Chapter 31
WILLIAM
It was not very late, the summer sun just setting to the west, and so there were older couples still sitting on lawn chairs, listening to the radio, and children looping through games of tag.
A blond toddler, stripped down to the diaper, lay next to a sheepdog while sucking its thumb.
Everyone waved to them, a chorus of hellos and beautiful nights that made William wish he had grown up here, wondering how different life would be if he didn’t live in a city where he regularly saw dried blood on the street.
“I like it here,” he said.
“So you’re not annoyed, like the rest of the family, that I didn’t get married in Chicago?”
“I think everyone just wanted an excuse to have cake from Dinkel’s.”
“You know Aunt Pam called me to say I could have her wedding dress?”
He laughed. “I think I remember that dress. Didn’t it have a giant bow at the back? And isn’t she a lot shorter than you?”
“Yes, and yes. That was my saving grace. Kind of difficult to add five inches to the hem.”
They took turns kicking a large white rock a few feet ahead of them on the dirt path. Ever since leaving Haven House, Shay had seemed calmer, more like her old self. Perhaps they’d just needed to be alone. The scratch of katydids filled the air like static.
“Andrew told me you all went sailing today,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, I did. Did he also tell you I vomited twenty minutes in?”
“No,” she said, and laughed. It was the first time he’d heard the sound since arriving, a true Shay laugh. “Sorry, that’s horrible, it’s just the same thing—”
“I know, he told me.”
“Like brother, like sister.”
“Like sister, like brother.”
They grinned at each other, and he looked ahead to kick the rock, sending it spinning down the middle of the road.
A part of him wanted to stay here, skimming the surface.
To act like there was nothing amiss so that they could just be William and Shay, not two siblings who had barely spoken over the past year, but he knew that wasn’t right.
It would make him no better than anyone else.
“How are you, really?” he asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m—I’m, you know, fine.”
“Work’s okay? Last time we talked about it, you were saying that you wanted to look into apprenticing to become an electrician.”
“Oh, yeah, I was just talking to some guy who fixed a fuse box at the restaurant, but I don’t know, I haven’t really done anything about that.
It just seemed nice, to have that sort of very specific knowledge about something.
To work with your hands in a way that doesn’t involve people’s leftovers. ”
“I think you’d be good at it.”
He shrugged, realizing that she hadn’t answered his question. They were lapsing back into what was familiar from childhood: Shay looking out for him, making sure he was all right. He kicked the rock again, but this time it went too far, lost in the grass.
“You’re okay, though?” he asked, and he immediately hated himself for how he’d phrased the question: as a plea.
As if all he was seeking was confirmation that he didn’t have to be concerned about her, that there was no reason for suspicion.
He saw the tendril of the snake’s tail twitch.
How Shay looked up to the top of the staircase as if expecting to find someone there.
“I’m better. Nothing for you to worry about,” she said.
“I know everyone’s whispering about me. I wanted to go to a courthouse to avoid all of that, but Andrew really wanted a wedding, and he’s been planning it for nearly a year, so here we are.
I’m just doing my best to give him the weekend he wanted. I feel like I owe him that.”
She scratched her bicep. Her nails, which were always unvarnished, were painted a pale, glossy pink. William didn’t want to speculate about the meaning of this. She was getting married. Women painted their nails when they were getting married.
“Andrew—he’s a good guy,” he offered.
“He is,” Shay agreed, letting her hand fall. “I don’t know if I deserve him.”
He felt the momentum shift, like they were on a seesaw that had tipped, and he was suddenly conscious of the weight of her, as if she needed something.
He could hear the wet click of her mouth opening, but then she turned away from him.
Night was coming, cloaking the details, so that it was difficult to see the true colors of the houses, the intricate shapes of the leaves.
Shay’s face was in shadow. Her feet quiet on the path.
He sensed her withdrawing, that same blankness from dinner.
A part of him had thought that he’d confess everything to her before they reached the bar, that he would find the sister he knew from before their father died, but here she was, a mere outline in the dark.
“Of course—” He coughed, his throat dry. “Of course you deserve him.”
“Well, I’ll provide no shortage of gossip. And pixie cuts are still very in vogue,” she said, running her fingers through her hair, as if presenting it to him.
“I think it looks good.”
“You’re lying.”
There was a hardness to her words, even though they had the cadence of a joke. It was such an odd feeling, to sense that he could not read her—that there was something to distrust, something she was keeping from him. I don’t think places like that let people leave on their own, Scott had said.
“I’m not. I promise I’m not.”
Ahead of them, the path opened up to the ocean, Lorraine’s squat wooden building perched near the shore, like the last stop at the end of the earth. Lanterns lit its entrance, moths fluttering in their amber haze. Two men and a woman William didn’t recognize stood outside smoking.
“There’s the bar,” Shay said. “How about a club soda, on Mr. Pruitt?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I think I may walk a bit more.”
“Too much socializing?”
“Just a little. You know I’m not great at parties.”
She looked toward the bar, where the guests were waving her over, then turned back to him, pulling at a short curl of hair behind her ear. Unease tightened her face, or perhaps it was fear. “Just don’t walk along the eastern shore,” she said.
“Why?” He half laughed at the oddity of the request.
“I’ve heard some of the fishermen get drunk out on those docks. It might get a little rowdy. Not exactly your scene, I don’t think. Maybe just stay close to the hotel?”
“I don’t know if you need to worry about the fishermen. They’ve seemed pretty friendly.”
“Please?”
“Okay. All right.”
She nodded, forcing a smile before leaving him on the gravel path. He watched as she went inside with the others, their cigarette butts carelessly flicked to the ground—all that would remain of them after they left the island, a curl of paper and ash.