Chapter 45
JOEL
A cat followed Joel to the docks like a shadow. Its eyes were pale green, its fur black except for a spray of white at its chest. This made Joel feel like the cat was not an omen. Bad luck was pure black. This was just another animal hungry for company.
He had found his hotel room empty. He must have just missed Carmen, as the bathroom mirror was still fogged with steam, the only evidence she had been there outside of a tissue that had missed the wastebasket, ashy with mascara.
Joel was overwhelmed with currents of guilt and relief, joy and fear, and so, for a moment, all he could think to do was brush his teeth.
In the mirror, he looked like Tom had that one morning after taking LSD: on the edge of haggard, his hair a tangle and his pupils blown out.
The water by the docks was surprisingly rough given the placidity of the sky, the waves alpine and uneven.
There were two men standing on the deck of one of the crabbing boats, both older than Joel by a decade or so.
They were gesturing at the skeletons of empty cages like there was a problem.
He probably should have left them alone, but they were the only souls in sight.
“Excuse me,” Joel called.
The men shielded their eyes to find him. The black cat had thrown itself across the dock’s weathered gray planks, rolling in the sun.
“Are there any more boats heading to the mainland today?” he asked.
“Ferry’s gone,” one said.
“I know, I was asking if anyone else was sailing.”
“You need to get somewhere,” the other said, more statement than question. For the first time, Joel realized they must be brothers: their noses like button mushrooms, their hair the same shade of russet.
“Yeah, I’m leaving early.”
“Is this the fireworks boy? The one who Red said to leave be?” one asked the other.
“No, that one’s younger. Skinny like a flagpole.”
“Those stupid kids. Vince got off easy, he deserved to get blinded.”
“I’m sorry, but do you know anyone that’s sailing?” Joel interrupted. The island had a different rhythm, and he did not have time to ride it out. Shay could be knocking on the door of his hotel room, needing to discuss what they should do. She could be anywhere.
“Try Terry. He’s a few docks over. Sometimes he sails over to the movie theater in Virginia Beach.”
“Last week he told me the entire plot of—what was it called? Logan’s Run?”
“Are you actually going to leave the cages like this?”
The men were talking to themselves again, though Joel was able to extract the exact location of Terry’s boat before they completely forgot he was standing there.
The black cat sprang up and padded alongside him as he found the boat with a Welsh flag tied to its mast, a stately red dragon on a bed of green.
Terry, a man roughly Joel’s age, short and soft-spoken, was not planning on sailing but agreed to take him later that afternoon when he was done cleaning his deck.
Joel offered to pay him, but he refused, and Joel wondered if he had been in the city for too long.
This simple act of kindness felt inexplicable until he remembered how Mrs. Salter had driven him and his brothers home to the other side of town after their car stalled in the beach lot, how his entire third grade class came to visit the hospital after he broke his arm.
Small towns bred trust, and trust bred kindness.
Perhaps islands bred something even more sacred.
After bidding Terry farewell, Joel reoriented himself to the island, deciding to pass the remaining rows of docks to connect to the road he’d jogged down the day before.
He felt the hum of momentum. Shay would be at the hotel, and if she wasn’t, he’d find her at Haven House.
She wanted to be with him, he was certain of this, and especially if he offered her an escape, she would leave with him.
They had a boat, so they just needed train tickets, a taxi, and then all of this would be hundreds of miles behind them.
The cat kept trying to rub against his calves as he walked, until eventually, frustrated by his inattention, it scampered down the last pier.
Joel watched it go, feeling a small, passing sadness at this abandonment, until he noticed two figures at the end of the dock hunched in conversation, their feet dangling above the water.
Posed like friends, like sisters. One was the person with the shaved head.
The other—her face angled away so all he could see was copper hair, the same cream-colored neck he’d stroked in the early light of morning—was Shay.