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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

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Faith was stunned. She had seen the way Roger had looked at
Bird, but that it had been reciprocated, and to such an extent, was a total surprise.
Clearly, no one knew what to do.
The baby was quite content to be in Pix's arms and gave her a smile that revealed several pearly teeth, happily oblivious of the fact that its mother was trying to get herself buried alive two feet away.
Eric arrived at the edge of the grave and looked down.
Bird was lying stretched out on top of the coffin with her eyes closed and her arms crossed at her breast, waiting for the earth to cover her. If it had been a funeral pyre, her task would have been more easily accomplished.
“Bird,” Eric implored, “this won't bring Roger back. Please stand up and we'll help you out.”
She didn't move.
He continued. Was there an edge of irritation to his voice? Faith thought there was and with good reason. It wasn't exactly the tribute to Roger that Eric had envisioned.
“Bird, Roger would definitely not have wanted this. Now please get up and come back to the house with me.”
Bill Fox moved next to Eric. “I'll stay with her and get her out. Don't worry. It's hit her very hard, and this is her way of showing it. I should have held on to her, but it didn't occur to me that she would really do it.”
“You mean you knew?” Eric clearly didn't like it.
“I knew how upset she was, and given that, this was the natural gesture.”
“That's an odd choice of words, Bill, but you know her better than I do.” Eric shrugged. “This is the worst day of my life, or rather Saturday was and it's just going on and on. Compared to what's already happened, this just doesn't matter at all. If you think it will help to bring her back to the house and talk with people who knew Roger, please do so.”
“I don't think she'll want to do that, but thank you.”
“No, thank you, for taking care of this.”
Eric gave one last helpless look at the motionless figure in the grave, trembled slightly, and left.
Everyone else was leaving too, many after a curious peep at Bird first. The Fraziers offered to stay with Bill, but he said it would probably be better if no one was around. Jim Sanford, the gravedigger, mumbled something about his dinner and coming back later before throwing his shovel in the back of his old pickup and bumping down the road.
Finally only Bill, Pix, Faith, and the baby were left. At Faith's suggestion she, Pix, and the baby had moved away to sit under the trees. The baby proved to be older than they had thought and a girl—a sturdy one-year-old on the point of walking, despite her unhealthy pallor. She was happy and sat playing with some pine cones, cooing and burbling softly. She was also soaked, but they couldn't do anything about it. Bird apparently didn't carry a diaper bag, but relied instead on the absorbency of several layers of cloth. They were on the point of telling Bill that they would take the baby home for the day when they saw him kneel down and pull Bird out of her untimely grave. She didn't bother to brush the dirt out of her hair or off her dress, but walked over and took the baby as calmly as she had relinquished her. Then she reached for the hand Bill offered, and they started off down the road. Halfway to the cemetery's entrance, she sat down abruptly on one of the stones in the Sanford plot and exploded.
“It's not true! It's not Roger!” she screamed over and over, through violent tears. She clutched her child to her breast. Bill held her tightly.
Feeling like voyeurs, Pix and Faith crept away, leaving Bird to the realization of the enormity of her grief, and the patient consoler ready beside her.
Always beside her.
Faith swept her hand over the thick carpet of shiny green leaves emerging from the stiff gray lichen and quickly began to pick the tiny ripe wild cranberries that appeared.
That morning Pix had arrived at her door bright and early with Samantha and berry-picking containers in tow. “After yesterday I decided we desperately needed a return to normalcy, and picking berries is about the most soothing thing I can think of,” she had announced.
Faith had to agree. Short of a day at Elizabeth Arden.
Unlike Tuesday, Wednesday was sunny with a cool breeze. The sky was brilliant blue with the kind of Rorschach clouds that assume shapes—an elephant, a dog running, the sixth-grade teacher you hated.
They were picking far out along the Point, on rocky outcroppings at the edge of a meadow that, judging from the old cellar hole and ancient fruit trees, must have been part of someone's
farm in the past. In the large open field there were still some blueberries the birds had missed, and Samantha was concentrating on them, picking a handful, then feeding them to Ben, who was beginning to resemble one of the Picts from the juice.
The berries weren't making that satisfying ping as they hit the pail, and Faith saw she had already picked several pints. She began to think about recipes. Of course cranberries and game, but a scallop-and-cranberry dish began to take shape. She also wanted to continue her quest for new and different chutneys to please what seemed an insatiable market. It would not have surprised her to see Charred Seaweed Chutney or Cherry Pit Butter the next time she was at Dean and Deluca. Wild cranberries and caramelized onions? That was a possibility. And what about shrub? It suggested long-ago childhood lunches with her grandmother at Altman's Charleston Gardens or The Bird Cage at Lord & Taylor, a tiny frosted glass of pulverized fruit. Refreshing in summer. Shrub instead of sorbet as a palate cleanser?
Her hands picked automatically as her mind stirred the pots. When Pix started talking, it took a moment to turn down the flame.
“I had to tell her. She would have heard from Arlene, and I was afraid she'd be terribly upset.”
“Sorry, Pix, I haven't been listening. You mean you told Samantha about Bird?”
“Yes, and I needn't have worried. She made a face and said, ‘That's the grossest thing I've ever heard! What did she look like, Mom? Ugh, think of all that dirt in your mouth and hair!'”
Faith laughed. It was good to find something in all this to laugh about.
“But Faith, you know what was interesting? She wasn't a bit surprised to hear about Bird and Roger. It seems he has been talking to Samantha about her all summer, how beautiful Bird is and what a rotten time she has with Andy. He takes off whenever he wants and she never knows when he's coming back.”
“Then why didn't you ever see Roger and Bird together?”
“Samantha says that Bird feels she has to be loyal to Andy. I guess she really loves him, and after all he is the baby's father.
Also I gather he can be violent, and she was afraid to have him find out. Lately she has been trying to decide whether to leave him for Roger, and judging from her behavior yesterday I guess she did. Thinking back, I do recall seeing them in the boat together, and Samantha said Bird was supposed to go with him on Friday. They were going to have a picnic somewhere, but the baby was sick.”
“Somewhere in the boat or on the island?”
“I don't know. Samantha didn't say.”
“If she had been in the boat, she might have been able to save him. No wonder she's so upset. She must be blaming herself.”
Faith thought for a moment about Bird and the men in her life before speaking. “Aren't you glad you're married, Pix? I can't imagine going through all that emotional turmoil. Not that marriage is totally without turmoil, but at least it's the turmoil you know.”
“Exactly.”
They continued to talk about the funeral. It was destined to go down in the annals of island history as the most talked-about funeral of all time, just edging out Virgil Baldwin's, where the bereaved widow wore a bright-red dress to show how happy she was that the old tyrant was finally gone.
Those who had attended yesterday's obsequies had gained a sudden popularity and found themselves besieged by sidelong invitations to come around for a cup of coffee or some tomatoes from the garden or whatever from those who were kicking themselves for missing it all.
Pix and Faith picked steadily, well satisfied with themselves and their labors, until it was time to stop and eat lunch. They went down to the rocks by the water, where Samantha was trying to show Ben the harbor seals sunning themselves on the rocks offshore. Every time she placed the binoculars against his eyes he tried to grab them, and eventually she gave up.
Faith had piled anything she could find in the fridge on her sandwich—fresh tomatoes, red onion, sprouts, lettuce, and Boursin—and was having a hard time controlling the drips, which were running down her fingers stained bright pink from the berries.
Samantha was trying to keep from laughing. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Fairchild, it's just that I never see you like this. A mess!”
“Mess, mess!” Ben chortled.
“Sharper than a serpent's tooth,” Faith said to Pix.
“Just wait,” Pix replied.
“Hey, watch what you're saying, Mom. You should count yourself lucky. It's not like we're delinquents or druggies or anything.”
“Indeed. I am thrice blessed.” Pix smiled.
“You know, it's really sad about a lot of the kids on the island. Arlene has been telling me. There is nothing to do here. Absolutely nothing. Especially in the winter. Can you imagine, the nearest mall is up in Bangor? So there are quite a few druggies. A kid Arlene really liked this year got really messed up and totaled his car, and her parents won't let her see him anymore, but she thinks she can help him.”
The Joan of Arc syndrome, recalled Faith, as several pathetic, needy, albeit handsome faces in her own past marched past.
“But where could kids on this island get drugs?” Pix asked.
“Oh, Mom, kids can get drugs anywhere if they want them enough, and anyway mostly they drink. But it's the same thing.”
They sat contemplating the cove. The breeze had stirred up the water, and several sailboats were skimming across the top, white sails and whitecaps. The schooner
The Victory Chimes
sedately made her way across the horizon.
There are so many layers to life here, Faith thought. Or rather it's like life anywhere, but we are so seldom visitors to the places we live. On the island she had a sense of being only at the surface of things as a summer person, and a transient one at that. Finding Roger's body and the funeral had been dips below, and the auction, too, with its undercurrents of tension; but she really had no idea what life on Sanpere was like for most of its residents.
“Bird is staying at Bill Fox's for a while.” Pix brought her up to date after Samantha and Ben went down to the tiny beach being created by the ebbing tide. “And Eric is still at our boathouse. He and Roger had planned to start moving into the
new house this week, but I don't think Eric wants to be alone there.”
“You mean he's afraid?”
“Possibly, but it may be more a question of loneliness, although Jill would stay with him, I'm sure. He was at her place last night. I thought he might go back to New York with some of his friends, but he decided to stay. He came by this morning to change his clothes and told me he honestly doesn't know what to do. He seems totally lost.”
“Judging from all we've heard, I think it would be a mistake for him to move back to the city. He has so many friends in Maine, and he'd just be caught up in the stress they were escaping .”
“I agree, but he's even saying he's not sure he wants to continue the business without Roger. I thought what he said yesterday was beautiful and perhaps true. Without Roger he might not be able to be the artist he was. He's thinking of teaching, and of course any of those places would be happy to have him—the Rhode Island School of Design offered both of them jobs years ago and has wanted them, even temporarily, since.”
“I haven't thought about it, but it looks like he has lost not only his dearest friend but, for the moment anyway, his livelihood. Teaching might be a good idea.” Faith paused. “I wonder where Jill will fit into his future?”
After some further discussion the two women had settled Eric happily ever after with Jill and several children in a big old house in Providence for the school year, returning to the island for the summers until it was time to retire. At which point Eric and Jill, gray haired but nimble still, would move to the island year round and await visits from their devoted children and grandchildren. Eric would surmount his depression and make more beautiful pots than ever. Jill would get him to dress better.
Satisfied, they returned to the berry picking for an hour, then went their separate ways—Faith to her hammock and magazines, Ben to a nap, Samantha to Arlene's, and Pix to the turnout of her drawers and closets that she had been trying to get to all summer.
As Faith flipped the pages, her eyes barely skimming Lacroix's new direction—inspiration or desperation—she thought instead about Eric and Roger. One of the things under the surface that they hadn't talked about during the morning was the scuttling of the boat. She didn't blame Eric for not wanting to stay alone in that huge house, no matter how beautiful. If the Prescotts had drilled holes in Roger's boat, there was no telling what they would do to Eric, whom they appeared to dislike even more. Then again maybe they were frightened by the unanticipated outcome of their prank.
If it was a prank and if it was unanticipated. There was the unavoidable fact that Roger had died because of it. And the Prescotts might have known of his penchant for grass. They couldn't have been sure he would smoke that day, but maybe they had hoped to get lucky.
That made it murder.
And with one gone, it might be more than some varieties of human nature could bear not to have a shot at the other. Or if not literally a shot, something else deadly. Faith hoped Eric was being careful about what he ate. No mushroom casseroles left by a kindly friend at his door, for instance.
She wondered why Pix hadn't brought the subject up, or why she hadn't herself. Maybe it was that talking about it made it more real, more dangerous. And they were trying to keep Eric safe.
They were both invited to the Fraziers' for dinner that night, and Pix called Faith at four o'clock to remind her to bring the quilt top with her. Louise was an ardent quilter and had asked to see it. She had left the auction before the quilt was put up and regretted it, although she told Pix she was glad Faith got it. Faith was secretly hoping that she might prevail upon those itchy quilting fingers to do the job for her, but she was not too optimistic. In her experience, quilters were second only to the Jehovah's Witnesses in their proselytizing. She could hear Louise and Pix chorus now: “It will be so much fun to quilt. I'd love to do it, but wouldn't want to take it away from you. It's like eating peanuts!” Pix had actually said this to her once.
Faith had never had any particular difficulty stopping herself when eating peanuts, and she knew that the quilt would be one of those things she would forsake for anything from cleaning her bathroom bowl to perusing Addison's
Essays.
Samantha and Arlene appeared for tandem baby-sitting. Faith had left food for them, but they came armed with their own Pringles. She sighed at the foibles of youth and told them there was plenty of Diet Coke, their preferred beverage, in the refrigerator.
She stopped to pick up Pix, and it didn't take long to reach the Fraziers' house, set high on a knoll overlooking the harbor at Sanpere Village.
Louise Frazier opened the door. She was wearing a long Marimekko dress with large windowpane checks in white on black. Around her neck was a heavy silver necklace made by an artist on the island. She was tall, with gleaming white hair, and the total effect was stunning. Never one to hold back, Faith told her how lovely she looked.
“Thank you. This is one of my favorite gowns. I bought it many years ago in Finland and never get tired of wearing it. Now let's see that quilt before the others get here.”
Elliot Frazier walked into the room. He had dressed up too, in a well-worn brown velvet jacket with a slightly equestrian look to it and an Oscar Wilde bow tie. Not the at-home garb of most retired Maine postmasters, Faith reflected, but then you never knew with Maine.
“Now Louise, let this poor young woman have a drink first before you start in with all that quilt talk. We have a nice Chardonnay, from the Bonny Doon winery in California, that you might like to try. We visited the winery last spring. Beautiful country. There's also gin and tonic, vermouth, whatever you want.”
Faith asked for some wine. She had heard good things about this small vineyard near Santa Cruz, but hadn't sampled the wine.
Glasses in hand, they spread the quilt over the sofa. It looked almost alive, the colors were so intense. Yet at the same time they
blended well together; the effect was perfectly harmonious, and in the end calming. Faith thought again that it was a Maine quilt. She could point to the fabrics and remember just where she had seen the color duplicated in nature—the tall pine by the cottage, the silver-gray of the ancient apple trees on the Point, the pink granite with sparkling flecks of black and white lining the shore, the jade-green hues the water sometimes assumed.
BOOK: The Body in the Kelp
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