he said. “You think I did that for me?”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t do it any favors, did you?” John nodded at the crumpled, bloody carcass at his feet.

  Involuntarily, Scott glanced down at the fawn, then had to look away. “I’m about to puke,” he muttered.

  John rolled his eyes and snapped the blade of his Swiss army knife back into place. “Take all the time you need,” he said over his shoulder, heading toward the path.

  John walked briskly. He stretched his back, tight from the drama, and returned the knife to his pocket. He wondered what sort of scene might await back at the house—if Ryan and Alex would be trying to comfort Rae and Kimmy with explanations about the natural order of things.

  Where the woods had gone eerily silent as they all stood in appreciation of the beauty of the lagoon, moments before the attack, it was now alive once again with tittering birds and hissing insects.

  12

  LATER THAT EVENING in her bedroom, Rae was fluttery and restless, her mind shuttling between Ryan and the man with the Labrador from the beach this afternoon. The man liked her, that much was clear. Although it hadn’t been immediately apparent to Rae, as soon as Lisa intervened it was obvious. Lisa wouldn’t have reacted the way she did if she hadn’t thought the man was interested in Rae. Even so, the forcefulness of her mother’s reaction perplexed Rae. Sure, the man was a little older. He was fully a man, not a boy, but probably no more than ten years older, Rae guessed, and ten years was the age difference between her parents. So if there was anyone who had zero business judging what sort of attraction there might have been between Rae and that man, it was Lisa.

  In any case, even Lisa’s tantrum on the beach hadn’t been enough to defeat Rae. The more she thought about it, the more validated she felt by the attention from the man, because it stood to reason that if that man in his twenties didn’t think Rae was too young for him, then seventeen-year-old Ryan definitely wouldn’t think she was too young for him. Rae was now circling her room in her pajamas, the TV on but muted, so that she could fully focus on practicing her look.

  This look was one that Rae had been working on for a while, eager to perfect it so it would be available when the time came to put it to use. Unlike most of Rae’s other looks, she had not learned this one from her mother but from girls in movies and on soaps and sitcoms. It was the look a girl gave in response to something wonderful that a boy had said moments before he kissed her. He would say, “You’re beautiful,” or “You’re amazing,” or “I think I love you.” And the girl would look soft and big-eyed and a little mysterious, like she had a secret, as she whispered, “Thank you,” and tipped her chin up in preparation to be kissed. Of all the looks Rae needed to learn, this was the one that mattered most.

  Rae said “Thank you” to the armoire, looking deeply into the knobs at eye level. “Thank you,” she whispered and dipped to the lampshade. Then to herself, in the mirror. “Thank you,” she breathed to the blinds, then to the TV. “Thank you.” Rae circled around and around the room, practicing that whisper, practicing that mysterious smile, practicing how to receive love.

  All of Alex and Kimmy’s sneaking-out plans were in place. Alex had snagged the flashlight from John’s tackle box this morning, and Kimmy had snuck into Rae’s room earlier this evening, before the walk, to take the binoculars.

  After their parents had tucked them in and gone to their own bedrooms for the night, Kimmy bolted upright, pulled the binoculars from beneath her pillow, and put them around her neck. “Are you ready?” she said. “I still feel like doing it, even after the deer and stuff. Do you? Are you ready?”

  Unfortunately, though, Alex’s stomach cramp had returned moments earlier. It was worse than it had been before, and she moved from her bed to the floor, where she could writhe more freely. She moaned softly.

  Kimmy sat next to Alex on the floor in the dark room. “Do you want me to get your mom?” she said.

  Alex shook her head. “It was almost this bad this
afternoon, but then it got better. I think if I just wait a minute it’ll go away.”

  Kimmy said, “We don’t have to sneak out tonight, not when you’re feeling so bad.”

  Alex said, “We’ll see. Just . . .” She turned onto her side and curled her knees to her chest like a pill bug and groaned.

  Kimmy was distressed. She touched Alex’s forehead with the back of her hand, as she had seen her own mother do when she and Rae were ill. She brushed her fingers across Alex’s arm in an attempt to soothe her. Alex moaned louder.

  Kimmy said, “What should I do?”

  Alex bolted upright and said, “Oh, crap.”

  “What?” Kimmy said, lurching upward herself, involuntarily mimicking Alex’s every move.

  Alex said, “Kimmy, close your eyes for a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Just close your eyes. I’ll tell you when you can open.”

  Kimmy blinked. “Are you playing a trick on me?”

  “No,” Alex insisted. “I promise. Please, just close your eyes.”

  Kimmy obeyed.

  Alex undid the tie on her pajama bottoms, which were a lightweight blue cotton, and she reached all the way in beneath her underwear, dipped her index finger in, then pulled it out. Even in the dark room she could see the blood.

  A strange and desperate noise slipped out of Alex, and Kimmy’s eyes snapped open.

  “What?” Kimmy said.

  Alex held up her black-red syrupy fingertip.

  Kimmy said in an awestruck voice, “Oh my gosh, did you start your period?”

  Alex nodded. And for some reason, tears oozed to her eyelids, even though she wasn’t particularly upset by the presence of blood nor the idea of menstruating.

  Kimmy noticed the tears, and she swiftly retrieved the box of Kleenex from the bed stand and handed Alex two tissues—one for her finger and one for her tears.

  Kimmy placed her hand on Alex’s forearm and said, in the most grown-up and comforting voice she could muster, “You’re a woman now, Alex, it’s nothing to be sad about.” She stroked Alex’s bald head fondly. “You’re just growing up. I wish I would start my period too, I can’t wait until I do. Really, I wish it was happening to me too, right now. Lucky you, becoming a woman.”

  Alex listened to these words of reassurance and hazily nodded her head in a show of appreciation to Kimmy.

  Kimmy was so encouraged by the gesture that she went on, “I really shouldn’t say this because I know she’s not happy about it, but”—Kimmy leaned forward to whisper this highly confidential piece of information—“not even Rae has got her period. She’s waiting and waiting, she’s got maxi pads ready in her bathroom at home and everything. She wrote in her diary about how bad she wants it, so she can be a woman. She hasn’t gotten hers yet and she’s fourteen, Alex, so you are so lucky that this is happening to you now.”

  Alex did not respond to this but stared at the blood on her finger, twisting her wrist to see it in different light.

  Kimmy said, “Should I go upstairs and get a maxi pad from your mom or my mom?”

  Alex nodded. “My mom,” she said. “I’ll stay right here so I don’t get it on anything.”

  Kimmy left the room and went up the stairs to the main floor. She was prepared to knock on Poppy and John’s door, but before she had reached it, her eyes were drawn to movement in the kitchen.

  She walked along the hallway toward the kitchen to investigate.

  Rae was at the refrigerator, returning a magnum of screw-cap white wine to the shelf. The refrigerator door suctioned shut with its gentle foomph, and Rae turned toward the hall. She held a mug in her left hand. She still hadn’t noticed her sister, although Kimmy was now in plain sight.

  Rae was wearing her pink pajamas from Victoria’s Secret, size triple-extra-small, and still the waistband hung loose over her bony hips and the shoulder seams were nearly at her elbows. Rae had begged Lisa to take her to Victoria’s Secret for bras and panties last month, and Lisa had eventually acquiesced. Once they got there, though, all of the lingerie was way too big, so they had settled on this set of pajamas and a few training bras.

  Halfway back through the main room, Rae saw Kimmy. Rae startled, her eyes flashed, the mug teetered, a few drops spattered on her bare foot.

  Kimmy took a few steps toward her sister and Rae backed away.

  Kimmy whispered, “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” Rae hissed. “I just got up for a cup of juice. What are you doing?”

  Kimmy wanted to tell, but a loyal instinct stopped her—she wouldn’t tell anybody about Alex’s period except Alex’s mom. Not even Rae. It wasn’t anybody else’s business.

  Kimmy said, “I came up for juice too.” She took another step forward and looked down into Rae’s mug. The contents were not orange or purple—the colors of the juices in the house—but a pale yellow, like pee. Kimmy leaned toward the mug to sniff it, and Rae moved farther back.

  “That doesn’t look like juice,” Kimmy said, her nose close to the mug.

  Rae rolled her eyes so far they were all white. When her irises returned, they fixed sharply on her sister. “Get out of my way, Kimmy,” she said, moving to pass her.

  Kimmy moved directly into Rae’s path, looked down into the mug once again, and whispered, “Is that wine?”

  Rae’s pretty, angular jaw went tight and square as she ground her back molars together. Her nostrils flared. “What are you doing with my binoculars?”

  Kimmy had forgotten she was wearing them. “Me and Alex were just going to play with them,” she said dismissively. “Rae . . . is that wine in that cup?” Kimmy felt her heartbeat whirring faster and faster. Blood flooding her skull. “You have to tell me if that’s wine,” Kimmy said, “or I’m going to tell Mom on you.”

  Rae exhaled a damp, sour cloud. “You should really learn to mind your own business, you little . . .” Rae hesitated, crafting the perfect insult. “You sneaky little snake,” she said, curling a finger around the strap of the binoculars, then letting go so they bounced back hard against Kimmy’s belly.

  Kimmy recoiled.

  A mean snarl crossed Rae’s lips. She could see that this was the only course of action. Insulting her little sister’s integrity would be the only way to make her submit, the only way to guarantee that Kimmy wouldn’t tattle.

  “I was going to forgive you for making up that thing with me peeing in the pool. And this afternoon, when you did that thing with the jellyfish down your swimsuit and told Ryan the story about me trying on Mom’s breast thingies,” Rae said. “I was going to forgive you for those, and I was even going to forgive you for spying on me when I tried them on at home in the first place. For snooping on me.” She paused to put a contemplative finger to her lips. “But this?” she hissed. “Now you’re stealing my binoculars and sneaking around the house following me, waiting for something new, something you can tattle on or something you can use against me in front of somebody else?” Rae’s lips pressed together so tight they went colorless, and she shook her head slowly once again, as though she were both saddened and impressed by her own resolve. “I can’t forgive you for the way you are,” she said matter-of-factly. “I can’t forgive you for being a snake.”

  Kimmy’s eyes grew large and watery. She started to babble and weep. “Wait, Rae, that’s not even why I’m—I came up because—I’m not a snake, see, the binoculars—” But Rae had already waltzed past her and down the hall toward her bedroom.

  Kimmy followed after her sister, launching quiet but desperate protests.

  Before entering her room, Rae leaned close, roughly snatched the binoculars off over Kimmy’s head, and whispered, “Don’t you dare follow me into my bedroom. Don’t you dare follow me anywhere ever again.” Then Rae disappeared into her room and the lock clicked.

  Kimmy ground her tears into her eye sockets with the heels of her hands. She felt wrecked, empty, indignant, and hopeless. Shortly, though, she realized that she couldn’t wallow in self
-pity. She remembered why she had come up in the first place, and she knew that she must retrieve Poppy for Alex during this important time. She must somehow move past the terrible and unfair thing that had just happened with Rae, for Alex’s sake.

  Kimmy knocked quietly on Poppy and John’s door, and when Poppy answered, hair in a crazy ball atop her head, face scrunched up, Kimmy whispered, “Alex started her period and she needs a maxi pad.”

  “Oh, really?” Poppy’s sleepy face leapt to life, and she said, “I’ll be right down. I’m just gonna pop into the bathroom to grab a few things.”

  Kimmy tried to contain her tears as she made her way back downstairs.

  Fortunately, Alex appeared not to have moved, and the light was still off in their bedroom, so Kimmy could blow her nose and compose herself in darkness. It seemed like Alex was still crying too—several newly crumpled tissues had appeared at her side. Kimmy took Alex’s clean hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, and they held hands until Poppy arrived in their bedroom a minute later.

  Poppy kissed Alex’s forehead and offered her a Motrin. She explained that she didn’t keep maxi pads around, but the liners she had would probably suffice, and she also had tampons, if Alex wanted to learn to use those, so that she could swim tomorrow.

  Poppy kissed Alex again, examined her daughter’s face, and said, “You doing OK? How do you feel, starting your period?”

  Alex shrugged. “I’m OK. I don’t really care, so I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.” She giggled, which quickly brought more tears.

  This opened the floodgates in Kimmy—she began to cry too. She cried because she was hurt by Rae’s accusations and names, she cried because Rae was drinking wine, and this seemed a cause for major concern, yet already Kimmy knew that she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—rat out her sister and so would have to keep a big, terrible secret. She cried because she hadn’t taken the binoculars to spy, she hadn’t been spying at all, it was an accident that she’d seen what she’d seen, but Rae would never believe it. She cried because she missed her stuffed animals at home, and because Alex had started her period and she didn’t even seem glad about it, whereas Kimmy couldn’t wait to start her period, there were so many girls who couldn’t wait, and here Alex had hers and she didn’t even care. She cried for the dead fawn. She cried because of course the moon was not fake. Of course this dumb old world was exactly the way it seemed.