Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
1982
C huck watched helplessly as the French teenager Vivian was carried on a stretcher to the awaiting ambulance. She’d just lost consciousness, and her mother was out of her mind with worry, alternating between howls of fear and stricken silences. She boarded the ambulance with Vivian. Chuck made eye contact with her as the doors were shut between them. It seemed clear that he would never see her again, that their strange story was over. The ambulance burst out of the harbor, following the others that had already left, taking other shipwreck survivors off to the hospital.
Chuck shivered and crossed his arms. The fear and adrenaline he’d felt out on the water, looking for Vivian and other survivors, crashed in on him. He thought he might throw up.
It was then Chuck realized Clarence, the lighthouse keeper, remained beside him, stroking his grizzled beard. Chuck wasn’t sure if Clarence remembered him, either. The night had taken its toll. Around them, members of the Coast Guard hustled, talking about what they’d do about the wreck once the sun came up. They ignored Chuck and Clarence. They weren’t needed anymore.
Chuck had the sudden and colossal urge to run home and gather his daughters and wife around him. He wanted to hug them and make sure they were safe.
Chuck caught Clarence’s eye. Clarence gave a firm nod as though he understood and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go,” he said.
There was nothing left to see.
Clarence and Chuck got into Clarence’s truck and drove through the inky-black night. The moon had fallen once more behind the clouds. Chuck wondered if Travis was doing all right in the lighthouse and prayed there wouldn’t be another accident out on the water. Maybe Travis wasn’t experienced enough to handle the lighthouse position. Maybe Clarence was naive to think he could leave him alone for even a few minutes.
“What kind of ship was that?” Chuck asked, his voice barely heard over the truck's engine.
“It looked like a cruise ship to me,” Clarence said.
“A cruise ship? This late in October in New England?” Chuck shook his head. It wasn’t impossible, but it was rather unlikely. Tourism season was over. And most people didn’t appreciate a sail on the stormy seas unless there was a promise of warm sun the following morning.
Clarence grunted as though he didn’t know and didn’t care and turned onto Chuck’s street. Chuck wanted to ask Clarence if he thought there were many casualties, but he wasn’t sure how Clarence could possibly know that when Chuck didn’t know himself. Clarence pulled the truck into the driveway and kept the engine on. Chuck reached over to shake Clarence’s hand. “It was a heck of a night,” he said gravely.
He didn’t say it was a pleasure to meet you because he wasn’t sure he felt it.
“It was good of you to find the girl,” Clarence said. “Come back and see us at the lighthouse sometime. It gets awfully lonely up there.”
Chuck said he would although he couldn’t imagine it right now.
Clarence backed the truck out of the driveway and disappeared around the corner, leaving Chuck in the darkness of his front yard, standing in the cold wind like a fool. Again, he had an out-of-body experience, remembering that this was his front yard rather than the one he’d built and cultivated in Nantucket. He couldn’t go back there. This was home.
It felt like whiplash.
What time was it? Two? Three? It felt as though he’d time traveled.
Chuck got to the front door and turned the knob. It was locked, which was strange. They never locked it because they trusted all their neighbors, and it wasn’t tourist season, so nobody strange was milling about. He certainly hadn’t locked it himself. But when he’d left, he’d gone through the back, and he remembered now. So he headed around the side, through the fence, and tried the back door. But that was locked, too. He was suddenly stumped. He couldn’t breathe. Standing on the back porch, he gazed up at his pitch-black house and considered what to do.
Of course, he could bang on the door and wake everyone up. He imagined Oriana and Meghan sobbing, asking him where he’d been and why he was acting so scary. He imagined Mia’s eyes.
But that was when it occurred to him. Mia was the only one who could have locked the door. It meant that Mia had woken up, seen he was gone, and locked him out. Maybe she knew he hadn’t taken his keys.
His palms were clammy. Tears sprang to his eyes.
Does she want me out already? I just moved to Martha’s Vineyard to be with her! he wondered, his stomach heaving.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he could be rejected like this. And why was that? Was he really so arrogant to believe he could have whatever he wanted?
Then again, hadn’t he only begun his affair after he’d learned that Margaret had cheated on him first?
But what kind of life was that? he wondered. Was he perpetually on the hunt for revenge? He was a child.
But none of these anxious thoughts would get him inside where it was warm.
Chuck checked all the windows on the ground floor. They were locked tightly. There was no way in.
What could he do?
Despondent and out of his mind, Chuck walked back down the beach toward the lighthouse. Its comforting light went over his face and ducked back through the night before returning. The walk there felt familiar now, as though he’d done it far more than once.
Clarence’s truck was parked out front. This time, Travis was outside, staring out at the water, smoking a cigarette. Chuck wanted to tell him to quit, saying that it was awful for him. But he guessed that Travis was smoking one of his father’s cigarettes and that his father had given him the cigarette freely. Chuck couldn’t go against Travis’s father, not in matters of parenting.
“He’s angry with me,” Travis said as Chuck approached. He didn’t seem surprised to see him again. “He thinks I wasn’t paying attention properly. He says I should have seen the boat before it started really sinking.”
Chuck wanted to say that Clarence was the real lighthouse keeper, not him. It was his responsibility. He shouldn’t blame his child for not seeing the shipwreck right away!
Chuck hated that Clarence put the blame on Travis’s shoulders. When Chuck was a teenager, his own father acted similarly, and Chuck felt the weight of a thousand tons.
Instead of saying all that, though, Chuck shook his head and offered, “It was a dramatic night. I’m sure your dad said a lot of things he doesn’t really mean.”
Travis puffed his cigarette and looked down at the sand. It was clear he’d failed some kind of test.
Chuck considered telling Travis that his wife had locked him out, but he didn’t know why. But it wouldn’t really be the truth. He knew why Mia was upset.
She didn’t trust him.
Why would she ever trust him?
“I’m headed home,” Travis said.
“I thought you lived here,” Chuck said, gesturing to the lighthouse.
“My dad does,” Travis said. “But we have a little house by the woods, too. That’s where I stay most days. And I guess my old man won’t let me handle the lighthouse by myself anymore. Not now.” He kicked the sand and looked as though he wanted to say something else but didn’t.
Again, Chuck considered asking Travis whether he went to high school or had plans to leave the island and go to college. But it seemed as plain as day that Travis didn’t have plans beyond going to bed within the hour.
“Could you take me to the hospital?” Chuck said because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and he didn’t feel like heading up into the lighthouse to find Clarence brooding and staring out at the black ocean.
“You want to check on them?” Travis asked, furrowing his brow.
Chuck’s chest ached. He wanted to know if Vivian was all right. Head wounds were heinous; they could turn on you at a moment’s notice and knock you unconscious again. He prayed his rescue mission hadn’t been for nothing.
Travis and Chuck got into Clarence’s truck. It was just forty minutes since Clarence had driven Chuck back home. Chuck was emotionally and physically exhausted. It was hard to remember why he couldn’t sleep earlier in the night. Now, he felt as though he could sleep for days.
Travis pulled into the parking lot at the hospital and parked.
“You don’t have to come in with me,” Chuck said as he unbuckled his seat belt.
“I don’t have anything better to do.” Travis shrugged.
Travis and Chuck entered the hospital at four o’clock in the morning. A few people who looked to be the shipwreck survivors sat in the waiting room, sleeping on one another’s shoulders. Chuck assessed them, remembering what Clarence had said about them being on a cruise ship. It was true that they looked wealthy or as wealthy as shipwreck victims could look. Their hair had dried strangely, and they looked gray-faced and upset.
Feeling a jolt of bravery, Chuck strode to the front counter. “Hi, I’m here to check on a relative of mine. Her name is Vivian. She came in with the rest of the shipwreck survivors.”
The woman at the front desk arched her eyebrow. “We haven’t been able to put everyone in the system yet. There are so many of them and so few of us.”
Chuck’s heartbeat fluttered. “Of course.”
“Why don’t you wait for a while? I’ll come find you when we know more,” she said.
Chuck turned to Travis, ready to suggest that he head home. Maybe Chuck could get a cab when the sun came up. He would spend the time preparing his story for Mia until then. Nothing of the story was false; it was all terribly true. Although it sounded made up, all she had to do was call the hospital or the Coast Guard to get confirmation or read it in the newspaper.
Maybe that meant it was better for Chuck to go home after the news flowed across the island and got to Mia first.
“Oh! Monsieur!” a voice rang out through the waiting room.
Chuck twisted around to see Vivian’s mother racing toward him with her arms extended. Her eyes were frantic. She threw her arms around him again and shook with sorrow.
“She will not wake up,” she cried. “I cannot understand.”
It took Chuck less than a minute to realize that the mother—whose name was Natasha, he learned—didn’t speak enough English to understand what the doctors were saying about Vivian. He and Travis followed her through the glossy white halls of the hospital to the trauma ward, where Vivian was unconscious and in bed. Natasha shook with fear and frequently let out sobs of alarm.
Chuck was beginning to think it was fate that he hadn’t been able to get back into his house. He’d been needed here.
But how would he translate everything back to Natasha? He spun around and looked at Travis. “Do you speak any French?” he asked.
Travis gaped at him. “Why would I know any French?”
It was an honest question, but even Chuck recognized how ignorant it had been. “Never mind,” he said, taking Travis’s shoulder.
Natasha tugged his hand and led him deeper into the hospital. Perhaps because he didn’t know what else to do, Travis followed. They soon found themselves outside Vivian’s room, behind a big window, looking down on the girl. She was peaceful, her eyes closed tenderly, and her head wrapped with bandages. It looked as though she could wake up at any time.
Natasha waved to a doctor and said a lot of stuff in French, followed by, “This man? He saved Vivian’s life.”
Chuck felt a blush crawl up his arms and chest. He spoke directly to the doctor. “It wasn’t just me. We got lucky.” He wet his lips. “She doesn’t understand everything you’re saying, I guess?”
The doctor shook his head gravely. “I’m not sure how to make her understand. But her daughter is in a coma, and we don’t know when she’s going to wake up.”
Chuck gaped at him, recognizing the horror of what he had to do next. Somehow, he had to translate this devastating news to the poor woman beside him.
“Do you have anything else I can pass along to her?” Chuck asked. “Anything that resembles good news?”
“Vivian is stable,” the doctor said, palming the back of his neck. “She’s young and fit, which will help her down the line, especially if the coma goes on too long and she has to relearn how to use her arms and legs.”
Chuck took a staggered breath. Beside him, Natasha grabbed his elbow and squeezed it hard.
In French, she said something that sounded to him like tell me what’s going on! Now! Although he couldn’t be sure.
How could Chuck pass on this news in a language he didn’t speak or understand?
“Thank you, Doctor,” Chuck said, backing up.
The doctor sped off to tend to other patients. His eyes glinted with fear. Chuck had to guess that it was one of the more frantic late-night shifts at the Martha’s Vineyard hospital, a place that calmed down by nearly ninety percent when the tourists left for the season. There was nobody around—usually—to have accidents or get into drunken fights.
Now, Chuck led Natasha to the chairs alongside her daughter’s bed. Natasha was shaking. It was as though she’d forgotten that she’d asked Chuck to translate for her. Maybe she’d gotten the hint.
Chuck considered how he could translate what she needed to know. She wrapped both hands around one of his and stared at her daughter. The color drained from her cheeks.
“Natasha?” Chuck said.
Natasha shifted her eyes dreamily toward his. Was she listening? He couldn’t tell.
“Very sick,” Chuck decided to say of Vivian. “She must sleep for a long time.”
Tears welled in Natasha’s eyes. She nodded furiously as though she understood. But how could she? Slowly, she returned her attention to Vivian and reached across to touch Vivian’s hand, which was connected to several clear tubes.
Something caught Chuck’s attention. He turned to find Travis Knight still in the window, gazing down at Vivian. He looked captivated, as though he’d traveled a great distance to be here and save the day. He looked like a young man in love.
But Travis and Vivian were from separate universes. Even more than that, Vivian was now in the land of sleep, and Travis was wide awake, watching over her. They would probably never meet.