Elin Hilderbrand - The Island

She had been dating Hank only three months, but it was fair to say she was in love. When he pulled into her driveway on the final day, she saw the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes and she nearly canceled her trip. She couldn’t leave him! She couldn’t walk away from the roses, the romance, the companionship. Here, on Tuckernuck, the days she spent with Hank seemed cruelly distant. The night at the Sherry-Netherland felt fictional, like something she’d read in one of her book club selections. She missed him. It was killing her.

Birdie’s phone calls to Hank were not altogether satisfactory. She had placed the first call on the Fourth of July. Hank had picked up the phone and said, quizzically, “Hello?”

Birdie had said, “Hank?”

Hank had said, “Birdie?”

Birdie said, “Yes! It’s me! I’m calling from Tuckernuck!”

Hank said, “How? Why?” She had explained to him that she would be incommunicado for thirty days. Not only was it against family rules to use a cell phone (Grant had broken this rule liberally; he spoke to the office four and five times in a day and would have done so using a ham radio), but it was nearly impossible to get reception.

She said, “There is one funny little place where I can get reception. You can hear me, right?”

“I can hear you fine,” Hank said. “But I thought it was against the rules.”

“Oh, it is,” Birdie said. “I had to sneak away.” This was true: she had waited until Chess fell asleep on the beach and Tate and India wandered off in search of oystercatchers, and then she’d slipped up the stairs to the bluff. Back at the house, she’d left a note on the table that said, Went for a walk. Which wasn’t a lie. Still, Birdie had felt a twinge of guilt and attendant panic that something would happen while she was gone. A rogue wave would come in and sweep Chess away.

“Well,” Hank said, “I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless.” He sounded uncomfortable, or perhaps he was just taken by surprise. Or perhaps he was embarrassed that she had broken the sacred family rules on his account. Or perhaps he was disappointed in her.

“I just wanted to wish you a happy Fourth of July,” she said. “And tell you that I miss you.” She tried to emphasize the words “miss you” because that was why she was calling. It had nothing to do with the Fourth of July; she had only called on the Fourth because she couldn’t make it another day without hearing his voice.

“That’s very sweet,” Hank said. He didn’t say, I miss you, too. Why did he not say it?

“Where are you?” Birdie asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m at a picnic at the Ellises’ house,” he said. “I was getting my ass handed to me in horseshoes, but you saved me from that.”

The Ellises had been friends of Hank and Caroline’s for decades. There were other couples Hank had mentioned-the Cavanaughs and the Vauls and the Markarians-whom Birdie couldn’t meet because they would not approve of Hank dating while Caroline was still alive. He hadn’t seen much of these friends since he and Birdie had started dating, but he was at the Ellises’ now and this stung for some reason.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from your game,” she said, though she had walked two miles in the heat of the day to do exactly that.

“Okay,” Hank said. “I hope you’re having fun…”

Birdie said, “Oh, I am…” If waiting on everyone hand and foot could be considered fun, if watching your daughter’s depression up close and not knowing what to do about it could be considered fun, if cold showers and a twin bed and lukewarm milk were fun, then yes, it was fun.

“Well, it’s good to hear your voice,” he said.

This, she sensed, was as loving and tender as he was going to be. He was probably standing only a few yards away from his old friends. “Yours, too,” she said.

“Take care,” he said, as if she were an acquaintance from childhood he had bumped into at the airport.

“Okay,” Birdie said, heartbroken. “Bye-bye.”

“Bye.”

Birdie hung up. She was staring across the water on a magnificent stretch of beach on an island that she had called home all her life. There was nothing before her but more water, calm and blue, a few seagulls, half a dozen distant boats, and the shoreline of Muskeget. She was devastated. Was this too strong a word? She didn’t think so. What about dancing to Bobby Darin, Hank’s arms strong and possessive around her back, his face nuzzled into the side of her neck? Had he forgotten? Birdie’s insides were disintegrating. She doubted she would be able to make the walk back to the house.

Hank!

He didn’t love her, and he didn’t miss her. He sounded fine without her. He was at a picnic at the Ellises’ house, playing horseshoes, laughing, drinking a beer or a glass of wine, socializing with the friends he’d neglected since he’d met Birdie. He wasn’t talking to these friends about Birdie because they didn’t know she existed; they only knew Caroline existed.

Birdie headed back, and with each step she grew angrier at herself. She had told Hank she wouldn’t call, couldn’t call, and what had she done? She had thought of nothing since leaving New Canaan except how to call. It had been a mistake to call; it had been weakness. She looked at her cell phone. She wanted to call back right that second and ask him, Do you miss me? Do you love me? But no, she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t call him again.

But calling Hank turned out to be like scratching a mosquito bite. She knew she shouldn’t, but she did. And scratching felt so good at first. Then, not so good. But it always led to more scratching.

She had to call in the middle of the day; it was the only time she could sneak off. And in the middle of the day, Hank was busy. On the fifth, he was swimming laps at the pool. Birdie left a message, then called back twice more, and when she finally reached him he was in the hardware store and seemed preoccupied with locating the garden hoses. On the sixth, he was in the car with his son and daughter-in-law on his way to Brewster to see Caroline. He couldn’t talk freely; he barely said anything at all. Was this the same man who said he would gladly go bankrupt romancing her?

“I miss you so much,” Birdie said.

“I hope you’re having fun,” Hank said. “You’ll be back before you know it.”

“Do you miss me?” Birdie said.

“You bet,” Hank said. “Bye-bye.”

On that day, the sixth, after Birdie had been rejected a third time (though feeling rejected was silly, she knew. Hank wasn’t rejecting her. She was just calling at a time of day that was inconvenient for him to talk), she hung up the phone and stared at the ocean. The water was flat, the day brutally hot. There were flies on Bigelow Point and they swarmed Birdie’s face. No sooner would she swat them away than they would land again on the bridge of her nose or the sensitive skin above her lip. She remembered the old joke. How do you know Tuckernuck is so great? Fifty thousand black flies can’t be wrong.

On a whim, she called Grant.

She called his cell phone, even though she knew he would be at his office, but he answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Grant?”

“Bird?” he said. “Everything okay?” His voice was concerned and kind, and Birdie felt tears rise. She had the bizarre sense that Grant was her father. He would protect her, he would put to rest all the crazy doubts that her conversations with Hank were causing.

She said, “Everything’s fine, everything’s great.”

“You’re on Tuckernuck?”

“Yes!” she said. “Can you believe the reception I’m getting? Barrett Lee told me the trick. You have to stand at the tip of Bigelow Point and it’s clear as a bell.”