CHAPTER 34
Birdie listened to the fully fledged ruffed grouse banging its wings against the inside of the box. They were standing in the wooded area on the far side of Great Pond, well off Cahoon Hollow Road, the winding thoroughfare on which the injured juvenile had been found, and they’d just found evidence—pellet-shaped droppings—that other grouse were in the area. “She’s going to reinjure her wing if she keeps banging around in there.”
David knelt down, opened the box, and gently turned it on its side. The dappled, reddish-brown bird tumbled out, blinked at them, and flew away, its wings filling the silent woods with drumming. Birdie watched and prayed—as she always did—that the released bird would not only survive, but thrive.
“Want to go to the Beachcomber for steamers and drinks?” David asked as they walked back to his Volvo.
Birdie frowned. The Beachcomber was steeped in history . . . and it was one of David’s favorite spots. The old building—currently the home of a popular restaurant and bar—had originally served as the Cahoon Hollow Lifesaving Station. Built in 1853, and rebuilt after a fire in 1897, it was the only lifesaving station, of nine—Monomoy Point, Chatham, Orleans, Nauset, Cahoon’s Hollow, Pamet, Peaked Hill Bars, Highlands, and Race Point—that still stood on its original site.
Since well before the 1800s, the treacherous water along the Outer Cape had become the graveyard for over three thousand ships, and the men who’d manned the nine stations since the 1800s had saved over a hundred thousand lives. David had read every book on the subject, and when the Whydah Museum opened in Provincetown with a collection of artifacts and treasure from the famous Whydah Galley—a slave ship captured and captained in 1717 by the pirate Sam “Black” Bellamy, but shipwrecked two miles south of Wellfleet—they had been among the first to visit.
As much as David was drawn to the historic station, Birdie was repelled by it. Easton’s body had washed ashore on Cahoon Hollow Beach—a fact David knew—so whenever they went to the Beachcomber—which wasn’t often—it always brought back the vivid scene of her brother’s body, covered by a sheet, being carried up the steep incline and placed in a waiting ambulance.
“If you want to,” she said, trying to shrug off the memory. Drinks and steamers sounded good—especially the drinks part.
They parked behind the old building, walked around to the entrance, went inside, and discovered there was already a line. David gave the hostess their name, took the beeper she handed him, and followed Birdie past the T-shirt stand out to the patio.
“What are you having?” he asked.
“My usual.”
David walked over to the bar—which was really a window in the side of the building—and ordered a merlot and a beer, and while Birdie waited for him to come back, she watched a little boy run across the sandy parking lot toward a woman who’d just come up from the beach. “Look, Mom!” he shouted. “I found a heart stone!” The woman knelt down and he held his hand out. “You can have it,” he said, his face beaming.
Birdie couldn’t hear the woman’s reply, but she could see the smile on her face as she pulled him into a hug.
“Hold him tightly,” she whispered, hot tears stinging her eyes. “Never let him go.”
“What’d you just say?” David asked, coming up behind her with their drinks.
Birdie blinked back tears. “Nothing,” she said. “Just talking to myself.”
“Again?” David teased, handing her a plastic cup, filled to the brim.
She nodded. “Yes. You know—because I’m the only one who understands.”
“Yes, I know,” he said with a wry smile. “Well, cheers!” he said, holding up his cup.
“Cheers,” she said with a nod.
By the time a table became available, Birdie had finished a second glass, and when they were seated, she ordered her third.
“An order of steamers, too,” David said, and then looked at Birdie. “Anything else?”
Birdie quickly scanned the menu. “Scallops?”
“Sure,” David said agreeably.
The waitress nodded. Moments later she came back with Birdie’s wine and a mountain of steamers with bowls of both broth and melted butter.
David reached for a clamshell, pried it open, and pulled out the clam. Then he pulled off the black membrane, dipped it in the broth and warm butter, and dropped it in his mouth. “Mmm-mm,” he said with a grin as he wiped his lips with his napkin. “I can’t remember the last time we had steamers.”
“Probably last summer,” Birdie mused, sipping her wine. She put down her glass and picked up a clam, but when she tried to open it, it slipped out of her hands and rocketed like a projectile over to the next table. Her face turned bright red. “I’m so sorry,” she said, getting up to retrieve it, but when she did, she accidently knocked over her drink. David quickly picked up the glass, but it was too late, the red wine had already streamed onto his white slacks.
“Damn it!” she muttered, plunking back down on her seat as the little girl from the next table brought the wayward clam back to its rightful owner. “Thank you, dear,” Birdie said kindly, but after the little girl had returned to her table, she muttered, “I’m such a damn fool!”
Seeing the commotion, a waitress quickly appeared with a cloth and wiped down the table. “Can I get you another?” she asked.
“Please,” Birdie said. Then she looked up and saw the look on David’s face. “Oh, don’t start,” she said coolly.
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“You don’t need to,” Birdie said with a sigh. “You have no idea how much I hate coming here,” she added bitterly.
David frowned. “You’re right. I didn’t know. If you’d said something, we wouldn’t have come.”
“I shouldn’t have to say anything,” Birdie said, her voice rising.
“We’ve been coming here for years.”
“Not willingly.”
“Honestly, Birdie, I didn’t know it was a problem. I’m not a mind reader.”
“It doesn’t take a mind reader to put two and two together. I only come here because you like it.”
David slumped back in his seat and stared at the clams and the basket of scallops. He’d suddenly lost his appetite.
Birdie shook her head. “How could you not know?”
“I don’t know,” David said with a resigned sigh, shaking his head. “I guess I should have. Shall we go then?”
“No, eat your food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Birdie took a sip of her wine and then reached for the same clam and tried to open it again. When she still couldn’t get it open, she threw it back in the bowl, unrolled her napkin, pulled out her plastic fork, and stabbed a scallop.
As they drove home from Wellfleet in silence, Birdie felt as if the end had finally come. They didn’t know each other as well as they thought, and if they didn’t by now, they never would. She sighed. It had finally happened—she’d lost all patience with David. He had been the only person left—besides her sisters—whom she could tolerate for more than ten minutes, but she guessed their relationship had run its course. She decided she’d be better off living alone, with no one to bother her.