Birdlane Island

Prologue

I never thought much about the geese that flew over Birdlane Island.

The sound of them seemed to rise from the earth and climb to the sky.

Usually I would look up and turn to watch them flying until they disappeared, but I never made more of it than what Daddy had told me in his quick, matter-of-fact manner: winter was coming to Maine, and the geese were heading south.

They usually did their fall migration in September and October.

This year was a little warmer than usual, and they flew over Birdlane Island closer to November.

I always wondered what it would be like feeling as free as a bird, unafraid of leaving the island—or any land, for that matter.

Watching them turn and glide filled me with such longing.

I had reasons to feel restricted, entrapped.

But besides all that, I thought having a bird’s-eye view of us was an exciting image. How could I come close to having that? I wondered. And then one morning I remembered that there was a place that could give anyone an idea of what it was like for the birds.

Even though I was forbidden from going there by myself, I was determined to venture to the high cliff on Birdlane to watch the geese disappear off to my right this year.

The south loomed as a mysterious place that just had to be filled with birds.

I imagined that if they all flew at the same time during the day, it would look like night.

I didn’t just want to look up at them today; I wanted to look at them, look to see if I could see the world through their eyes and, for a moment at least, feel the wonder they did.

The only possible place from which to do that was the high cliff.

The cliff was known to the islanders as the Birdlane Crow’s Nest, the highest point, because from there you could see all around the island.

You could see the ocean all the way to the horizon.

Big ships like the one Mommy had worked on slid along as if the sky was a wall of ice.

I often imagined myself to be right beside her, the wind blowing through our hair, the sea embracing us.

I don’t know why it suddenly became so important for me to go see the geese this particular morning, but it was one of the first things I thought about when I woke up.

I had celebrated my tenth birthday on the last day of May, and although it was months ago, I was still enjoying the fuss, especially the fuss Grandfather had made over me.

Every birthday for me was a milestone. I tried to ignore the reason and do my best not to answer any questions about it.

No one outside of my family talked very much about it, except maybe Aunt Frances, Daddy’s younger sister, who was a private-duty nurse.

She always seemed to dwell on sad or troubling news.

I didn’t believe that was natural for a nurse who saw so many people suffering from one thing or another.

I had met many nurses who were completely the opposite of Aunt Frances.

Fortunately for me, she worked mainly in Bar Harbor and lived there.

Actually, she no longer had close friends here.

Whenever she was here and brought up my health issue, Daddy would rage at her.

Supposedly, they were twins, but I didn’t see a close resemblance, maybe because she had always been so much thinner, with big, beady black eyes.

Arguing was almost ninety percent of their conversation.

Once, he asked her to leave our house. That happened shortly before my birthday, and when my birthday came, maybe fortunately, she was on an assignment, nursing a wealthy elderly lady who lived just outside Bar Harbor, so she couldn’t attend.

She would surely have said something to infuriate or annoy my mother and ruin my party.

We had a barbecue, and many of our neighbors had been invited.

With several of Grandfather’s and Daddy’s important employees and their wives in attendance, I had never heard “Happy Birthday” sung so loudly.

It was truly as if we were shouting down fate because of what I had learned about myself.

Mommy’s face was a full moon of happiness.

Daddy, who disliked showing his emotions, at least looked very satisfied.

I thought the laughter and the music still hung over our house.

I particularly recalled how Grandfather Charlie laughed and pinched my cheek.

He wanted me to sit on his lap even at the age of ten.

He had bought me the most expensive present, a beautiful new bedroom set he and Mommy had secretly chosen.

Maybe Daddy was told, but he acted like he thought it was too expensive.

And then he said, “She had a perfectly adequate bedroom set.”

Grandfather scowled and said, “Which was why I bought it. She deserves more than simply adequate.”

Daddy quickly retreated. Sometimes I thought our family was like a cobweb of nasty comments. You could ignore them or stay stuck to them all day.

That one comment about my bedroom was the only unpleasant moment at my party, but Mommy and I were used to Grandfather and Daddy bickering.

Mommy said Daddy resented Grandfather for making him work his way from the bottom up in the business.

We couldn’t blame any of that on Grandmother Harriet’s having died six years before I was born.

She’d had an unexpected heart attack. But according to Mommy, Daddy and his father had always argued.

With Daddy’s sister, Aunt Frances, also having nasty chats with her father and Daddy, it did sound like an unpleasant family world.

This morning I didn’t want to think about any of that, and anyway, the geese suddenly pushed aside my birthday memories.

I had heard them calling to me in my dreams. Dreams were as hard as geese to capture and hold.

Sometimes I was sorry I had awoken; I wanted to stay in my dream.

Perhaps that was what I was doing that particular morning, trying to stay in my dream.

“Where are you going, Lisa?” Jamie Fuller asked when I burst out of our house as if the wind was behind me and lifting me down the few short concrete steps at our entryway, which was the only one in our neighborhood that had a distinctive dark-oak oval door.

It closed so softly that Mommy often thought it was still open.

Right now, Daddy was at work and Mommy was busy with our company’s business paperwork. Grandfather had hired her to assist with the business accounting. She had agreed as long as she could work from home. Daddy told her, “He hired you to keep an eye on me.” She didn’t disagree.

As always, I shouted to her that I was going out, and, as always, she replied with “Don’t go far.”

Everyone my age was annoyed with all the warnings and restrictions the adults threw at us. I often felt as if there was an invisible leash and collar on my neck. I know it made me angry and defiant, but always a little afraid, too. Today I was not going to be.

Jamie stood absolutely still, waiting for my answer.

“I want to go to the Birdlane Crow’s Nest to wait for the geese,” I told him. “They’re going to fly over soon. You can see them so much better there.”

He looked toward our house. He was surprised because going to the top of the Birdlane Crow’s Nest was somewhat of a dangerous thing to do, especially alone, even if you were older, very strong, and one hundred percent healthy.

“Your parents know?”

“Not exactly. Daddy is at work, and my mother is busy. I just said I was going out. She said okay.”

I didn’t like lying to Jamie and told myself that, technically, I wasn’t.

But I hadn’t added that she had said not to go far.

All mothers say that, I thought. It was what he’d think, too.

In fact, what drew me to Jamie was the way he could voice what I was thinking or feeling.

Sometimes it was like he could crawl inside me and see the world as I saw it.

“Oh. Okay,” he said.

The foot of the cliff was nearly a mile west. I had wanted to go there many times, but Daddy, especially, told me, “You can’t do those sorts of things. I don’t need any extra problems right now.”

He never did. When Mommy advised me against doing strenuous things, I could feel her love and concern; when Daddy did, I always felt he was worrying more about himself and how I could put an extra burden on him.

Mommy was soft and gentle with her restrictions.

With Daddy, it felt more like doors being slammed shut in my face.

Mommy never let me feel like any sort of extra weight on our family.

“That’s a steep climb, you know,” Jamie said. He suddenly sounded more like my father.

“So? Don’t make me afraid, Jamie Fuller.”

I squinted at him with as much fire in my eyes as I could manage. He knew that when I was determined to do something, I would do it.

“Okay,” he said. “But just wait a minute. I’m not letting you go by yourself.”

I smiled to myself. I knew he would say that, but even so, I loved hearing it, hearing how much he cared for me and about me.

He was tightening the chain on his bicycle.

He was always good at fixing things. His mother had told my mother that Jamie was born with a wrench in his hand.

When I was five, I believed it. Jamie was nearly a year older than me and lived with his parents only three houses away from ours on Slope Street.

I can’t remember the exact day we began to do things together, but I do recall that Mommy was much happier about it than Daddy, who kept threatening to build a larger house closer to the sea “so that people recognize we’ve risen above being an ordinary fisherman’s family. ”

“Why? To compete with your father and live in a mansion, too? You can be such a snob sometimes, Melville.” Mommy called him a snob so often, I began to think of it as his first name.