When Will woke up the next morning, Sarah was in the rocking chair across the room. Asleep, her chin touching her chest, she was dressed in the clothes she had been wearing the previous night, a small blanket pulled around her. Will stirred under the covers, watching her. More than anything, he wanted to call her, have her come to him. He felt crazy, passionate, full of feelings he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘What?’ Sarah asked, waking with a start.
Propped up on his elbow, Will stared at her. What would she think if he climbed out of bed, walked over to her chair, leaned down, and kissed her as they had last night? The down quilts had done the trick, warmed him through to the bone.
‘You slept in that chair?’ he asked.
‘Mmm,’ she said, rubbing her eyes. ‘Guess I did.’
‘Couldn’t have been too comfortable,’ he said. ‘Does your neck hurt?’
She arched her back, shook her shoulders. Without waiting for an answer, Will got out of bed. Walking over, he kissed the top of her head. The room was colder than it had seemed when he was still under the quilt. He rubbed the back of her neck and her shoulders. She leaned into his hand.
‘I dreamed last night …’ he began, trying to remember.
Waiting for him to go on, Sarah didn’t speak. But she was sitting in a rocking chair, and very softly she began to glide back and forth. Will’s mind filled with images from the night: feelings of fear and love, soaring flights over water, boys playing at the bottom of a frozen pond, he and Sarah holding each other and refusing to let go.
‘What did you dream?’ she asked after a few seconds.
‘Of you,’ he said simply.
Sarah reached up, caught his hand. He had been rubbing her neck, but he stopped. He felt her nod, and she glanced up.
‘So did I,’ she said. ‘Dream of you.’
There was so much more Will wanted to say, but he couldn’t find the right words. He was battling with himself; he wanted to carry Sarah across the room, take her to bed. And he wanted to tell her to wait while he got dressed, go outside together, and watch the sunrise as they had on Thanksgiving morning.
Her chair creaked on the old floorboards. Will laced fingers with Sarah, kissed the back of her hand. Her blue eyes were bright, alert in spite of the fact she had just spent the night sitting up. He didn’t trust himself to speak, because what he wanted to tell her seemed so unbelievable. Will was in love with Sarah.
Everyone had breakfast at the kitchen table, then went off to do their own things. Will and George took the Jeep across the island to make sure the storm didn’t do any damage to the plane. Mike went out to the barn, and after a while Sarah went after him. Hearing Aunt Bess in her sewing room, Snow knocked quietly on the door.
‘Come in, dear,’ Aunt Bess said, sitting at her huge black sewing machine. With half-glasses resting on the tip of her nose, she wore a cherry-red wool dress covered by a soft charcoal-gray shawl.
‘Am I disturbing you?’ Snow asked.
‘No, not a bit. Is there something you need?’
‘Just,’ Snow blurted out, ‘I think we should have a party!’
‘A party?’
‘Yes, it’s our last night, and we have so much to celebrate, Mike being rescued, and …’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Bess said, smiling up from her work. ‘I sent over to Hillyer Crawford’s for some lobsters, and I have a cake all ready to mix up and stick in the oven. I adore parties, and we never get to have them around here.’
‘Oh. Well, I’m glad we’re having one tonight,’ Snow said, nodding with recognition at a fellow party planner. She backed toward the door. ‘Guess I’d better leave you to your work.’
‘Please stay,’ Bess said with an edge that let Snow know she really meant it. ‘I’m just finishing up another quilt for Sarah to carry back with her. We might as well save the shipping charges, right? Oh, just push those magazines aside and sit on the window seat. Give that kitty a nudge.’
‘Right,’ Snow said, making room for herself. Carefully lifting the sleeping cat, she held him on her lap. She watched Aunt Bess smooth the field of white, her fingers magically spreading the down into place, stitching so fast, Snow could hardly follow the motion.
‘Have you seen Sarah’s shop?’ Aunt Bess asked.
‘Yes,’ Snow said. ‘Have you?’
‘The one in Boston, many years ago. I’ve never visited her place in Fort Cromwell.’
‘Her shop is beautiful,’ Snow said. ‘Like a place you might find in England.’
‘I loved England,’ Bess said. ‘Arthur took me there once, and we went to London and Stonehenge … it was marvelous.’
‘You’re lucky,’ Snow said. ‘Maybe you’ll go again someday.’
‘I don’t get off the island much,’ Bess said, pressing lightly on the treadle. Peering down, she saw that she had run out of thread. She stopped, dropped her glasses from her nose, and let them dangle on the chain around her neck while she reached for a small tray of bobbins.
‘Let me get that for you,’ Snow said, passing them over.
‘Thank you,’ Aunt Bess said, selecting a small metal spool of white thread. ‘It’s been so nice having you and your father here with Sarah. Especially considering what happened yesterday … we would have lost Mike if it weren’t for your father.’
‘I know,’ Snow said solemnly.
‘I suppose Sarah plans to take him home with her.’
‘I don’t know,’ Snow said, sensing that Aunt Bess was trying to get the story out of her.
‘We certainly love having him here.’
‘Oh,’ Snow said, feeling guilty for how badly she wanted Mike to fly home with them. Mainly for Sarah, but also because she wanted him to return with them to Fort Cromwell so they could do fun things together.
‘He makes us laugh, especially when he and his grandfather get going …’
‘Really?’ Snow asked. She hadn’t heard Mike crack many jokes; in fact, she had heard him say very few words.
‘He’s an island boy, just like his father.’
‘His father?’ Snow asked, her curiosity piqued ever since Mike had mentioned him the day before.
‘Yes, although I probably shouldn’t have mentioned him. We don’t look very kindly on Zeke Loring here in this house,’ Bess said, concentrating on threading the needle. She licked the end of the thread, twisted it, then bent down toward the presser foot until her cheek rested on the section of quilt she was sewing.
‘Can I get that for you?’ Snow asked.
‘That’s so helpful, just like Mike,’ Bess said, sitting back.
Snow did a little thread magic. She poked the thread through the eye of the needle in one try: It had never failed, not once. Once she had done it with her eyes closed. Her mother couldn’t believe it.
‘Wonderful,’ Bess said, fitting the bobbin into its little silver case.
‘You don’t look kindly on Mike’s father?’ Snow asked in a calm voice, very gentle, not wanting to spook Aunt Bess.
‘Not because he’s Mike’s father,’ Aunt Bess said. ‘We’ve adored Mike since the day he was born. But because he hurt Sarah so badly. Left her standing at the altar.’
Snow gasped. ‘No!’
‘Oh, yes,’ Aunt Bess said, her lips set tight. ‘On her wedding day, or what would have been her wedding day. She was with child, although none of us knew it at the time. I made her dress myself.’
‘She was wearing it, and he just …’
‘Never showed up,’ Aunt Bess whispered, shaking her head.
‘That’s horrible!’ Snow felt crushed, thinking of Sarah being left at the altar.
‘I know. She was a beautiful girl. So bright and happy and kind. A truly unusual child, the way she cared so much for other people. She lost her mother so young, and she looked after her father all those years. Then, finally, she went off to college in Boston. I was so thrilled, a chance for her to really live life and get away from this lonely place, and what do you think happens?’
‘What?’
‘She came home for the summer and fell madly in love with the biggest troublemaker on the island.’
‘Zeke Loring.’
‘That’s right.’
‘If he was so bad, why did Sarah love him?’
‘He was handsome and terribly funny. Sarah would bring him by, and he’d make us all laugh for hours at his stories. Everything had a dangerous, hilarious edge. But honestly, Snow? Sarah was beautiful herself, sweet just the way she is today, and she could have had any boy in Boston. I think she chose Zeke because he was from the island. This is Sarah’s place.’
‘She was pregnant with his baby,’ Snow said sadly. ‘And you made her dress, and he just left her … where was the wedding? In Boston?’
‘Oh, no, dear. Right here. In the island chapel,’ Aunt Bess said.
Snow gasped again. That such a terrible thing could have happened right here, in Sarah’s place. This idyllic island! More magnificent than Yorkshire, more enchanted than Stonehenge, she loved Elk Island even more than she could imagine loving England.
‘I don’t think we saw it on our walk,’ Snow said.
‘The other direction, dear. Way across the eastern moors. A tiny little church facing the Atlantic, nothing but the sea between the congregation and France.’
‘I wish I’d seen it,’ Snow said.
‘It’s a pretty spot,’ Bess said, plumping up the quilt. A cat scooted out from underneath.
‘Does Zeke still live here, on the island?’
‘No, he’s dead. Drove into a tree that same summer he was supposed to marry Sarah, with one of those summer girls from up-island. Both of them killed instantly. Zeke never even got to see his son.’
‘Poor Sarah and Mike.’
‘He’s buried in the churchyard. Just like his parents and Sarah’s mother and all the other islanders. That’s where George’ll go when his time comes. I’ll lie with Arthur in Rhode Island, though sometimes I wish I’d brought him up here instead.’
‘I can understand,’ Snow said. ‘I love it here.’
‘I love having you.’
‘But we have to leave tomorrow.’
‘Too soon, too soon.’
‘I wish we didn’t have to go.’
‘So do I,’ Bess said. ‘And Sarah’s father …’ She gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘We’ll have to take cover for a week after your plane takes off. He won’t be fit to live with. You have no idea how he feels about Sarah. The apple of his eye, not that he’d ever show it. And if she takes Mike with her …’
Aunt Bess shivered again, staring out the frosty window at the fields of endless white, her wrinkled old hands smoothing out the snowy quilt that resembled the outside landscape. Snow thought of that white wedding dress, just a little older than Mike, and wondered where it was now, whether Sarah might ever wear it again.
‘Well, it’ll be a special dinner tonight,’ Aunt Bess was saying. ‘Even though it’s sad to think we’ll be seeing you off tomorrow.’
‘If we even go …’ Snow said, wishing they could all just stay on the island forever.
Sarah sat on a tall crate, watching Mike take apart the old lobster boat engine. He had installed a woodstove in one of the old sheds, and he had the place very warm. Sarah arched backward, trying to get comfortable. She had woken up with an ache in her lower back. Will had been rubbing her neck, and nothing in the world would have made her tell him to stop, that the pain was much lower. It ached in a knot at the bottom of her spine, shooting down her legs.
The lapstrake boat took up most of the space. Dressed in navy blue work clothes, Mike was covered with grease from head to toe. Frowning as he worked, he reminded Sarah so much of his father that she blinked hard to shake the vision. Seeing Zeke when she looked at her son didn’t make her happy.
‘Are you sure you’re warm enough?’ Sarah asked again.
‘Mom,’ he said warningly.
‘Well, sorry. It’s not every day my son falls through the ice. Excuse me for thinking you might still have a chill.’
‘What about Will? Aren’t you worried about him?’
‘He’s –’ Sarah stopped herself. She didn’t trust herself to say one word about Will Burke. The conversation stalled, but Mike didn’t seem to notice. He was a good mechanic, and he loved working with engines. He had been so upset, getting fired from Von Froelich Precision. According to Mike, he had gotten caught trying pot with another mechanic. He said he hadn’t liked it, and he wouldn’t necessarily smoke it again. Sarah believed him. She didn’t approve of every single thing he did, but she trusted him to tell the truth about it.
‘Do you miss working on race cars?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It never felt real.’
‘Really?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Toys for rich guys,’ Mike said.
Sarah hid her smile. She felt so proud that her boy would have such a down-to-earth attitude. All the high school boys had envied him, and he had worked late every Saturday on cars that most men would only dream of driving.
‘You’d rather mess around with an old lobster boat?’ she asked.
‘Any day,’ he said.
‘Just like your father,’ she said.
Mike nodded. He didn’t say anything, but he glanced over. Pushing the hair out of his eyes, he left a black streak on his forehead. Knowing how Sarah didn’t like talking about Zeke, he just waited.
‘Is he the reason you came out here?’ she asked.
Mike shrugged.
‘I’d rather think that than what I’ve been thinking all along,’ she said, her heart pounding almost as hard as it had been yesterday when he was deep in the pond.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘That you hate me.’
He exhaled impatiently. Reaching for a wrench, he knocked over a whole tray of lug nuts. Crouching down, he began to locate the nuts with his right hand, place them into his cupped left. His hands were dirty, and to Sarah they looked so big. Her son was enormous, and staring at him as she wanted to deny what she had just said, she felt her eyes fill with tears.
‘Mike?’
‘I don’t hate you, Mom.’
‘Then why’d you run away?’
‘I didn’t run away.’
‘You did! You quit school just like that, left your job, walked out of our house with your backpack, and started hitchhiking. I know, I was there. Don’t you remember how I found you on the highway, you had your thumb out and –’
‘I wasn’t running away,’ he said, looking straight at her.
‘Then what?’
‘I was coming here.’
Running to something, not away from it … Sarah understood the difference. Sitting on the crate, she drew her knees up, trying to make herself small and tight. In spite of the woodstove, she felt so cold.
‘Because of your father?’
‘He’s dead,’ Mike said. ‘Why would it be because of him?’
‘To find out where he was from?’ Sarah asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Mike said.
‘It would make sense to me, your wanting to know more about your father. I know I’ve never talked about him much.’
‘I’ve found out a lot,’ he said. ‘But you can tell me more.’
Sarah nodded. It took effort to push Will from her mind, but Ezekiel Loring had been the sun, the moon, and the stars to her for a hundred days. She had counted one time, from their first date in the spring of her freshman year until the day he wrapped his pickup truck around an oak on Birdsong Road.
‘Zeke could fix anything,’ she said. ‘You get that from him. He was funny, and irreverent, and smart. He was a beautiful boy. I know I should say handsome, but that doesn’t do justice … he was beautiful, Mike. Just like you.’
‘Huh.’
‘We’d known each other forever, but we met again one night in April. I was home for school break, walking along the bay. There was a half-moon, and I was staring at it. I remember hearing an engine, it was Zeke on his motorcycle. He just pulled over, and I got on. Just like that. He drove me all over the island, looking at the moon.’
‘Yeah?’ Mike said.
‘Did you find his little house? Over by the Hollow, fifty or so acres in from his parents’ farm? I showed you once when you were young.’
‘I remember,’ Mike said, trying to sound sullen, but not truly succeeding.
‘So you found it?’
‘Yeah. It’s just a little fishing shack, abandoned now. Weeds growing inside, and ivy climbing out the windows.’
‘Really?’ Sarah asked, surprised by how that made her feel sad. ‘I loved it there. We fixed it up. I made white curtains on Aunt Bess’s sewing machine, and we planted a garden. Zeke found a big, hollowed-out rock, and we used it for a birdbath.’
‘Oh,’ Mike said. He had always liked watching birds, more than any of his friends did, and maybe it was dawning on him that he had gotten that from his father. Sarah had always believed he had.
‘We loved each other, Mike,’ Sarah said. ‘We fought like crazy, but we wanted to be together. One time we almost broke up. I ran out of the house and left my white sweater behind. When I went back to get it, Zeke wasn’t there. But he had arranged my sweater beside his leather jacket, as if they were people sitting up straight on the love seat, with the arm of his jacket around my sweater.’
‘He wanted you to stay,’ Mike said.
Sarah smiled sadly, because that was only part of the story.
‘Was that where we were going to live after I was born?’
‘I wanted him to come back to Boston with me,’ Sarah said. ‘I was starting the shop, you know? He wasn’t making much of a living out here, but he didn’t care. He loved it. I guess it’s why he stood me up. We hadn’t done a very good job of talking things through.’ Sarah spoke mildly, as if to counteract the devastation of that last day, being left at the church.
She had wanted to take her island lobsterman and fix his life. She remembered all the plans and dreams: hers for him. He was handsome and smart; he could go to college, maybe to business school. As soon as he got successful in whatever field he wanted to try, they could buy a house on Beacon Hill, a cottage on the Cape, a dory for their kids, a recreational lobster license for him.
‘He wanted to stay here,’ Mike said.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Instead of moving to Boston?’
‘Instead of marrying me, I think.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘We were too young to get married, Mike,’ Sarah said gently. ‘But we had you coming.’
‘He knew about me?’ Mike asked, looking scared. Was he afraid of hearing the answer? That Zeke had known he was going to be a father and abandoned them anyway? That he had died with another woman? Sarah could hardly bear to tell him, but she didn’t want to lie.
‘That I was pregnant, yes. But he didn’t know about you, honey. He didn’t know he was going to have Michael Talbot.’
‘Whatever.’
‘If he’d known you, it would have been different,’ Sarah said, lying now, unable to stand the hurt in Mike’s voice. She doubted that any baby, no matter how amazing, could have induced Zeke to stay. He was on a wild ride, and a wife and child weren’t invited along.
‘Life would have been better if he’d been with us,’ Mike said. ‘We could have been happy, all of us living together.’
‘It didn’t happen that way,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘Your father had other plans.’
‘You’re the one who wanted to leave the island!’
‘He wouldn’t have stayed anyway, Mike. He wasn’t ready to marry me.’
‘We could ask him, Mom,’ Mike said, turning back to the engine. ‘But he’s dead.’
‘I know,’ Sarah said.
‘I saw his grave.’
Sarah sat still. Her son’s shoulders were so stiff, his voice so hard. He was banging on the engine as if he wanted to demolish it. Pain shot through her own back, making her flinch. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ she said softly. In all their visits to the island, she had never taken him to visit where Zeke was buried.
‘In the churchyard, have you ever seen it?’
‘I’ve seen it,’ Sarah said, keeping her voice steady.
‘That’s where you’re going to be buried, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said, knowing she had never seen Mike this upset before.
‘Mom,’ Mike said, dropping his hands to the workbench.
‘What, honey?’
‘Why’d you get sick?’
Sarah stood and walked around the broken-down old boat and engine. Mike was crying now, trying to hide it. Maybe it was the aftermath of falling through the ice or the letdown after a family Thanksgiving or the things they had just said about Zeke or the first time he had ever told her he’d hated her being sick, but Mike’s face was twisted in tears just like when he was a little boy.
‘Mike,’ she whispered, putting her arm around him.
‘Are you better?’ he asked. ‘Because Grandpa says you’re not.’
‘I am! Look at me, I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. You never looked bad, like you had cancer. You looked fine the whole time.’
Sarah didn’t reply. She had looked bad. He hadn’t seen her after surgery, the experimental procedure that had torn up her back, deformed her head until it had started to heal. He hadn’t been around during the radiation and chemotherapy. Mike had taken off right after the diagnosis, the one that had her flying to Paris and back, dead within ten weeks. She had known he was upset, but until that moment she hadn’t realized exactly how much. He had been sixteen at the time, and if Sarah had died, he would have been an orphan.
‘Look at me,’ she said, holding his face between her hands.
He blinked, trying to avoid her gaze. After ten seconds, he gave up and stared into her eyes. His cheeks were streaked with tears and grease, and his eyes wore the wounded expression she remembered from the worst sadnesses of his childhood. He blinked. ‘Yeah?’ he asked.
‘Platinum blonde,’ she said.
‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ he exploded.
‘No, Mike! I was just–’ Just trying to make light of talking about my death, she thought, unable to finish.
‘You don’t know me at all,’ he said. ‘You never have. You think bringing some turkey around is gonna make up for not having a father, and you think joking about your hair is gonna make me forget you have cancer!’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t –’
‘Say what you want, but you do,’ he said. ‘You do.’
‘I want to talk to you. More than anything,’ Sarah said, breathless. ‘I want our relationship to be better. I want you to come home when I leave, finish school, and get your future in order. If you had any idea how much –’
‘I’m staying, Mom,’ Mike said flatly.
Sarah couldn’t speak. Was she doing the same thing with Mike she had done with his father? Wishing for a future that didn’t rightly belong to him? Planning a course that suited her instead of him? Sarah couldn’t believe that. Mike had his father’s strong will and passion, but he was Sarah’s responsibility. He was her son, and he was only seventeen.
‘I’m only asking you to think about it,’ she said. She wanted to scream and rave, to take him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. It took all her will to keep her tone measured and even, to prevent her voice from trembling, to sound pleasant.
‘I’m staying,’ he said.