THE FERRY TO Robin Island was small, with a capacity of roughly twelve cars on deck, arranged in three rows. It took forty-five minutes to reach the island. On that trip, there were only three cars, a roofer’s truck, and a UPS van. None of their occupants got out to enjoy the scenery. Just one got out at all, to smoke a cigarette. They obviously were regulars, people for whom this was a mere journey from point A to point B, not a scenic voyage through Nantucket Sound where one enjoyed the sun, the breeze and the mild warmth of early summer.
When Olivia and I had arrived at the terminal, the man we had met three days earlier asked me why I had bolted. I told him I’d felt indisposed, pregnancy, you know. He refused to charge me and was very agreeable without a glimmer of suspicion. Even so, I was constantly expecting someone to ask me: Why the hell are you going to the island?! But the only person who would ask me anything in that tone is myself. Besides, why should it be odd? It’s an island. People go visit islands, to spend the day, to picnic on the beach. It’s almost summer. Even if Robin Island was small and had a population of barely 450 inhabitants, it was proud of having avoided mass tourism, unlike the neighboring islands of Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard.
I had taken Olivia with me because I thought that going with my daughter would make it easier not to arouse suspicion. And she was elated, obviously.
“Look, Mommy, a boat!”
“Yes, it’s a sailboat.”
“Look, another boat!”
“It’s a barge.”
“And another boat like ours!”
“Yes, a ferry going in the opposite direction.”
Look, a bird. A seagull. A fish. I don’t know what kind of fish. Look. Look. Look.
While I named everything Olivia pointed out, I thought about Chris’s trips, the sheet of paper from the fridge that had been my roadmap, with the dates of the trips he’d made so far this year. I had only traced his steps for those five months. But now it turned out he’d been going to Robin Island regularly for well over two years. I made some calculations. He was twenty-five when he tore his Achilles tendon. A year and a half of back and forth until he decided to give up tennis. Right when he turned twenty-seven. Then he worked two years for Williams Consulting, his father’s company, which he’d been groomed for like a prince to inherit and run one day. He quit because it gave him claustrophobia that turned into asthma attacks, which he had never had before or after. He hated having to follow his father’s orders. I listened to him for all these years without complaining or questioning anything. A father is a father, but it’s my turn to be one now, he told me. I don’t know how he did it, but he worked it out so well that his father felt neither hurt nor rejection, and he passed the hot potato, the burden of succession, along to his sister, Tricia, who had just finished her degree. Chris was very good at avoiding conflict and confrontation, and even so, he managed to get his way. Then he started WTT, Williams Tennis Tech. By that time, he was thirty. It wasn’t till a few years later that the business started to take off and he began to travel. When he was thirty-two. For three years, he’d been traveling regularly, at least twice a month. How was it possible I hadn’t noticed anything? Never in my life had I focused on Chris’s weaknesses or defects. He had them, of course, but I didn’t waste time or energy on them; I just concentrated on his achievements and virtues. Had that been my big mistake?
“Welcome to Robin Island. Established in 1652. Population: 455” read a plaque at the ferry terminal. There was a bronze map with the island in relief situated it in the center of the triangle formed by Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Hyannis. Beside the map stood an impressive totem pole, some fifteen feet high, made of cedar and crowned with a sculpture of a robin with outspread wings. An inscription stated that the totem was the work of the Native American Wampanoag tribe. “Robin Island. Formerly known as Opechee Island, the island of the robin. For the Wampanoag, the robin symbolized the path of the wisdom of change.”
The terminal was much smaller than the one in Hyannis and had no security cameras. Far from disappointed, I felt relieved. It pleased me to see the island hadn’t given in to the country’s generalized paranoia. I had decided to keep a low profile and ask nothing, so no one would ask me anything. The second thing I noticed was that people took off in electric golf carts. Later I found out it was due to a municipal ordinance requiring all residents to use electric vehicles on the island. Very ecological.
“Is this Treasure Island, Mommy?”
“Yes, I think it is.”
“Let’s go see the pirates!”
And we did. It didn’t take us long to go the six miles from one end to another in the car. We didn’t get out, again because I was afraid of looking nosy and suspicious. I had to make a great effort to keep from being seduced by the beauty of the landscape. I wanted information and needed to maximize that first visit. I couldn’t fall in love with the island. I had to skin it and tear out its guts.
There was a small port, Hiese Harbor, with moored leisure boats, a few fishing vessels, an ambulance motorboat. A store, Burr’s Marine, that sold and rented leisure boats, golf carts and electric bicycles. A main street, Grand Avenue, which had nothing grand about it, with a café, a bank, a post office, a church and several stores.
An oyster farm: Bishop Oysters.
Houses, of all kinds and colors, and a horse ranch, which I avoided passing by so Olivia wouldn’t pester me again about the damned pony.
A mill that looked straight out of a Van Gogh painting.
A lighthouse on a tiny island accessible by a narrow wooden bridge.
A lookout atop a hill, crowned with an imposing oak, from which the island could be seen in all its small, grand splendor. There, on Kissing Tree Mountain, as the marker read, I decided we should stop and enjoy the view. How beautifully everything is laid out, I thought.
Where are you, Chris? What corner are you hiding in?
“Why did we come here? To forget Daddy?”
“No.” Quite the contrary, I thought. “We’re never going to forget Daddy.”
“Why is that tree covered in letters?” Olivia asked.
The trunk bore hundreds of initials of couples framed by hearts, sealing their love. What if Chris’s initials were there along with those of another woman? I didn’t dare to look because I knew any C I saw would pierce my heart. I wasn’t ready, and even less so with Olivia as an eyewitness. Anyway, it seemed a pointless exercise that could only bring shadows. Right, because everything else you do is super-productive and fills you with light.
“Mama, you peed on yourself . . .”
My water had broken.
In a matter of seconds, I realized that I’d seen no hospital on the island. I started to panic. I can’t breathe; I don’t know how to breathe. Why didn’t I go to childbirth classes? You’ve already got a daughter, Alice; you’ve already given birth; you’ve had all sorts of classes. Yeah, sure, six years ago, I’ve forgotten all of it. How long did it take us to get here? How long does it take to give birth after the water breaks? When’s the next ferry back? Have I passed my due date? I don’t even know; I’ve lost track of time. I’m irresponsible. No, I haven’t passed my due date, because my mother would have reminded me a thousand times. Do something. Come on, get in the car and drive to the port. I don’t know if I can drive. It hurts, a lot. When my water broke with Olivia, it took me less than an hour to give birth. There wasn’t even time for the epidural to take effect. Olivia is scared. She’s about to cry.
“I’m fine, Oli. It’s Ruby; she’s already on her way. Let’s go to the car, babe.”
I couldn’t walk. A powerful contraction made me buckle, and I fell to the ground.
“Why is Ruby hurting you, Mama?” Now Olivia was crying.
Then somebody was running toward us. But he was jogging, not coming to my aid. Well, just for the first few yards, then he saw what was happening.
“Relax, I’m a doctor. Well, actually a dentist, but pulling out a baby can’t be much harder than pulling out a wisdom tooth, right . . . ? Sorry, bad joke. It’s no time for joking . . .”
He helped me sit up. The scent of his body soothed me.
“My name’s Mark.”
“Alice. That’s my daughter Olivia.”
“Hello, Olivia. Are you looking forward to having a little brother?”
“Sister,” she corrected him. “And not yet, I still have to draw a picture to welcome her.” Mark’s presence had calmed her down. I mean, it had calmed me down, and Olivia had noticed.
“I’m sure you’ll have time before it happens. Come on, let’s go to the car.”
“Are there pirates on this island?” Olivia asked Mark while he helped me stand and get into the car. I should never have given her that damned book. She made me read it to her every night.
“It depends. Do you want there to be pirates on the island?” Mark asked.
“Yessssss!”
“You’re not scared of pirates?”
“No, because they’re just little mice.”
“Oh, yeah?! Well, I’m Long John Silver! And I’m a rat!!” he said, swooping Olivia up and depositing her in the car so we could get out of there fast. Olivia cried out from pleasure, not afraid in the least.
Before we took off, Mark made a call.
“Ben, there’s a woman here about to give birth. We need to get the emergency transport ready. We’re heading to the port.”
On the way, Mark explained to me that there was no medical service on the island. They just had one paramedic, Ben, an older guy who gave first aid to patients—running IVs, performing CPR, stabilizing vitals, etc.—while they were transported to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
“But don’t worry, it’s no more than ten or fifteen minutes on the ambulance boat,” Mark said when he saw my terrified face as I tried to breathe past a contraction to keep from frightening Olivia. It had only been a couple of minutes since the first one.
I couldn’t even make it to the dock. When I tried to step out of the car, my strength gave out and another contraction hit me.
“Do you mind if I take a look downstairs to see how far you’re dilated?” Mark asked.
Just then, Ben arrived. Calling him an older guy was a euphemism, he was well past eighty, and I’d swear he had the first signs of Parkinson’s.
“Everything’s ready. Let’s go.”
“Wait. She’s dilated about ten centimeters. Minimum.”
Ruby seemed to be coming out with the clear purpose of breaking her sister’s record.
“Ten centimeters? Let me see.” Ben put on his glasses and peeked inside.
At that moment, my embarrassment was overcome by my fear and pain. Moments later, the chief of police, Margaret, joined the party, having heard the bulletin over the radio. She was a small, wiry woman of around fifty, with an unpleasant-looking face. Don’t call me Maggie, my name’s Margaret, her gaze seemed to say. After confirming the degree of dilation, she offered her verdict: “I don’t think this girl’s going to make it to Hyannis.”
They spoke as if I couldn’t hear them, as if my opinion didn’t even matter. But actually, I was thankful for it, because I was in no state to make decisions.
“Let’s go to my office,” Mark said. “Alice, you’re going to honor the island’s well-known nickname: Mom’s Island.”
He and Ben picked me up while Margaret took care of Olivia. On the way, to show me I was in good hands, Mark told me the Boston Globe had written an article about Ben called “A Lifesaver on the Island,” because at eighty-six he was the oldest paramedic in the United States, handling around three hundred calls per year, always with the utmost professionalism.
When we went into the dental clinic, there was a patient in the waiting room.
“Barbara, your filling’s going to have to wait, but you’re going to be a big help. Can you assist us in pulling a wild colt into the world?” Mark said in a rush. “She’s one of the vets from the horse ranch,” he explained, as though that would calm me down.
Barbara didn’t hesitate a second. She jumped into her role as if she’d been there waiting for us the whole time. She smiled at me with blue cat eyes and lovely dimples. Opening the door to Mark’s office, she cleared a path for us.
“All right, up into the chair,” Mark said. “On the count of three.”
“No, don’t put her up there,” Margaret cut in. “She’s better on the floor, on her side, her left side, so there’s no pressure on the vena cava.”
They laid me on the floor, on top of various waterproof sanitary gowns. At that point Gail, the chief of the volunteer fire department, and Mayor DeRoller joined the entourage. Months later, I observed that women had the most important jobs on the island. But right then, I could only concentrate on breathing, in short, painful gasps.
“That’s it, breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, nose, mouth. Very good,” Mark encouraged me. “Resist the impulse to push. Let her come out on her own. Terrific, you’re doing a great job, Alice.”
Despite the scene around me, I was surprised by how easy and natural it was. Everything turned out well except for Olivia out in the waiting room, who didn’t have time to finish her drawing to welcome her sister, and for Barbara, the veterinarian, who against all expectations became a little faint during the birth. I said, “What did you expect, that a colt would come out of my womb?” The moment I held Ruby in my arms, I felt an enormous peace. Nothing was important anymore. I had come to the island looking for Chris. And I had found him. Chris was inside Ruby.
After I pushed out the placenta, and with Ruby happily clinging to my breast, they put me in the ambulance boat along with Olivia to take me to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. Various onlookers had come over to snoop or to show their support and solidarity, who knows? I realized that news spread fast on that island, and no one went unnoticed. That was favorable for my purposes.
From that day on, I was known as “the redhead who set foot on the island and gave birth.”