Firefly Beach (7 page)

Love expanded Caroline’s chest and made her heart hurt. She stood at Skye’s side, gazing down at her. She lay so still. Was she even breathing? Caroline watched for her chest to rise and fall. Skye’s small mouth was open slightly under the cool green oxygen mask, her upper lip gashed and swollen. Her bruised eyelids twitched with dreams.

Caroline gently took Skye’s hand. It was a sculptor’s hand, rough as a workman’s. Her fingernails were dirty with paint and clay. Bringing the tiny hand to her lips, Caroline smelled turpentine.

“Skye,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

Skye didn’t reply.

“You didn’t mean this one, did you?” Caroline asked. “You didn’t drive off the road on purpose. You were on your way somewhere.”

“Skye?” Caroline tried again. “Why did you want to see Joe?”

The sight of Skye’s face made Caroline stop. Her eyes were closed, but tears were sliding out of them, down her cheeks. Were her lips moving under the mask? The rushing oxygen sounded loud, a little unreal. Skye reached up and pulled the mask away.

“I didn’t get to the dock,” she said.

“No,” Caroline said.

“It sounds stupid now,” she said. “But it made sense at the time.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I hate sobering up,” Skye whispered. “My head hurts, and I feel like an idiot. Will you get me out of here?”

“I can’t,” Caroline said. “Not right now.”

“Maybe his father made a mistake,” Skye said, touching her bruised face. “Shot the wrong person.”

“The wrong person?” Caroline asked, feeling sick. “Who would he have shot instead?”

“Me,” Skye said.

“You weren’t born yet,” Caroline said. “You were still in Mom’s womb.”

“I wish he had,” Skye said. “Then I wouldn’t have been born.”

“If you hadn’t,” Caroline said, putting her face right beside Skye’s “I wouldn’t have had you for a sister. Clea and I wouldn’t have known you at all. Don’t say those things.”

“I wouldn’t be a killer,” Skye said.

“Oh, Skye,” Caroline said, her eyes filling with tears. It always came back to this. How could she think it wouldn’t?

Skye twitched, from pain or vodka or Demerol. Her voice was choked, her words hard to understand. Caroline wished her father were there. She wanted him to see Skye’s agony, soothe her head with his rough, kind hands, tell her to forgive herself. His mistake had brought her here. Caroline squeezed Skye’s hand. She searched her mind for something to say, something wise and comforting, but she felt too churned up herself.

“Joe,” Skye said.

“Why are you calling for him?” Caroline asked. “What do you want him for?”

“We’re connected. Don’t you feel it?” Skye asked, her eyes wide open.

“I used to,” Caroline said.

“More than ever now,” Skye continued, almost unhearing.

Caroline held her hand and didn’t answer.

Later, in the waiting room, she bowed her head so no one could see her face. How had they gotten here?

Six-feet-three, Hugh Renwick was a large man, and very strong; his ideas were huge to match.

He had been a great outdoorsman, as excessive in his sport as he was in his art and life, and he had wanted to teach his daughters the things other men taught sons. He gave them compasses and Swiss Army knives. He taught them to read the sky and mountain trails, to hunt for food.

His home had been violated by a stranger. The reason didn’t count. Hugh, thinking that dangers lurked in every corner now, wanted his daughters to be able to defend themselves. Even if his affair with James Connor’s wife was the cause of the attack.

They would drive away from the sea, north through pine woods and meadows of yellow flowers. The road followed a lazy brown river, and when Skye was young they would keep her occupied by telling her to count the red barns and black cows. Her father was so famous, the whole world wanted him, but on those trips he was theirs alone.

When they got to New Hampshire, to Redhawk Mountain, they would unload all the camping things. The trees were tall, and skinny green caterpillars dangled from branches by silken threads. Her father would help them pitch their tents; he would take the guns out of their cases. The .22-caliber rifles were heavy, especially when the girls were young, but their father taught them how to lift them slowly, to aim carefully.

Hugh’s face by the campfire was shadowed with worry, for the fact that he had three daughters and the world was a cruel place.

Caroline had sat between Clea and Skye, listening to him, hearing the sounds made by wild things in the woods. He had told them that learning to shoot was necessary, to protect themselves against predators. His girls were sensitive and kind. Others were not, and bad men existed in a kill-or-be-killed world. They knew he was right, he had said, because of the man who had come to their house. Their father had spoken so gently, as if he were telling a bedtime story.

The fire crackled. Her sisters were warm beside her, and her father drew them close. He knew they loved wildlife, kept lists of the birds they’d seen. Each had her own garden at Firefly Hill. In some ways, hunting was like a nature walk. The softer you walked, the more creatures you saw. When it was time to kill, you became one with the animal. Mysteriously thrilling, the hunt stirred instincts most humans had long forgotten, a fantastic surging of life deep inside. He talked about hunting the way he talked about art: the ecstasy of life and death.

Caroline didn’t believe it for a minute. She was thirteen, Clea was eleven, Skye was eight. Listening to their father, faces aglow in the firelight, the three girls were terrified. But they trusted him. He saw to their welfare with passion and kindliness, and if he said they should learn to shoot animals, they would.

Caroline’s first kill was a squirrel. It sat on the branch of an oak tree, its tail curled over its back. She aimed the way her father had taught her, and squeezed the trigger. The squirrel toppled over. Just like a toy on a shelf, it fell off the branch. It lay on the ground, a black hole in its white fur. Caroline felt sick.

Her father wanted them to go their own ways, to explore the mountain and hunt on their own. If such independence was terrifying for Caroline, she could only imagine how it was for her younger sisters. She used to follow Skye. She would track her, fifty yards back, as if Skye were her quarry, just watching out for her.

Once Skye was crossing a narrow bridge across a fast stream. Halfway across she lost her footing, falling into the water. Caroline laid her gun down, kicked off her shoes, and went in after her. It was early spring, and the water came from melting river ice, farther north. The frigid water slashed around her, freezing her limbs, plastering them with the dead leaves of last winter. Her wool clothes weighed her down. Up ahead, Skye kept disappearing under the water.

By the time Caroline got her arms around Skye, they were in the rapids. The white water hissed in their ears. She spit out mouthfuls of cold water. Blinded by icy spray, she caught nightmare glimpses of snakes sunning themselves on the flat rocks they passed. Bumping into logs, tearing their clothes on sticks, Caroline clutched Skye with one arm and tried to grab branches and vines with the other.

Crashing down the river, Caroline felt the stones underwater. The force would drive the sisters into deep, swirling pockets, and they would be sucked under and spit out. Craggy boulders blocked their way, too slippery to grasp. The river pulled them forward. Caroline wondered how high the falls would be; she knew they were going over. She wondered if they would die.

But then the river evened out. The rapids gave way to a wide, peaceful stream. The roar faded away to silence and birds singing. Overwhelmed with her own life, the sense of safety, Caroline began to laugh with joy. She hugged Skye. But Skye didn’t hug back. Her lips were blue. Weighed down by her jacket and boots, she felt like a sack of grain. Caroline pulled her to the riverbank. Skye was alive, and her eyes were open. But they wouldn’t blink, wouldn’t meet Caroline’s.

“Skye, we’re safe,” Caroline said, rubbing her small hands.

“Did you see?” Skye asked, her voice small and frozen. “All those snakes on the rocks back there?”

“Yes, but—”

“I want to go home, Caroline,” Skye said, the feelings breaking out. She began to cry hard. “Take me home. Please take me home.”

But Caroline couldn’t. She couldn’t talk her father out of what he thought was best. Falling in the icy river was part of learning how to be tough. Seeing snakes on the rocks was how you learned to keep from getting bitten. The lesson Caroline learned that day was slightly more disturbing: Just because she felt thrilled to be alive, overcome with rapture and gratitude, didn’t necessarily mean her sister felt the same way. It didn’t mean that at all.

Hugh had been so wrong. Caroline knew that now. Her father was dead, officially of cancer, but he had died years before, of a broken heart. Unable to bear what had finally happened to Skye, his baby, their beautiful girl, he had drunk himself to death, turning away from his family in the process. That more than the hunts themselves had filled Caroline with the bitterness she now felt. Because Skye was doing the same thing.

March 14, 1973

Dear the only Joe,

I have two sisters. Clea and Skye. Clea is better than a best friend, and Skye is our beautiful baby sister. I wish we were all in the same grade together. Sometimes we want to talk so no one else can understand, and we do. It’s hard to explain, but I know what they’re thinking and they know what I’m thinking. It’s like magic, only it’s not. It’s having sisters.

Your friend,

Caroline

June 19, 1973

Dear Caroline,

Well, he’s definitely not magic, but he’s pretty cute. Sam. Good old Sam, my baby brother. Only he’s a real baby—as in just born. Squawks like a seagull all night long. I took him out in my boat the other day, and my mother called the Coast Guard. She was really worried. Something about him not knowing how to swim (he’s about the size of a flounder), but she missed the point. The kid loves water. Loves boats too. I swear, he wanted to row.

See you later,

Joe

“M
OM ADMITS
S
KYE MUST HAVE HAD A LITTLE TOO
much to drink,” Clea said, raising her eyebrow. The night before, while Caroline had maintained watch at the hospital, Clea had stayed home with her family, in touch only by telephone. She felt guilty, and it came through in the too-bright tone of her voice.

“Like a fifth of vodka?” Caroline asked.

The day was new, and they were on their way to Firefly Hill, to pick up Augusta and drive her to the hospital. Clea was at the wheel of her Volvo, and as they rounded the headland, Caroline caught sight of the big white ships on the horizon. They reminded her of Skye’s last words the previous night.

“Did you tell Skye that Joe Connor was here?” Caroline asked.

“Oh, God,” Clea said. “Why?”

Caroline was almost too angry to say. She felt tired and rumpled from spending the night at the hospital, and she hated these triangles of sisterhood, when two would know something the other wasn’t supposed to. When she confided a worry to Clea and heard it come back from Skye. Or when she told some gossip to Skye and two hours later got a phone call from Clea, reporting the big news. Secrets among sisters were dangerous and nearly impossible to keep.

“Because she was on the way to see him,” Caroline said flatly.

“She was?”

“She thinks if she hadn’t been born, none of the rest would have happened.”

“She was drunk. I thought she’d just go to bed,” Clea said. “When she asked me about Joe’s boat…I didn’t think she’d drive. I can’t stand thinking she crashed because of me,” Clea said.

“Don’t blame yourself, Clea,” Caroline said.

“I can’t help it. I should never have let her off the phone. Or I should have had her put Mom on the line.”