Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

There had been a text message, sent to his phone at quarter to ten that morning. Addison had been in his office, reviewing the purchase-and-sale agreement for the big deal. He saw that the text was from Tess and he willed it to say I love you -he found he needed constant reassurance of this from her-but when he opened it, it said, I’m afraid.

He had stared at the message, wondering how to respond. Tess was right to be afraid. Addison himself was terrified. Greg was pulling out all the stops to win her back. She had to be careful, she had to resist him! The text came just as they would have been sailing out of the harbor, so Addison thought that Tess meant she was afraid of the water. She had nearly drowned in Dorchester Bay as a child. She swam with her kids at the beach, but only on the north shore, where the water was placid, and even then she went right in and came right out. When her kids were swimming in Addison’s pool, she stood at the side, vigilant, even though Chloe and Finn had suffered through years of swimming lessons, born from this very same fear. Sailing, fishing, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, even the ferry back and forth to the mainland, made Tess uncomfortable. She remembered what it had been like, at age nine, to slip under the water’s surface and not be able to fight her way back up.

Addison shuddered.

Phoebe said, “I think we should offer to take the kids.”

“Let’s go in,” Addison said.

The Drake house was not the Drake house. There was no food or drink, no music, no Delilah. In the living room, Jeffrey sat with the Chief, face-to-face, saying nothing.

Addison said, “We’re here.”

The two men nodded.

Phoebe said, “Where’s Delilah?”

“In our bedroom,” Jeffrey said. “Waiting for you.”

Phoebe said, “Where are the kids?”

“Downstairs.”

“Do they know?” Addison asked.

“Not yet,” the Chief said.

“We’ll take them,” Phoebe said. “We have lots of room.”

“Phoebe-” Addison said. He should have headed off this notion while they were still outside. No one was going to be comfortable with Addison and Phoebe taking even temporary custody of the kids.

“One step at a time,” the Chief said.

“Where’s Andrea?” Addison said.

“Asleep upstairs,” the Chief said.

“Asleep?”

“The doctor gave her something. She can’t handle it. Tess was… everything to her.”

She was everything to me, Addison thought. And no one will ever know it.

I’m afraid , the text had said.

Phoebe tiptoed down the hall to Delilah. Downstairs, Addison could hear the kids.

“What happened, exactly?” Addison said.

“It’s not clear,” the Chief said. “The boat capsized, they drowned. They got caught underneath the boat. Greg’s foot was tangled in the ropes. They had been drinking.”

Addison pictured Tess and Greg on the deck of the boat, drinking champagne, eating strawberries, kissing. Talking-about what? There was so much anger between the two of them, so much suspicion and confusion about what had happened the previous fall with April Peck. Greg had never come clean; he stuck to his preposterous story. Addison had asked him once when they were both very drunk: “Tell me what happened, man. The truth.”

And Greg had hesitated, as if thinking about it. Could he trust Addison? He and Addison were very close friends. But in the end, the answer must have been no. He said, “Man, I already told everybody the truth.”

It ate away at Tess. Her trust in Greg had been destroyed. She didn’t believe in anything anymore: not marriage, not friendship. She had fallen in love with Addison. Or she claimed to have fallen in love. Addison worried that Tess was using him unconsciously (God, of course unconsciously, the woman didn’t have a mean bone in her body) to get back at Greg. She still cared what Greg thought; she worried what Greg did, where he went, whom he saw.

“The Coast Guard retrieved their things. Greg’s guitar, the picnic basket, their shoes…”

“He killed her,” Addison whispered. He said this to himself. He was in such agony he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care if they knew what he thought. They did not hear him.

The Chief said, “Greg thought he was a better sailor than he was. He had no business trying to get them to the Vineyard. I should have stopped them.”

“I should have stopped them,” Addison said. He had been dying to tell her not to go; he had wanted to give her an ultimatum. If you love me, you won’t go. But at the time he hadn’t seen that this would accomplish anything besides upsetting Tess and, possibly, learning some things he didn’t want to know. Such as that she still loved Greg, despite her anger and distrust. Such as that if Addison forced her to choose-him or me-she would choose him.

But if he’d insisted, she might still be alive.

“I’m going downstairs now to tell the kids,” the Chief said.

“Or I could do it,” Jeffrey offered.

“I had pictured this as Andrea’s territory,” the Chief said. “But she isn’t capable.”

“And neither is Delilah,” Jeffrey said.

“I’m their uncle,” the Chief said. He took an audible breath, and Addison noticed how old he looked-a bad sign, since he and Addison were the same age. Forty-nine. “I’ve done a lot of crappy duties with this job, but…”

“This is the worst,” Jeffrey said.

“The worst,” Addison echoed. He was so, so upset, but there was no way for him to express it. Should he be the one going down to tell Chloe and Finn their parents were dead? Absolutely not. And yet he and Tess had been so intimate. For the past six months, it had been just the two of them in a make-believe world, a carefully preserved fantasy, touching, kissing, experiencing unprecedented tenderness. They were simpatico. He held her while she slept, he listened to her, he bought her cookies and marzipan and truffles for her sweet tooth. He tickled her, they laughed, he combed her hair, she rubbed his back, and when they parted, she cried. I don’t want to go back to him .

After Easter, they had begun to talk about running away. Living together. Addison was the one who broached the subject first. He had loads of money, he could make anything happen, he could pay lawyers, he could leave Phoebe the house and they could buy a new house together. They could buy the cottage. Then they would never have to leave, never have to say goodbye.

Tess played along, but not wholeheartedly. Addison sensed she was repeating his words back to him because she knew it made him happy. Never have to leave. Never have to say goodbye.

He loved her more than he had ever loved anyone else, including fiery Mary Rose Garth, including Phoebe, including his own daughter. Tess unlocked something in him. Everything he’d done, everything he’d seen, everything he owned, had meant nothing until she became his. She gave him a reason.

But would Tess want him to be the one to tell her kids that she was dead?

He was sure the answer was no.

The Chief went downstairs.

Addison and Jeffrey sat together in awkward silence. They were waiting. Listening for… what? Addison’s own daughter, Vanessa, was high-strung and prone to melodrama. If informed that he or Mary Rose was dead, Vanessa would shriek to break glass. She would climb into her Miata and drive like Richard Petty through Beverly Hills, wailing to her friends on her cell phone. But how would two sweet, levelheaded seven-year-olds react? Addison and Jeffrey waited. The happy noise downstairs quieted. Then Addison heard footsteps on the stairs. He turned. It was Jeffrey’s boys, Drew and Barney. They were crying the way boys cried once they’d outgrown the baby stuff. Red eyes, tears, but no noise.