Элин Хильдебранд - What Happens in Paradise

“My mom,” Maia says. “She knew everything about the Virgin Islands.”

Cash nods as the peculiarity of what he’s doing hits him. He’s hiking with a half sister he never knew he had. Maia bows her head and is quiet and Ayers places a hand on the back of her neck and draws her in. They’re thinking about Rosie; Cash can feel how much they miss her. A twelve-year-old girl lost her mother, lost both of her parents, and yet here she is, bravely soldiering on with her mother’s best friend and a strange man she has gamely decided to accept as “bro.”

“Did your mom like to hike?” Cash asks.

“No,” Maia says, and she and Ayers laugh. “She was more like Ayers; she preferred the beach. But, I mean, she brought me up here a few times because she wanted me to experience the place we lived.”

“I wish I’d been able to meet your mom,” Cash says honestly. More than once over the past couple of weeks, Cash has imagined this whole thing unfolding differently. What if, at some point, Russ had just come clean about his life, said that business had taken him to the Caribbean and he’d met a woman and fallen in love. Cash and Baker would have been furious at first, incredulous, resentful on Irene’s behalf. They probably would have refused to speak to Russ for a while. But eventually, Cash suspects, they would have come to terms with the situation and flown down to visit Russ here. They could have met Rosie. It might have taken time, but they could have accepted her as part of the family.

Cash shakes his head. That is a trail spur that never was; there’s no use dwelling on it.

“Shall we go?” Ayers asks. “Get this over with?”

After the guardhouse, they begin to hit their stride. There’s not much canopy cover but even so, Cash finds himself slowing down so he can enjoy just being. His breathing steadies. He reminds himself he doesn’t need to be anywhere; he has nothing else to do today. Ayers is here, Maia is here. Ayers is right, it’s hot, but just then, the sun disappears behind a cloud, so there’s a brief respite.

Maia not only knows history, she is also quite the naturalist. She points out a genip tree—in the summer it produces a fruit similar to a lime. Cash has never heard of it.

“In the summer, I eat elk jerky,” Cash says.

Maia shoots him a look. “I’m a vegetarian,” she says.

“You are?” Cash says. “Ayers told me to get you a pastrami melt.”

“I make an exception for pastrami,” Maia says. “And Candi’s barbecue.”

Maia points out wild tamarind, cassia trees, and something called catch-and-keep, which is a cute name for a nefarious pricker bush. They eventually reach a scenic overlook where each of them—Winnie included—sucks down a bottle of water. Maia points across the way to Jost Van Dyke and Tortola.

After the lookout, the trail heads downhill and it’s fully shaded. Everyone seems a little happier.

“So I guess I’ll address the elephant in the room,” Maia says. “How’s your brother?”

Cash isn’t sure he’s heard right. “Is Baker an elephant?”

“I don’t know, Ayers, is Baker an elephant?” Maia says.

“Stop being precocious for one minute, please,” Ayers says. She turns to Cash and he can see the hopeful expectation in her face, even with her sunglasses on. “How is Baker? He…went back to Houston, I take it? I haven’t heard from him.”

Cash can’t look at her. He concentrates on walking, left foot, then right, steady in his boots, moving down the dirt trail over rocks and around the tentacles of catch-and-keep. Ayers likes Baker. She’s hung up on him; Cash can hear it in her voice. He can’t believe it. He’d met Mick the night before, and Mick is who she’s with now, but Cash isn’t intimidated by Mick. Mick is ridiculous, a clown, a clown who cheated on Ayers once and who would most certainly do it again.

“I haven’t heard from him since our grandmother died a few days after we all got home,” Cash says.

“Milly?” Maia says. “The one I look like?”

“Yes,” Cash says. He chastises himself for being insensitive. Milly was Maia’s grandmother too—how weird is that? “I’m sorry. I should have broken the news in a different way. She was really old. Ninety-nine.”

They are all silent for a moment, then Ayers says, “So you don’t know if Baker is pursuing a divorce or—”

“No idea,” Baker says, cutting her off. “If you’re curious about Baker, just call him. You have his number, right?”

“Right,” Ayers says.

“Uh-oh,” Maia says. “Sounds like somebody needs lunch.”

When they reach Brown Bay, Maia shows them a little cemetery. “These are the graves of islanders from long ago,” Maia says, which is obvious, as the modest headstones are so old and weathered they’re barely legible. “But I kind of wish my mom had been buried here. Look at this view, and it’s so peaceful and shady under these trees.”

“She would have liked it here,” Ayers says.

“Where…” Cash starts. He has no idea where Rosie is buried.

“She’s with my grandma in the cemetery in Cruz Bay,” Maia says. “Or that’s where her body is. Her spirit is wherever spirits go when people die.”

They march single file onto a ribbon of white-sand beach. It’s completely deserted and the water is a clear, placid turquoise. Cash can’t recall ever seeing such inviting water. He shucks off the backpack and strips out of his shirt and shorts. Winnie is already splashing in, barking with joy and, probably, relief. Cash follows and soon he’s floating on his back, staring up into the cloudless sky. He hears Maia and Ayers get into the water as well. Cash tries to readjust his frame of mind. He’s not going to let his brother ruin a perfectly good day when he’s a thousand miles away in Houston.

Cash likes Ayers. Ayers likes Baker. It’s a classic like triangle. But Cash has the advantage because Cash is here and Baker isn’t. Cash has a further advantage because he will soon be working with Ayers. After spending some time with him, Ayers will realize that he’s the superior Steele brother. She’ll fall in love. He will, somehow, make her fall in love.

After swimming, he joins Ayers and Maia, who are drying off on a flat rock—Picnic Rock, Maia calls it. Cash passes out the sandwiches and gives Winnie the biscuits he brought. Maia slips Winnie some of her pastrami, which makes her Winnie’s new best friend. The silence is companionable, Cash thinks, or maybe it’s awkward; he can’t tell. It’s true that, among the three of them, there are a number of taboo subjects.

“How’s Huck?” Cash asks.

“Grouchy,” Maia says.

“Yeah?”

“Part of it is that I’ve started going to town with my friends and he doesn’t like it.”

“I don’t like it either,” Ayers says.

“We’re just hanging out,” Maia says.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Ayers and Cash say at the same time. They exchange a look and for a second, Cash feels like he and Ayers are Maia’s parents instead of her half brother and sort of aunt.

“Me and Joan,” Maia says.

“And?” Ayers says.

“And Colton Seeley and Bright Whittaker,” Maia says. She licks some mustard off her thumb. “Joan has a crush on Colton.”

“And you have a crush on Bright?” Ayers asks.

“No,” Maia says. “Bright isn’t my type. Plus, he has a crush on Posie Alvarez.”

“Do I know Posie?”

“She goes to Antilles,” Maia says. “She’s friends with a kid named Shane who’s a year ahead of us.”

“I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here,” Ayers says. “You have a crush on Shane.”

Maia shrugs. “I might.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ayers says. “Your first crush! I have to meet this kid. I’m going to come find you guys in town one day before work. And Cash, you have to come with me. This is your little sister. You need to protect her. You need to be a lieutenant in the cause.”