Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

The wife of the client couple asked Addison a question, but he didn’t hear it. He was dropping the ball conversationally; he had to get back into the game, $9.2 million, and his office had the listing as well as the buyer. This was the biggest deal of the year so far. But something was going on at the front of the restaurant. Was the maître d’ signaling him? He wanted Addison’s attention?

“Excuse me,” Addison said. He stood up, forced a smile. “I’ll be right back.”

Phoebe was in the parking lot. It was Phoebe, right? There was her car, the red Triumph Spitfire, and there was a woman Phoebe’s shape and size with the shining blond hair-but her face was pink and crumpled like a dropped handkerchief, her cheeks were streaked with makeup, she was keening, hiccupping, freaking out . Losing her shit, here in public! This was not his wife. His wife, Phoebe Wheeler, rarely cracked a smile or shed a tear. Addison grabbed her by the shoulders. Was it really her? Yes, those eyes, blue fire. She was emotionally absent, a woman made of ice, steel, chalk, plastic, stone, rubber, clay, straw, but her eyes revealed a spark, and that was one reason Addison hung in there. He was convinced she would return to him one day.

“Phoebe?” he said.

She pushed him away. She was making noises like an animal; her beautiful hair fell into her face. She was trying to speak, but she could not form any coherent words. Well, there was one word, over and over again, like a hiss: Tess.

“Tess?” Addison said. Did Phoebe know, then? She’d found out? This was impossible, because no one knew and there was not one scrap of evidence that would betray them. The cell phone bill, maybe, but only if Phoebe had gone through it with a fine-tooth comb and seen the calls that Addison had made to Tess while he was visiting his daughter two weeks ago in California. Yes, that must be it. Addison’s heart cracked and sizzled like an egg on the hot griddle of the parking lot. He could explain away the phone calls; he and Tess were, after all, friends. He could come up with a plausible reason for the calls.

“Honey, you have to get ahold of yourself,” Addison said. He could not believe his marriage was going to explode here, now, when he was completely unprepared-but a part of him was intrigued by Phoebe’s unbridled reaction. She was hysterical. He couldn’t believe it. He would have said that when Phoebe found out about Tess, she would do nothing more than roll over and sneeze.

Just like that, her meds kicked in. She reined in the horses that were running away with her. She stopped crying; she sniffed. Addison had seen her crumble like this only one other time-September 11. Her twin brother, Reed, had worked on the hundred and first floor of the second tower. He had jumped.

“Tess,” Phoebe said. “And Greg. Tess and Greg are dead.”

The third week of June had a smell, and that smell was strawberries. Strawberry season normally only lasted about five minutes, but this year the spring had been warm, punctuated by just enough steady, soaking rain, and voilà! The strawberries responded. Jeffrey flew the strawberry flag at the beginning of the week, and people came in droves for pick-your-own, seven dollars a quart. These strawberries were red and juicy all the way through, the sweetest things you ever tasted, tiny bits of heaven pulled off the vine. The air over Seascape Farm practically shimmered pink. They were living in a miasma of strawberries.

At the end of the day, Jeffrey was getting the tractor back to the shed after fertilizing his cash crops-the corn, the herbs, the flowers, the beets, cucumbers, and summer squash-when he spied his wife’s silver Rubicon in the parking lot. Delilah had brought the kids up to pick berries.

He and Delilah had started the day off on the wrong foot. Delilah had stayed late at the Begonia and had had “a few drinks” with Thom and Faith, the owners, and Greg, who had been playing guitar last night. “A few drinks” with those three was nearly always a slasher film. Thom and Faith were professional vodka drinkers and Greg was a certified booze bully, ordering up shots of tequila and Jim Beam for everyone, especially when Thom and Faith were footing the bill. Then, as if to soften the treachery of the drinks, Greg would pull out his guitar and play “Sunshine, Go Away Today,” and “Carolina on My Mind,” and everyone would sing along in slurred tones. When Delilah would look at the clock and see it was three in the morning, she couldn’t believe it.

Delilah had stumbled home just as the sun was coming up, which was when Jeffrey usually rose for the day. He liked to have the watering finished by six, and the market opened for business at seven.

He and Delilah had crossed paths in the bathroom. She was on her knees, retching into the toilet.

“Good morning,” he whispered. He tried to keep his voice light and playful, because Delilah’s recurring complaint was that he was stern and judgmental, he was no fun, he acted more like her father than her husband.

And I ran away from my father , she said.

It was true that Jeffrey did not approve of her staying out until all hours; he did not approve of the restaurant life in general-there was drug use and drinking-and even though Delilah promised him she steered clear of everything except a postshift glass of wine, enough to clear her head while she rested her feet, he didn’t believe her. Two or three nights a week she came home absurdly late, smelling of marijuana smoke, and ended up like this: head in the toilet, vomiting.

What are the boys going to think? Jeffrey would ask her.

I make them a hot breakfast , Delilah would snap back. I get them to school in clean clothes, on time. I pack them healthy lunches. I engage with them more than you do.

She was correct: no matter how late she came in, no matter how many postshift drinks she indulged in, she was up with the kids, flipping pancakes, pouring juice, checking homework. He couldn’t give her parenting anything less than his full endorsement.

You want me to be a farmer’s wife, Delilah said. You want me in braids and an apron.

Their arguments were all the same, so alike that it was as if they simply rewound the tape and pushed Play.

You should be glad I’m independent, I have my own life, a job, friends, a supplementary income. The kids understand this, they respect it.

Jeffrey did not begrudge his wife her own life-he just wished it coincided more neatly with his life as a farmer. He got out of bed at five; he liked to be in bed at nine, and many times he fell asleep reading to the kids. What he craved was time in front of the fire, just the four of them, he did want a roast with potatoes and carrots cooking in the oven. But Delilah needed a crowd. Always she invited the group over-Greg and Tess and their twins, the Chief and Andrea, Addison and Phoebe-and she mixed martinis and pressed sandwiches and opened chips and turned on the Patriots or pulled out the Parcheesi or badgered Greg into playing every Cat Stevens song he knew. There was no downtime with Delilah. It was always a party, and it was exhausting.

This morning she had been in a particularly foul mood, despite his chummy, nonjudgmental Good morning! She was retching and crying. He couldn’t decide whether or not to ask her what was wrong. Sometimes when he asked she told him to mind his own business, but if he didn’t ask, she accused him of not caring. If he were to be very honest with himself, he would admit that he didn’t always care what was troubling Delilah. She had dramas constantly spooling around and out, and Jeffrey couldn’t keep track. That was why she had Phoebe. God, Phoebe could listen for hours.