The Summer House (35 page)

Through the Norman Rockwell image of a family at rest, Liz was stung by a sharp flash of fear: what would become of her if Michael left her? They had been together so long they sometimes thought and talked and moved as one. What would become of her as half a person, an amputee of marriage as were so many of her friends? And what would become of the children? Would they stay with their father, would they abandon her? And what about Danny?

All those thoughts came and went in the split second it took for her to walk from the study, survey the room, and have Michael’s eyes meet hers.

“Mom’s right here,” he said into the receiver while keeping those so blue, so familiar eyes on his wife. “I’ll
let you talk to her.” He held the receiver out toward Liz, who did not have to ask; she knew it wasn’t Danny, because Michael would have said.

“Mom?” came Mags’s frantic voice. “Where’s Danny? Will they find him soon? Oh, God, I can’t believe we’re stuck up here in Boston in this freaking hurricane and Danny is missing.”

Liz blinked and looked at Michael. He had told Mags that Danny was gone. She wondered if he’d told her anything else. He turned away and walked toward the fire. “He’ll be fine, honey,” she said, her gaze following Michael. “He’s probably taken shelter somewhere to get in out of the storm.”

“Mom, it wasn’t storming when he left, and he can’t exactly duck into any doorway or hide under any rock. He’s in a wheelchair, in case you forgot.”

“No, honey, I didn’t forget.”

Through the wires, she could hear that Mags was crying.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” her daughter said. “It’s just that I feel so helpless …”

Liz knew that feeling. It was the same empty-shelled way she’d felt when Daniel had been killed and, again, after Danny’s accident. “I know you do, honey,” she said softly, “but we have to have faith that he’ll be all right. Now put Greg on the line.”

It was another minute before Mags would relinquish the phone to her younger brother, as if not wanting to let go of her mother’s voice.

“If anyone calls the house,” she cautioned Greg, “don’t tell them that Danny is missing. There’s no need to set off any alarms.”

“I know, Mom,” he said. “Dad already told me.” Greg, the youngest, would take control, of that Liz could be certain, for Greg was quiet, intelligent—the most like Michael. She squeezed her eyes closed and reminded herself
that of course he was more like Michael than Danny was. She opened her eyes and watched her husband stoke the fire, wondering how many times over the years such thoughts had crept into her mind, and how many times she’d denied them.

After she hung up the phone, she stood there a moment, not sure whether to speak with Evelyn in the corner, interrupt Roger, or go stand with Michael. She did not know where she fit anymore in this Rockwell tableau.

“You didn’t tell them about BeBe,” Liz said to Michael, feeling guilty that she too had forgotten for a moment about her sister.

“No,” Michael replied. “Let’s get Danny home first. Hugh has agreed to keep BeBe’s predicament under wraps from the press. For now.”

BeBe’s predicament
, Liz thought. So that’s what the family was going to call it. She wondered if that was a spin Roger had devised, or if Michael had coined it all by himself.

The phone rang. Liz answered it, praying it would be Danny, or if not Danny, then BeBe to say that her nightmare was over. Liz knew she’d forgive her everything if only she would come home and be Liz’s protective sister again.

“Liz?” asked a familiar voice on the other end of the line.

Her heart began to pound. It was not BeBe.

“I’m in New Haven and I just heard the news,” the voice said. “Where is Danny? What’s going on?”

Her eyes drifted back to Michael, then down to the floor. She dropped the receiver to her side and said, “Oh, God. It’s on the news. It’s on the news that Danny is gone.”

Roger set down the magazine. Evelyn looked up from
the screen. Michael bolted toward Liz and grabbed the phone.

“Who is this?” he bellowed. “Leave us alone.”

Liz shook her head and yanked back the receiver. “It’s not a reporter, Michael,” she said. “It’s Josh. He just heard it on the news.”

At that moment someone began banging insistently on the front door.

“Don’t answer it.” Michael slammed down the receiver. “Don’t anyone answer the damn door. I am not going to have this family held under a microscope any more than it already has been.” His eyes flickered toward Liz. She could not read the expression in them.

“Barton?” someone shouted from outside where the media surely lurked, where the microscope was waiting for some little germ, some circulation-boosting bacteria.

“Barton? It’s Sheriff Talbot. Open the door.”

Michael muttered “Shit,” and went to the door.

He unlocked the bolt and opened the door. “Where is he? Have you found him?”

The sheriff stepped inside, water dripping off his worn yellow slicker. He shook his head. “It’s not about Danny. It’s about you. All of you. I have to ask you to evacuate. It looks as if the hurricane’s going to hit us full force. You have to get to the Chilmark Community Center. Bring blankets if you can. And any bottled water or canned food you have on hand.”

“I’m not going,” Liz said quietly. “I need to be here if Danny comes home.” Now that she knew Danny wasn’t with Josh, she felt even more hollow, even more scared.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the sheriff said, “but Danny won’t be going anywhere, let alone coming home in this
storm. I can’t force you to go, but anyone would be a damn fool not to, pardon my French.”

Liz looked at Michael, not because she could not think for herself, but because it was second nature for her to make decisions together with him.

“We have to go,” Michael said. “We’re right on the water.”

Liz paced to the window. “How can I?” she asked, as much to herself as to anyone. “What if he comes back and finds no one home? He’s not like others …” She began to cry. She hated that she was breaking down here, in front of them all, but she could not stop.

Then the power blew.

They were left without lights, only the orange flames from the dim fireplace.

“Shit,” Michael said again.

“You can’t stay here,” the sheriff said. “With no power you’ll lose your water. And high tide is coming. There could be a surge …”

“Think about Mags,” Roger said from across the dark room. “And Greg. Even if you want to talk to them, you won’t be able to. You know the phones go as dead as the lights.”

“Michael has his cell phone.”

“Cell phones need to be recharged.”

She knew they were right. She hated it that they were right. Slowly, she nodded. “Danny can’t possibly come back until after the storm …”

Michael nodded, then turned back to the sheriff. “We’ll be there, Hugh.”

The sheriff nodded. “Great. Because this isn’t a drill. Lives are going to be lost unless people use their heads.”

After he left they began gathering what supplies they could. They extinguished the fire in the fireplace, then piled into the car. Sheriff Talbot’s words about lives being lost rang in all their minds.

Chapter 31

Tuna was there. Liz watched him playing with kids she assumed must be his grandchildren. She stood to one side of the big pine-paneled room that was the Chilmark Community Center, where so long ago at the celebrity auction she and Josh had their first date.

Tonight, there were even more people here than at the auction back then. There was an abundance of children—kids too young to be afraid. Instead, they seemed to find great excitement in this thing called Hurricane Carol that had brought them all together in this big, friendly hall.

She looked around the room, first toward the kitchen where tall aluminum urns perked strong-smelling coffee, then at the stage on the opposite side where the humble “Don’t Tread on Me” flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was raised next to the red, white, and blue of the U.S. of A. Between the kitchen and the flags a few hundred islanders and tourists sprawled in various states of dress and undress, chatter and quiet, laughter and tears, amid sleeping bags and cots and small mounds of pillows. The lights, however, burned brightly: the
Chilmark Community Center had a generator, a necessity on an island that, when it lost power, lost virtually all contact with the world beyond.

Not necessarily a bad thing
, Liz thought, strolling toward the bulletin board, where full-sized colored sheets of paper were thumbtacked and taped.

Children’s Story Time
Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 A.M.–Noon
.

Flea Market, Saturdays, 8 A.M.
,
Whalers’ Lodge, Tisbury
.

Teach Holistic Health
.
Free the Spirit Within
.

Liz did not read the rest, because she had no interest in freeing her spirit. She had always left that sort of thing to BeBe, who seemed to have been born to be free.

She turned back to the crowd and realized that for the first time in her life, she felt as if she did not belong. Families and neighbors gathered in groups, except, of course, her own. Michael was down by the stage, talking with voters, no doubt. Evelyn had volunteered in the kitchen: she was probably organizing them while gleaning the latest island gossip. Roger was off by himself: he had brought his computer and most likely was monitoring the polls. Keith and Joe and several more agents (who must have arrived with Michael, though Liz hadn’t noticed) were commiserating, a chessboard between them. And Clay—a nurse without a patient—was there, napping or not napping (who could be sure?) to the beat from his headphones. Liz folded her arms, leaned against the bulletin board, and wondered what had happened to her wonderful family, and if it would—could—ever be whole again.

“Let’s have a sing-along!” a young woman in gingham shouted from the stage.

Liz thought someone ought to tell the young woman it was almost two in the morning and that outside Mother Nature might right now be destroying their possessions, including their homes. As the first strains of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” began to fill the hall, Liz retreated to the ladies’ room, wondering if BeBe was singing in a jail cell now, and if, somewhere, Danny was, too.

“This is against my constitutional rights,” BeBe shouted at the bars that kept her inside the now darkened, eight-by eight-foot cell. “If you’re going to hold me, you have to arrest me. And you have to turn on the goddamn lights.”

A uniformed guard appeared at the door. “Look, lady, I don’t like this any more than you do. But the power’s out all over the island and there’s not much I can do about it.”

“You can get me out of here.”

“Sorry. You’re wanted for questioning in Florida. Murder is a capital offense. Until someone can get up here to get you, you have to stay put.” He began to walk back through the doorway.

BeBe jumped up and grasped the bars. “Don’t you know who my brother-in-law is? Don’t you know I have a business worth sixty million dollars? This is illegal! You can’t keep me in here!”

This time, the guard did not reappear.

“Power’s out on the Vineyard,” a salty young guy in a slicker announced, marching into the Cuttyhunk Historical Society and shaking rain from his hat.

Surprisingly, everyone cheered, as if they relished the
fact that they would always have lights when their larger, more popular sister did not. Perhaps it gave them some sense of power over the Vineyarders, Danny thought with a chuckle, then wondered if there wasn’t a pun in there about power over power or not to be overpowered. Then he decided there was no pun there, that it was only the three beers doing his thinking.

The salty guy approached them, his wet hat now in his hand. “Looks like the
Annabella
has a problem, Reg,” he said. Reggie was sitting on a blanket on the floor next to Danny, leaning against a book rack marked “Early Settlement.”

“Shit,” Reggie said. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, if you asked the boat she might say she’s having a hell of a good time. She broke free of the pier … or rather, the pier broke free of her, since it, too, is now out in the channel, dipping around like an apple in a bobbing tub on Halloween.”

“Shit,” Reggie said again and stood up, as if wanting to run out the door of the Cuttyhunk Historical Society, dash down the hill, and rescue the catamaran from her predictable fate.

Danny felt like the shit that Reggie kept referring to. He rubbed his hands on his head. “Oh, man, Reg,” he said. “I’m sorry. This is my fault …”

LeeAnn leaned forward. “Oh, right, Danny. Like you brewed up this hurricane right there in your cellar.”

“I talked you into taking me out … You didn’t want to come …”

“Shit,” Reggie said once more.

“The
Annabella
’s not the only one out there,” the messenger continued. “Looks like there are at least a dozen boats trying to survive. But my guess is we’ve got gales over a hundred miles an hour.”

Danny whistled. LeeAnn sighed. Reggie shook his head.

“It’s worse than expected,” Reggie said, and Danny took some solace from that.