Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

Jeffrey said, “Come here,” and opened his arms.

“The Chief told us,” Drew said. “Then he asked us to come upstairs.”

“He needs time with Chloe and Finn,” Jeffrey said. He hugged his boys fiercely and made a grunting noise. Addison both recognized it- I love you guys, I will always love you, we are so lucky this isn’t us - and was made uncomfortable by it. The emotion was so raw, he felt voyeuristic. Addison stood up.

In the mudroom, he found the bag the Chief had collected from the Coast Guard. The personal effects. Addison lifted Greg’s guitar out of the bag.

I’m afraid.

Greg had killed her.

But to say so would only damage the kids.

Addison rooted through the bag. He needed something to do. Andrea was asleep, Delilah and Phoebe were cloistered away in a lair of female bonding. The Chief had the twins and Jeffrey was consumed with his own boys. From the bag Addison removed pieces of Tupperware, some still containing food. He inspected the contents of one: a half-eaten lobster sandwich. Had this been Tess’s sandwich? Had her lips touched the bread? Addison lifted out the picnic basket; the fibers were waterlogged and disintegrating. He pulled out Tess’s flip-flops. Size five and a half J.Crew flip-flops in red and navy grosgrain ribbon. He turned them. Her tiny, doll-like feet had been in these shoes this morning. Her feet were so small, she had a hard time finding shoes that fit. He would keep these flip-flops. But no, he couldn’t. Where would he put them? What would he do with them? He yanked out Greg’s deck shoe, which most closely resembled an overcooked steak; two striped beach towels; a small suitcase. Did Addison dare open it? He did not. Then he came across Tess’s iPhone wrapped in its sunny yellow prophylactic. Addison didn’t think. This was her cell phone, it was important, it was evidence; there was the text, I’m afraid, and who knew what else she’d kept or erased? Addison crammed the phone into his pants pocket. He pitched the Ziploc bag into the trash. Would the Chief notice that the phone was missing? He might. If he’d had the chance to study the contents of the bag of personal effects, he would notice. Would he have had that chance? The Chief’s afternoon had been frantic. He had gotten the whole story from the Coast Guard, more of the story than he was telling, certainly. Knowing Ed as Addison did, Addison realized that yes, Ed would have found time to go through this bag. He may even have documented the contents. He would notice that the phone was missing.

Well, that was too bad. If he wanted it, he could fight Addison for it.

Addison needed air. The house was too warm; the wind had died down and the heat of the day was sticky and uncomfortable. Addison was going to vomit or faint. Tess was dead. She had been trapped under the boat, unable to swim out from under it. She had been afraid. God, just the thought of her fear and her panic, her struggle against the water, her need for air, her lungs about to explode, her cries for her kids. Chloe! Finn! She would have been thinking only of them in the end.

Addison wanted to take the pilfered phone and get in his car and drive. Drive away, heedless and fast.

He erupted with a broken shout, and tears blurred his vision. He stepped out onto the deck. All their cars were there in the driveway, except for the one that mattered. Never have to leave. Never have to say goodbye.

He pulled the felt heart out of his pocket, and sure enough, it ripped.

No! His heart!

He held the two pieces together. Could it be glued? It looked like an apple with a bite missing. He put the two pieces of the torn heart in his pocket. It was the only thing Tess had ever given him.

This, she’d said, is my heart.

Phoebe envied Delilah for many reasons, and today another reason was added to that list: Delilah was able to express her grief fully and plainly, like a child. She was in her bed, curled in the fetal position, crying like a baby, sobbing, hiccupping, catching her breath, wiping her nose and face, and then collapsing all over again. She was hysterical, nothing would stop her, and that had to feel good.

Phoebe lay on the other side of Delilah’s bed. She stretched out and covered Delilah’s body with her own. She made a shushing sound as she might for a baby. These gestures didn’t seem to be making any difference to Delilah, but Phoebe stayed there. She felt, as ever, that she was watching the rest of the world from behind frosted glass; there was a barrier between her and everyone else. That barrier had come down for the first time in eight years today, when she had gone to find Addison. She had lost it . The news of Greg and Tess dead-delivered by Sophie from her Pilates class, whose husband served in the Coast Guard-had shattered the frosted window, and Phoebe had found herself face-to-face with horror.

Phoebe had been through it all before.

Reed!

Her twin brother had been… how to explain? The dearest person in her life. He had always been there. Since Phoebe was conceived, since the womb, since her first day on earth, the two of them had been a pair, pink and blue, a matched set, meant to be together. The twin relationship sometimes backfired; Phoebe had heard all kinds of weird, twisted stories. When Phoebe was in her twenties, she finally heard her parents speak of the concerns they had had when Phoebe and Reed were young. You were too close-you spoke only to each other. We wanted to take you to see a therapist. Phoebe and Reed had developed their own language, which their mother feared was meant to keep the rest of the world at a distance. But when Phoebe thought back to her childhood, there was only peace, comfort, and constant, safe companionship. She and Reed liked each other, they were considerate of each other-even as teenagers. They realized that hurting each other would be akin to hurting themselves. Reed was handsome and popular and smart; he played soccer, basketball, lacrosse. Phoebe was beautiful and popular and smart; she was editor of the year-book and she was a cheerleader.

Reed helped Phoebe with her trig; she helped him with his paper for American lit. He was math and science, she was English and history. Reed could draw; Phoebe could sing. They both sucked at French. Phoebe called him Reedy, Reeder, Free-bird, Sweet Reedy Bird. He in turn called her Twist, short for Twister, short for “twin sister.”

Did people tease them? It was possible, behind their backs. They were too good, too cute and perfect, too close. One night after basketball practice, Reed came home with a swollen eye. Something had happened, a fight with Todd Carrell, a boy Phoebe had broken up with before Christmas. In the locker room, Todd had said something crass about Reed and Phoebe, and Reed had gone wild. Todd Carrell had been sent to the hospital with a broken arm. Rather than being upset, Phoebe was dismissive.

The rest of the world doesn’t understand, she said.

Later that year Phoebe and Reed were in danger of being voted homecoming king and queen. They both won, but after the Todd Carrell incident, Phoebe understood that the student body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Since Phoebe was on the homecoming committee, she fixed the vote so that Shelby Duncan, who was Reed’s girlfriend and had come in second place, was named the winner.

Phoebe and Reed went to college at the University of Wisconsin. They led separate lives in a natural way. Reed played varsity soccer, majored in business admin, and pledged TKE. Phoebe majored in communications and pledged Alpha Kappa Delta. They spoke on the phone daily and met for lunch at the Dairy every Wednesday, just the two of them. After college, they both moved to New York City. Phoebe lived in Chelsea and slugged it out as a catalogue model for nearly a year before she got a job with Elderhostel. Reed lived on the Upper East Side. He worked for Goldman Sachs first, then went to Columbia Business School, then got a job with Cantor Fitzgerald. They still talked on the phone every day (and with the convenience of cell phones, it was usually two and three times a day), and they had lunch every Wednesday at Pastis. Their grandfather died; they drove back to Wisconsin for the funeral together. Reed went through a bad breakup with a woman ten years older than he who happened to be number three on the masthead at Vogue; Phoebe met him at McSorley’s, and they got wickedly drunk and hung out on the swings at the Bleecker Street playground until four in the morning.