Elin Hilderbrand - The Castaways

Reading again was a luxury and a delight. Until this second, seeing her paperback copy of The English Patient had made her feel privileged, intelligent, worthy. But now she got the strange feeling that she would never finish it.

“It’s Tess,” the Chief said. “And Greg.”

“They’re dead?” Andrea said. She said this only to eliminate it as a possibility.

“Yes,” he said.

When Tess was nine years old, when she nearly drowned on L Street Beach, the paramedics had, as a precaution, taken her to Children’s Hospital, and it was there that Andrea faced the rest of her family: her parents, Mikey and Rose; Tess’s parents, Giancarlo and Vivian; her grandmother; her aunts; Father Francis, the parish priest; and Sister Maria José, the nun from Guatemala who lived in a room in Mikey and Rose’s basement. Half the family thought Andrea was a hero-again, a hero!-for saving Tess, who had ventured out over her head. But there was a certain faction of the family-Aunt Agropina, who was not actually Andrea’s aunt but rather Vivian’s aunt, as well as maybe Giancarlo and Vivian themselves-who wondered how long Tess had been swimming before Andrea noticed her. Tess was not just any swimmer on L Street Beach, she was Andrea’s beloved younger cousin. Practically sisters, the two of them! Why wasn’t she watching? It’s family! Tess’s older brother Anthony had been on the beach as well, and he reported that he had seen Tess swim out, doing the butterfly. Andrea saw the imperceptible head shakes, she heard the soft clucking. Not only had Andrea not been watching, but she had not been watching as poor Tess struggled to swim the butterfly like her older cousin. Tess had been trying to impress Andrea, and she had nearly died.

Andrea was filled with regret and guilt and shame. She sat with Sister Maria José, who wore a starched white blouse, blue A-line skirt, and black and white wimple, and thought, I will become a nun.

When Andrea heard the Chief say that Tess and Greg were dead, she pitched forward, coming face-to-face with her own weary legs. She emitted a long, guttural moan, the kind of moan she had not uttered since childbirth. She felt the Chief’s arms close around her.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

She howled. Tess. They’re dead? Yes. Andrea thought of the picnic. It had been the picnic of a lifetime. She had pureed all the vegetables for the gazpacho; she had ripened the avocado in a paper bag for three days; she had made the lobster salad herself, boiling the buggers, cracking them open, pulling out the precious meat. She had risen at 6 A.M. to snatch a loaf of challah from Daily Breads, hot out of the oven. At the last minute, she had tucked in a bag of chocolate-covered cranberries for Greg, a peace offering. He was crazy for them. Andrea thought about Tess, wearing the red sunglasses with white polka dots. A person did not die while wearing such sunglasses. She remembered the near-drowning in its entirety, Tess in a heap on the sandy bottom of Dorchester Bay. Tess might have died twenty-six years ago, but Andrea had saved her. Andrea had not, however, been true to her word: she had not become a nun. She had married Edward Kapenash and had two children. She had brought Tess to Nantucket, where Tess met Greg, who became her husband. Several times during the anguish of the past nine months, Andrea had blamed herself for bringing Tess to Nantucket. Andrea felt as responsible for Tess as she did for her own children-more so, maybe, because she had known Tess her entire life. She had nearly let Tess drown, she had not been watching, she had been absorbed in her own thoughts, and she had not become a nun.

Tess was dead. Andrea picked up her book and tore at its pages senselessly; then she flung the book into the sand a few feet away, but not as far or as furiously as she wanted to, because of the arms constraining her. I’ve got you. Andrea moaned. She would never finish the book. She was giving birth to her own grief.

The kids were outside at the picnic table with butter knives, cutting the stems off the strawberries. It looked like a crime scene; everything was stained red and pink-the wood of the picnic table, their hands, their faces. It was nearly six and still as bright as midday. The children happily hacked away at the fruit of Jeffrey’s labor. He watched them for a few seconds, but did not say anything.

Delilah was in the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets for a pot.

“I have to talk to you,” Jeffrey said. He was glad the children were occupied. He would tell Delilah first, and she would help him figure out what to do. They would either tell the children together, or they would wait for someone else to show up-the Chief and Andrea, Addison and Phoebe. They would gather here, as they always did.

“I want to make jam,” Delilah said. “I promised the kids, and I’d like to get it bubbling before I start dinner.” She looked at him. Her good mood and cheerful resolve were wearing down; she had had only an hour or two of sleep. “Do you think I should make it in the pressure cooker?”

“Come with me into the bedroom,” Jeffrey said.

Her brow folded; she glanced at the kids. “You’re kidding me,” she said. She thought he wanted sex. And as wrong as she was, she was also right: a part of him wanted to defy the terrifying news of Tess and Greg’s death by loving his wife, by lifting her skirt and taking her up against the wall.

“I have something to tell you,” he said.

She huffed as she followed him down the hall to their bedroom; he heard her muttering. “My mother made jam, but I don’t know how she did it. She never used a recipe. Strawberries, sugar, and something to make it gel.”

Pectin , he thought. But he said nothing.

She said, “What is going on?” She was standing in front of their closet door, which was open, revealing his Carhartts, her hostessing dresses, his navy suit (he would wear it to the funeral, he supposed), her camisole tops, her high heels. He should advise her to sit down, that was best when delivering bad news, but it felt like simply another delay, he had to tell her now! Just tell her. But, God, he couldn’t. He was the Grim Reaper. How did the Chief do it? Swiftly, cleanly; just say it, release the guillotine blade, pull the trigger.

“Delilah?”

She glared at him. Impatient to get back to the jam.

“Tess and Greg are dead.”

Her eyes widened; they were more white than brown, and then all white. She dropped to the floor. Fainted away.

He had two major problems. Three. Four, actually. The first was his wife, whom he still loved deeply. She was in a black tank suit, howling, shivering, convulsing, alternately crying like a baby and screaming, and making other noises he couldn’t begin to describe. If someone had asked him before today how Andrea would take the news of her cousin’s sudden, tragic death, he would have said she would have handled it exactly this way, which meant sadness and upset and shock and horror of a quality no one could bear to imagine. However, a part of him had hoped that Andrea would be better than this, stronger. God, he felt evil and unfair for even wishing this. But Andrea had seen a lot over the years. She understood accidents and tragedy: they did not discriminate. They could happen to anyone. Andrea was the Chief’s first responsibility. He kept his arms around her, he absorbed her shudders and screams. She was all he could handle.

And yet, on his hip, his phone was jumping. He was one of a handful of people who had any details at all. He had gone to the Coast Guard station to speak to Joe. Joe had the bodies. The Chief went to identify them. They were covered with orange tarps down in the basement of the Coast Guard station, where it was cool. After the Chief identified them, they would be picked up by the funeral home. The Chief descended the stairs to the basement and it was, honestly, like being in a horror film, like descending into a nightmare. The bodies lay side by side on boards. The Chief felt his heart going crazy. He had to get hold of himself; he did things like this all the time, by which he meant he dealt with the things that no one else wanted to deal with. He was a disaster specialist. Joe did him the favor of accompanying him-Joe had seen a drowned man before, many drowned men, he knew what to expect, but the Chief did not. Joe pulled the first tarp aside, and-bad luck-it was Tess. She was bloated; her skin was the color of putty, and her hair had a patch torn out in front. She looked childlike in death; she looked a little like the Chief’s daughter. Okay, that was enough, cover her back up, he couldn’t stand it, but then, too, he couldn’t bear to think that this was the last he’d ever see of her.