Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

The next summer, the summer of 1935, Arthur and Emilie sold the house on Gay Street and bought a parcel of beachfront land on Tuckernuck for $105. They built the house, grandiose for its time. In her diary, Emilie noted that they wanted something simpler. A simple life. Town life on Nantucket had become fraught with social obligations. It has become not so different from life in Boston, Emilie wrote. We seek a quieter place, a more remote escape.

Tuckernuck.

But the truth was, Emilie had come to Tuckernuck to escape her sister.

Birdie reminded India of this story as they lingered outside their respective bedrooms with only their flashlights to see by. Birdie was flat-out exhausted, but India seemed to be looking for something to do at nine o’clock at night. She knew there were no clubs on Tuckernuck, right? No bars, no restaurants, no whorehouses. There was only peace and quiet, and the weight of their family history. They had come here as girls, their father before them, their grandparents before him.

“Emilie built this house to get away from her sister,” Birdie said. “But now the house is bringing sisters together. You and me. And Chess and Tate.”

India snorted. “Are you always such a Pollyanna, Bird?”

Birdie didn’t take the bait. She would not squabble with India on this, their first night. “You know I am,” she said. She smiled sweetly. “Good night.”

She woke up in the morning and thought, in a panic, Only twenty-nine days left!

Chess was cleaving to her back like a bug. Tate was both irritated and touched. Last night, after a quiet, nearly somber dinner ( What’s with everyone? Tate had wondered. Even Birdie had seemed subdued and distracted), she and Chess had come upstairs with a flashlight and put the prettiest sheets on their beds. Tate had planned on initiating a long, meaningful conversation with her sister-that, after all, was the main mission here-but Chess made it clear she didn’t want to talk.

Tate had said, “You won’t get better if you don’t let it out. It’s like not cleaning a sore. It will fester. You know that, right?”

Chess tucked a pillow under her chin and slipped it into the case. No response.

Tate had thought three words: Okay, fine, whatever. She hadn’t felt Chess climb into bed with her last night, but she wasn’t surprised that she had. Chess was afraid of the dark; all their lives, she had crawled into bed with Tate.

Tate slid out of bed without waking Chess. It was hard for Chess to fall asleep and hard for her to wake up. But not Tate. Tate was a morning person. She put on her jogging bra (gingerly, because she had gotten too much sun at the beach the day before), her shorts, and her running shoes and went down to the second floor to use the bathroom.

The Tuckernuck house had only one bathroom, squeezed in between the two bedrooms. It had been installed when Tate was a child, and everyone marveled at the flush toilet. (Before, there had been an outhouse.) The sink and tub ran only cold water. If you wanted a hot bath, you had to heat the water over the gas stove in the kitchen and carry it upstairs. Water from the bathroom sink had a brownish tinge and tasted like rust. ( Perfectly safe to drink! Birdie always assured them.) Tate was the only one who didn’t mind the water. She was a traditionalist; the water in the Tuckernuck house had always been dingy and metallic, and if she had come this year and found that the tap yielded clear, tasteless water at remarkable pressure, she would have been disappointed.

She brushed her teeth and did a quick scan of all the products crowding the back of the toilet (the only level surface in the bathroom). There were young women’s products-Noxema, Coppertone-and older women’s products (Tate tried not to examine these too closely). She noticed a new sign hanging on the wall opposite the toilet. In her mother’s handwriting, it said: Do not flush paper or anything else (please!).

Birdie’s bedroom door was open, the curtains were tied back, and the twin beds were made so tightly that Tate couldn’t tell which one her mother had slept in. The sun was bright. (In the attic, you couldn’t even tell the sun had risen.) A breeze came through the window. Birdie’s room had a zillion-dollar view over the bluff and the ocean. It was such a clear day, Tate could almost make out the figures of the early morning fishermen on the shores of Nantucket.

Down in the kitchen, Birdie had made coffee in a French press. When Tate’s parents had divorced and Birdie first made noise about wanting to get a job, Tate had entertained the idea of hiring Birdie to live with her and be her… mother. Because that was what she needed, a mother. Someone to make her coffee in the morning (Tate spent a small fortune at Starbucks), someone to do her laundry, someone to cook for her, someone to call her and check in when she was spending the night in a hotel.

“Come live with me and be my mom,” Tate had said. Birdie had laughed, though Tate could tell she was considering it.

Tate poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Cream?” Birdie said.

Tate hugged her mother and lifted her off the floor. The woman weighed nothing. Birdie gurgled out a laugh or a cry, and Tate set her down.

“I love it here,” Tate said.

Birdie cracked two eggs into the ancient blue ceramic bowl that she always made pancakes in here on Tuckernuck.

“Blueberry pancakes?” Birdie said.

“When I get back,” Tate said. “I’m going running.”

“Be careful,” Birdie said.

Tate took her coffee out to the picnic table to stretch. There was nothing to fear while running on Tuckernuck, but Tate liked hearing her mother say, Be careful. It would be nice to hear when she was in New York City, say, heading out to Central Park at five in the morning. Or when she was in Denver, where she nearly fainted from the altitude. Or Detroit, where she ran in the wrong direction and very quickly ended up in a sketchy part of town. Or San Diego, where she encountered a gang of drunken sailors wearing navy blue uniforms with white trim like nursery school children; they looked like they would have eaten her if they could have caught her.

Be careful!

She raced down the new stairs to the beach. She was ready to go! She took off.

The circumference of the island was five miles; it took Tate an hour to run it. It had been harder than she thought. It was rocky in some places, and it was swampy around North Pond, where she sank to the tops of her ankle socks. But for the most part, the run was magnificent and exhilarating. She saw two seals in the water off the western coast; she saw oystercatchers and piping plovers and flocks of terns. She saw two seagulls as big as terriers fighting over the remains of a beached bluefish. She wondered if the seagulls were sisters. One seagull would tug at the fish carcass while the other one squawked at her-her beak opening and closing, making a nearly human and definitely female protest. Then the other bird would peck at the fish and the first bird would yap like Edith Bunker. Back and forth they went, taking turns at eating, taking turns at complaining.

Just like that, Tate remembered something about the night before. She remembered Chess climbing into bed, throwing her arm over Tate, and asking, “Have you ever been in love?”

Tate had opened her eyes. It was very, very dark and she was confused. Then it came to her: Tuckernuck attic, Chess. Tate hadn’t responded to the question, but Chess must have sensed the answer was no. Or maybe Chess believed the answer was yes; after all, what did Chess know about the details of Tate’s life? Tate could be in love with the CEO of Kansas City Tool and Die, whom she had done hundreds of hours of work for this year; she could have been in love with the concierge at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, which was where she liked to stay when she was in Vegas. Tate came in contact with dozens of men daily; she took, on average, six flights a week. She could have fallen in love with the married father of four girls who sat next to her in first class on her way from Phoenix to Milwaukee, or the cute United Airlines pilot with the cleft chin.