Chapter 43
JOEL
Joel woke up in a bed of sun. The skin behind his eyelids was the warm pink of a seashell, and he felt rested for the first time in days, weeks, months, his sleep dreamless.
But when he rolled over to feel for Shay, he found the other side of the mattress empty.
Sitting up, he put on his glasses, but there was no sight or sound of her.
The bedroom was empty, the bathroom door open, everything silent except for the taunt of a leaky faucet.
It was almost ten in the morning. He was shocked that he had slept so late, that he had slept through her leaving.
He found his underwear clotted near a bedpost, his trousers strewn across the carpet.
Perhaps Shay had gone to speak to Andrew.
If they were to be together, she had more to take care of; all Joel had to do was pack his bag once he was certain Carmen was gone.
They hadn’t talked about what Shay would tell her family.
When it came to the day ahead of them, they hadn’t talked about anything at all.
In the bathroom, he splashed his cheeks with cold water and rinsed out his mouth.
Shay’s emerald earrings, the gems as small as pinheads, rested on the sink.
Except for her engagement ring, they were the only jewelry she ever wore—a gift from her great-aunt Eleanor, he remembered, a woman with whom Shay had a complicated relationship.
She said emeralds give you wisdom, Shay had told him one early morning that spring term, when he twisted one of the studs in her ear. The ability to see the truth.
Joel had called her that summer after her father passed away.
He’d called her so many times, even though it wasn’t the same when they spoke on the telephone.
There was the fleeting privacy—her phone was in her family’s kitchen, his in a hallway by the front door, and they could never find a time when his brothers weren’t stomping through, when her mother wasn’t cooking or shuffling around in her bathrobe, asking why Shay wasn’t asleep.
But there was also the absence of physical touch.
The inability to pull her close and lie next to her, those moments of grace when everything else fell away.
He could not find his way there on the telephone, and when he asked to come see her, she said it wasn’t a good time.
Without her, he felt irritated and sluggish, his family even more distant.
Running became a chore, and sleep arrived in fits and bursts.
His mother would occasionally urge him to eat more at dinner, but otherwise no one asked him what was the matter, why he seemed to be wasting away in front of them, and so one evening, when his father told Joel to come into his office the next day, to meet some of the men he’d be working alongside next year, Joel erupted.
He told his father he’d never work for him, and if that meant he could no longer be a part of this family, that hardly mattered, as it felt like he never had been.
He went to stay with Jack in Brookline during the final month before school began.
When he told Shay, she seemed proud of him, but in the weeks after, she rarely picked up when he rang.
He told himself she needed time. Some mornings, he’d get in his car with a packed duffel and start the engine, only to turn it off again.
The school year would begin soon, and his mother had at least promised him his tuition would be paid, as if it was their final obligation.
He could sit in the cold blue of early morning knowing the sun would rise.
Outside the hotel window, the sky was brazen—cobalt and cloudless.
What would he have done differently that summer if he had known?
Would he have peeled out of Jack’s garage, skidding onto the highway?
Would he never have erupted at his father, never thrown away the stability he hadn’t realized Shay needed, that seemingly only Andrew could offer her?
His heartbeat was fast and high in his throat.
They were different people now, he told himself, and she wouldn’t go back to Andrew, not after last night.
But still, he should find her and convince her to leave the island as soon as possible.
Only two ferries left each day, at ten and at noon—he remembered Carmen, what felt like years ago, saying that felt a little cruel, that they’d have to be packed and dressed on Sunday before the morning was even over—and that felt impossible to make.
He’d have to see if there was another boat.
When he closed the door behind him, he heard the clack of heels up the stairs, and he turned to find Shay’s mother at the end of the short hallway.
Even though it was still early, she was already dressed for the wedding: amethyst dress, amethyst shoes, a gold chain clasped to her wrist. Her look of scrutiny was as sharp as the broken glass he’d found that first morning.
“Is my . . . daughter in there?” she asked.
“No, she’s not.”
She nodded, her hands at her hips. “And do you know where she is?”
“I’m not sure.”
He wasn’t certain why she’d never liked him, but he suspected it was because she sensed how much Shay had told him.
That he would always see her through her daughter’s eyes and find her brittle and withholding.
And that was true, though a sliver of him respected her in a way Shay never would.
She was strong and stubborn, just like her daughter.
He squared his shoulders back, preparing himself for further inquiry or insult. Behind another door, there was the muttering of voices, and her jaw shifted ever so slightly, like she had made a decision.
“Well, I’ll see you at the ceremony then.”