Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

As Jeffrey was buttoning his shirt, Delilah approached him, sniffling.

“It’s Greg and Tess’s anniversary,” she said.

“Is it?” he said. Then he remembered. It had been strawberry season when they got married. He had attended that wedding alone. Andrea had been the matron of honor; she had looked shockingly beautiful. Many times in the years since they’d split, he’d been filled with regret, but on the day Greg and Tess got married, the pangs had been unbearable. Andrea wore a dusty pink satin dress that showed off her shoulders; her hair was in a sleek twist, her smile lit up the church. At the reception, he had asked her to dance, and she’d said yes, and as they danced, she talked about how happy she was for Greg and Tess, while Jeffrey tried not to notice the Chief eyeing them from his post at the bar.

Delilah said, “So I’m taking the twins today. Greg and Tess are sailing to the Vineyard.”

“That’s nice,” Jeffrey said.

“It is nice,” Delilah said. “They’re taking a picnic.” She burst into tears.

See? He just didn’t get it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“We never do things like that!” she said.

Now Jeffrey went to hunt down his wife in the strawberry fields. She was the kind of mother who was always doing things with the boys. Today, he knew, had started off with a nature walk; then they had picked up sandwiches in town and gone fishing on the south side of the pond, out of the wind, with Delilah tirelessly hooking and rehooking their lures. Often the day would end with an ice cream or a movie, but today it was strawberry-picking. The boys were eight and six; they both had energy like Delilah’s-they never stopped, they never tired. Their life was one long adventure with their mother, punctuated by treats. She rarely said no to them. But four evenings a week, when she left for the restaurant, Jeffrey took over and reality closed in. He made them eat vegetables, he made them bathe, he made them rest. He wasn’t as exciting as their mother, but they needed him.

He spotted Delilah right away in a white flowing sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat that she wore every year when she went strawberry-picking. Because of the wind, her skirt kept flying up and her hat was threatening to blow off down the rows. Jeffrey smiled in spite of himself. Delilah was a beautiful woman, and the four kids-their own sons, Drew and Barney, and Tess and Greg’s twins, Chloe and Finn-were happy and laughing, alternately dropping strawberries into the green quart baskets and stuffing them in their mouths.

“Hey,” Jeffrey said.

Delilah looked up, but she was not happy to see him. Was she still miffed about this morning? If he understood her, she was upset because it was Greg and Tess’s anniversary and they were sailing to the Vineyard. Jeffrey had spent the better part of the day trying to dream up something-an excursion, a surprise-that would match this in Delilah’s mind. We never do things like that! Jeffrey couldn’t argue with her there. They were slaves to the insanity of their schedule: Jeffrey worked all day, Delilah worked four nights a week. Tonight she was home, though. They could get a sitter and go out for dinner. Would that be exotic enough? It was too windy to eat at the beach, but they could pick up sandwiches and a bottle of wine and spread a blanket between the corn rows. The corn was waist-high already; no one would see them. They could make love in the fields. They used to do this before they were married, before they had a home together, before kids-but now the fields, and Jeffrey’s absurdly long hours tending them, were a sore spot, and it was hard to imagine them feeling romantic about the farm the way they used to.

It was a full moon tonight. The wind was due to die down; it would be clear and beautiful. He would suggest a picnic in the fields and see what she said.

At that second, there was a buzzing in his pocket. His phone. He checked the display. It was the Chief.

“Okay,” Delilah said, smoothing down her skirt and straightening her hat. “We have enough berries to last us the rest of our lives. Let’s go home and make jam.”

“Jam!” the kids cried.

Jeffrey opened his phone. “Hello?” he said.

Jeffrey was a farmer’s farmer. He was methodical and straitlaced; he was sober, Delilah said, even when he was drunk. He had the posture of a minister-upright, straight, broad. He believed in process, he believed in cycles-the moon, the tides, the seasons. He respected the many complexities of nature, from a spiderweb to a bolt of lightning. He, Jeffrey Drake, could handle anything-blight, hurricane, famine, the apocalypse. Or so he thought.

Jeffrey and the Chief were friends, but there had always been something blocking the path between them, and that something was Andrea. Andrea had been Jeffrey’s girlfriend first. They had dated for seven months, and then they had lived together in the tiny cottage on the farm property for another year and a half. That Andrea was now married to the Chief and had been for years, that they were all part of the same tight-knit group of eight, was weird and uncomfortable, but probably only for Jeffrey. It didn’t seem to bother Andrea or the Chief at all; they treated him like a member of their family.

The Chief did not bother with hello. He never did. “Does Delilah have the twins?” he asked.

Strange question. The Chief was so humorless, he made Jeffrey feel like Jay Leno.

“Affirmative,” Jeffrey said. He considered making some staticky walkie-talkie noise, but he wasn’t funny enough to pull it off. No wonder Delilah found him tiresome. “Yes, Chief, she does. They are here at the farm as we speak, absconding with five quarts of strawberries.”

“They’re headed home?”

“Yes, sir. Home to make jam.”

“Okay,” the Chief said. “Keep them there. I’ll be over in… God, I don’t know. A little while. See that they sit tight, okay?”

“Roger Dodger,” Jeffrey said. This mock-cop shtick was the best way to negotiate small talk with the Chief, but today it seemed to be falling flat. “Is something going on?”

The Chief took a breath and then made some indistinguishable noise. A laugh? A guffaw? (It was safe to say the Chief had never guffawed in all his life.) A sob?

“I don’t know how to say this. God, I just can’t say it.”

Now Jeffrey was worried. “What?” he said. But no sooner had the word left his mouth than he knew. “Jesus, don’t tell me.”

“They’re dead,” the Chief said. “They drowned.”

Jeffrey and the Chief were cut from the same cloth. Everyone said so. Jeffrey had never been able to decide if he was flattered by this or bothered by it. They were both serious and steady. Jeffrey knew the Chief expected him to take this news like a man. They were to figure things out, make a plan. But Jeffrey found himself gutted. He had been shot once, by a hunter’s stray bullet; he had caught buckshot in the side that felled him from his plow. Receiving this news- They’re dead. They drowned -was like that, but worse. He was breathless. He could not respond.

The Chief said, “I know it’s hard.”

Jeffrey almost said, Fuck you, don’t patronize me. Let me wrap my mind around it, let me draw a breath, Ed, for Chrissakes . Suddenly Jeffrey wanted to sock the Chief in the mouth. He realized with those words- I know it’s hard -that he’d wanted to sock Ed Kapenash in the mouth for twenty years.

He was saved from a grossly inappropriate response by the sight of the twins, Chloe and Finn, proudly carrying their quart containers. Their mouths were smeared with red and Chloe’s white blouse had red stains on it that looked like blood. Your parents are dead, Jeffrey thought. They were happy kids, seven years old; they were well behaved, the closest friends of his own kids; the four of them were like siblings. The twins called him Uncle Jeff and they called Delilah Auntie Dee. He could not tell them their parents were dead; he could not tell Delilah either. The Chief served people up with horrible news every day; it was his occupational hazard. But it was not Jeffrey’s.