A YEAR, I promised my mother to placate her sorrow. A school year, then we’ll come back.
A year, I promised myself to calm my vertigo. What I can’t find in a year, I won’t ever find. But a year from Chris’s death or a year from today? No, a year from Chris’s death. From the time you started to investigate. Don’t set yourself any more traps.
And so, with those promises behind me and a string of doubts playing over and over in my mind, we moved to Robin Island. Olivia, Ruby, my new haircut and I. Oh, and the white piano. I forgot to return it, or didn’t want to. Maybe Ruby would be the one to heed the call to virtuosity.
Now ensconced in our house at 48 Shelter Road, I still awaited two things: the picture by Diego Sánchez Sanz and the resolution of the mystery/secret/lie.
Chris’s story was to continue here, and mine was to begin. Or perhaps mine would continue, and Chris’s story would end. I couldn’t yet tell.
I didn’t finish Moby-Dick, and I didn’t take the novel to the island either. It wasn’t absentmindedness; I did it on purpose. I preferred to write the ending myself. And yes, the beginning as well.
“Call me Ishmael (Alice). Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money (over $700,000) in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore (besides my daughters) I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world . . .”