by Lisa Duffy
When Frankie was eight, she tried to quit every sport, but her mother wouldn’t let her.
A year later, Frankie chopped off all her hair with a pair of dull scissors to prove to her mother that she couldn’t control everything Frankie did.
Then this past winter, something snapped inside of Frankie. She traded her UGGs for black combat boots. She wore them with black leggings and her brother’s hand-me-down plaid shirts.
She tucked her white-blond hair into a black knit cap.
She told everyone she would no longer answer to Francesca. Now, she was Frankie.
That was the last straw for Mrs. Murphy.
She threatened private school. Frankie, the little sister of two of the toughest boys on the island and no stranger to threats, simply ran away. Disappeared in a blizzard in the middle of February.
The search lasted three days. The whole island went looking for Frankie, the Coast Guard too.
They located her when a guy on a fishing trip returned to his houseboat to find a young girl in his bed, a sketchbook on her lap, the electric heater blazing so hot he could have stripped to his underwear and still have been warm.
Frankie had a cup of hot soup on the table next to her. She’d showed him the sketch of the inside of his boat while he called her parents.
After that, Mr. Murphy, Frankie’s father, a large man in expensive suits who spent most of his time on the mainland, told Mrs. Murphy that enough was enough—to let the girl be, for everyone’s sake.
From then on, Frankie got to spend her time drawing and sketching and painting. Mrs. Murphy got to pretend the whole mess was just a silly misunderstanding. The island got a Frankie Murphy original piece of art—the sketch is still framed on the wall of the town pub. Not because anyone really wants to remember the three days Frankie went missing.
More because the owner of the houseboat also owned the pub, and the sketch was just that good.
Everyone moved on.
Except Sky knew that Frankie never felt at home in her house. And Sky, without parents now twice in her life, knew what it was to be alone in the world.
That’s why Sky and Frankie are best friends. Why Sky would do anything for Frankie. And Frankie would do anything for Sky.
They both know sometimes the strongest friendships come from the loneliest despair.
5
She comes to the island with next to nothing. A duffel bag the size of a large watermelon. A purse small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.
At the inn, the front-desk clerk takes her credit card, runs it through the machine.
“You here for work?” he asks, letting his fingertips brush her hand when he passes her the key to the room.
She doesn’t answer, just opens her purse, slips the key inside.
“I was asking because you look like one of those models who stayed here last week,” the clerk says, his thick New England accent spilling on the counter between them like a stain he can’t wipe away.
“Whole bunch of them did a beach shoot here last week,” he continues. “No joke—you could definitely be one of them.”
She thanks him. He asks if it’s for the compliment or for checking her into the inn.
She’s not sure, so she smiles and walks away. She feels his eyes on her ass. This makes her feel sorry for him.
He’s young, full of life.
She’s rotting from the inside out.
* * *
She’s come to Ichabod to die. The thought doesn’t even make her sad anymore. The disease has been part of her for so long now—it’s a relief to just be. To let it have her, fully.
Absurd, given that she’s only in her third decade.
Even more absurd that there’s not a single person on this earth who will miss her. Her mother will cry—of course she will. Because mothers are supposed to cry. It’s the appearance that matters to her mother. She learned that years ago. Learned that not every girl had an empty space inside where a mother’s love could have been—should have been.
Her whole life she’s been filling up that empty space inside of her with poison. Alcohol and amphetamines. Then heroin, her drug of choice. The one that ruined her modeling career. But it was the chemo that made her want to die. When they found the cancer the second time, she was almost glad it was everywhere. Untreatable.
She’s done a lot of bad things in her life. Lied, stole. Cheated on every man she ever loved.
But here, on Ichabod, is the best thing she ever did.
The best part of her sorry, wasted life.
Now, she stands at the slider, looks out at the harbor. The sea flat and calm on the other side of the glass door.
And for the first time in as long as she can remember, her future seems bright.
6
Summer descends upon Ichabod the same way the tide rolls in, little by little, and then seemingly, all at once.
The population swells. Tourists arrive on the ferry. Some for the summer. Others, a week or two.
More than a few simply never leave. Perhaps the beauty of Ichabod is what grabs them. Maybe a chance at a fresh start.
For Maggie, it was both.
Which is why she’s nostalgic at the beginning of every summer. Yesterday, she took the long way to work, through the center of town and by the water. The ferry was docking, and she pulled into an open space, put the car in park, and just sat.
She still remembers seeing Ichabod for the first time. Standing on the bow of the ferry as the fog lifted and the island materialized before her eyes. The red cliffs blazing and the trees glistening with dew. The land appearing as though it had suddenly risen straight out of the sea.
Almost three decades have passed since she was that twenty-two-year-old girl arriving alone, accepting a last-minute invitation from Agnes, her college roommate, to a Fourth of July party at her family home on the island.
Maggie had planned to stay only the weekend.
But two days turned into a week, and she found herself falling in love with Ichabod, inch by inch, so much that when she saw the Help Wanted sign in the window of the quaint inn on Main Street, nestled in the center of the island, she knew even before she got the job as the front-desk receptionist that she was going to stay.
That Ichabod Island would become her home.
All these years later, she doesn’t regret staying.
Even when it’s the dead of winter, and there’s only two restaurants open, and it seems like every other day the heat in her classroom breaks, and she has to wrangle all of her fourth graders into the gym where it’s warm, just so they can do their worksheets without their fingers and toes going numb from the cold.
But it’s this time of year she loves the most.
Early summer, before the season really kicks off. When stores and restaurants reopen, and the days are longer, and the air warmer, yet the island is still quiet.
Still hers.
Although she woke up in a foul mood today—gloomy and anxious—even though there’s no reason why she should be gloomy and anxious today, the last day of school and, therefore, the last day she needs to get up and go to work for the next twelve weeks.
She’s aware she’s likely the only teacher on the island (maybe the planet), who isn’t happy it’s the last day of school.
Hell, she remembers a younger version of herself counting the minutes until the year ended. Especially when the boys were little. When she had beach days and s’mores over campfires and lazy afternoons at the park to look forward to. When she had people to take care of—to talk to!
Back when her marriage was a living, breathing thing.
Now the boys aren’t little anymore.
Michael, her baby, just turned twenty-four and PJ is two years his senior. Both living on the West Coast, busy with their own lives. She’s lucky if she sees them a handful of times each year.
Summer stretches out lonely in front of her.
She knows today is supposed to be a fun day—a celebration, really. Games and hot
dogs and burgers and ice cream. The entire elementary school on the large grassy field for a field day and a cookout—an Ichabod Island tradition.
Still, she drags herself out of bed and into the shower. When she’s dressed and downstairs, she thinks about calling Pete. See if he wants to meet her for a drink on the harbor later.
But they’ve barely spoken since that awkward mess in bed, and honestly, she doesn’t have the energy to cajole him out of the seemingly never-ending bad mood he’s been in for a year.
Downstairs, she grabs her keys and walks out the door.
Joe is across the street, standing in his garden, his usual spot. He has a mug in one hand and a watering can in the other.
Joe’s garden is a work of art. And he’s usually outside tending to it, especially now that he’s out of work.
Maggie calls out a hello, and Joe looks up, stops the stream of water on his vegetables, and puts down the can. He waves to her, and she crosses the street, kicks off her flip-flops and walks up the front lawn to the side of his house. His lawn is plush—so green and thick under her bare feet, she wishes she could just sit. Maybe lie down in the sun.
“Hey, stranger,” he says when she reaches him. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”
“I’ve been meaning to stop by and see how you’re doing. Huge neighbor guilt here. I’ve felt awful about it all week,” she says, eyeing the angry scar on his leg.
Joe Armstrong was the busiest builder in town until six months ago, when he fell off a second-floor scaffolding at Brian and Ann’s house. Maggie doesn’t know the extent of his injuries, but it’s bad enough that he might never climb a ladder again.
“Don’t say that,” Joe says. “Nothing worse than making a woman feel awful and not knowing a thing about it. Besides, your husband stopped by for a beer the other night. I told him to say hello for me. I take it he didn’t?”
Maggie shakes her head.
“Well he did a hell of a job cheering me up. Can’t be down with that guy around.”
“No, I guess you can’t,” Maggie says dryly, and Joe looks at her, his eyebrows up, but she’s saved from explaining by Xavier, who’s just come out of the house next door and called loudly to both of them to hang on a minute—he’s coming right over.
“Lucky us,” Joe mutters.
“What’s wrong?” Maggie whispers out the corner of her mouth, watching Xavier squeeze through the hedge between the driveways. “He seems nice.”
“Really? I think he seems like a first-class asshole. Showing up in his Range Rover every Friday night even though it sits there all weekend. I guess the ferry fee to get it here is just chump change. Plus, he never gets my name right. Watch.” Joe lifts his chin in Xavier’s direction, as though Maggie should pay attention to the show that’s about to go on.
“Hey, neighbors,” Xavier says when he reaches them.
He’s dressed in pressed jeans and loafers. A skintight T-shirt tucked in and stretched over abs so pronounced that Maggie has an urge to reach out and touch them just to make sure they’re real.
Maggie says hello, but Xavier is already turned away from her, looking at Joe.
“It’s Jay, right? Look—we’re going to need your help with the girl. The path to the tree house is almost in your backyard. Be great if you can keep an eye out. Let us know if you see her when she takes off at night.” He gestures to Joe’s lawn, frowns at it as though it’s let him down in some way.
“It’s Joe.”
“What?”
Joe holds up his mug. “Like the coffee. Not Jay. Not Jeff. Not Jim. Just Joe.”
Xavier takes off his sunglasses, squints at Joe. “Sorry. Lots of new names in my life lately. Guess I’m playing catch-up. Anyway, the girl took off again—”
“Sky,” Joe interrupts, pointing to the clouds above. “I can make name tags if you need. Go around the neighborhood and stick them on folks until you learn them.” He leans over and dumps his coffee in the bushes.
Xavier jumps back, straightening each leg in front of him to see if the brown liquid has splashed on his pants. When he’s finished, he looks at Joe, clears his throat forcefully, as though he’s commanding the attention of a roomful of people.
“Look—I’m just asking you to keep an eye out. I’m leaving for the week, and Leo will be alone. I know he’s her guardian, but this can’t be just his problem. I mean, there’s a whole island full of people who seem to be very—” He glances at Joe, then Maggie, and stops.
“Very what?” Joe asks, but it’s more of a bark, and Maggie’s pulse quickens.
She doesn’t like confrontation. Never has.
“Concerned?” Joe continues.
Xavier shifts his weight and nods, even though it’s clearly not the word he was looking for.
“We’ll all keep an eye out,” Maggie offers, trying to smooth Joe’s rough edges.
She doesn’t know Xavier at all, but she does know Leo. And she loves Leo.
So even though she can’t disagree with Joe—Xavier does come off as sort of… abrasive (first-class asshole seems extreme), he’s also Leo’s husband. Maggie wants to be on good terms with Xavier for this fact alone.
“Not used to island life, huh?” Joe taunts.
Maggie winces.
“All the closeness?” Joe says.
“I’m a city guy,” Xavier replies, nonplussed. “Where I come from it’s called meddling.”
“She stayed put all week, right? When it was just her and Leo?”
Xavier shrugs. “Far as I know.”
“Maybe there’s your answer.”
“What’s that?”
“You leave, and she stays put. You come back, and she takes off. Could be as simple as that. Maybe it’s you she’s running from.”
“Thanks for your help,” Xavier mutters and stomps away, trampling through the hedge.
“No problem,” Joe calls after him. “Where I come from it’s called neighborly advice.”
Maggie winces again. “Have a good day!” she shouts weakly to Xavier, who either doesn’t hear her or doesn’t care to respond, the car door slamming after he disappears inside the Range Rover.
Maggie frowns at Joe after Xavier drives away. He looks at her, lifts his shoulders, and drops them.
“Look—I don’t care if he doesn’t know my name. But he sure as shit better get hers right.” His voice cracks, and he straightens, clears his throat.
He’s talking about Sky—Sport, he calls her. She’s in Joe’s yard often. Picking flowers or vegetables or petting Joe’s cat. He even made Sky her own garden, a small one that Maggie has helped Sky weed on cooler afternoons.
She puts her hand on Joe’s arm. “It’s going to be okay,” she says.
She’s known Joe Armstrong for a lot of years. He lost a wife to cancer. A son to drugs. Now, perhaps, his livelihood is gone.
Her own life is not what she thought it would be. Her days so void of… joy… that lately she wonders if she’s depressed.
Her friend Ann is dead. Along with her husband. And now, Sky, the sweetest child Maggie’s ever met, is an orphan for the second time in her short life.
And all Maggie can think to say is: It’s going to be okay.
She takes her hand off Joe’s arm. She can see her words fell flat, but she simply turns and walks away, crosses the street and gets in her car. She shuts the door before her big mouth betrays her. Before she can open her mouth and tell another absurd lie.
It’s going to be okay, she mimics out loud, sings it really, her shaky, high-pitched voice filling the car. She laughs at her own ridiculous words, doesn’t bother to wipe away the tear sliding down her face.
* * *
All morning Maggie tries to get out of her miserable mood. A funk is what her mother would have called it.
By lunch, she’s given over to it.
She should be sitting under the tent with the other teachers. Instead, she’s on the bleachers with a hamburger balanced on a paper plate in her lap.
There’s a frenzied excitement in the air. She can hear the high schoolers on the football field even though they’re a half mile down the road. Music drifting over on the breeze.
She watches a group of boys play kickball. She’ll miss seeing her students and having a schedule to fill the hours.
She’s contemplating this when she hears her name and looks up to see Agnes walking toward her. As the school nurse, health teacher, and coach of the varsity crew team, Agnes Coffin wears a lot of hats.
But to Maggie, she’s her old friend. Her roommate all four years of college.
The one who knows that when Maggie Thompson sits by herself on the bleachers, far away from the fun, something is wrong.
Agnes plops down next to Maggie, waves a fly away from the ice-cream sandwich in her hand.
“You’re missing all the good dirt,” Agnes says. “Apparently, the entire guidance department is sleeping with each other.”
Maggie smiles. “Which would be interesting if there were more than two people in the entire guidance department. And they weren’t married. To each other.”
Agnes shrugs. “I was going to say something more off-color, but we’re still on the clock. At least I got a smile. That’s the first one I’ve seen from you all week.”
Agnes leans forward, eyeing Maggie, her broad-shouldered, six-foot frame casting a shadow over Maggie even though they’re both sitting. Agnes is the reason Maggie’s on this island. Living this life.
Agnes’s hair has grown back after the chemo, but thinner, her blond curls replaced with a short wispy cut that’s now lit by the bright sun behind her, making her look as if she’s wearing a halo.
Maggie tells her this, and Agnes grimaces.
“You know me,” she says. “Goddamn angel in disguise.”
“Well, you are. Some days, at least,” Maggie jokes.
“Tell that to William. I almost threw a spoon at his head last night. Over laundry. Laundry!”
“At least it wasn’t a knife,” Maggie offers, and Agnes nods, like she has a point.
“I heard Sky showed up at your house again this weekend.”