Do Not Answer #6
“I put it in my pocket,” her father said. “I thought I might throw it overboard.”
Lena stared at him.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
He looked down at the whistle.
“I had this idea that we’d get out where it was quiet, and maybe I’d—”
“Throw Danny’s stuff into the ocean?”
“It was just a thought.”
“It wasn’t yours.”
The words came out before she decided to say them.
Her father’s face changed.
Lena wished she could take the sentence back, but not enough to apologize.
Danny had wanted the whale trip. Her father had chosen it after he died. Danny had left the sweatshirt in the car. Her father had put the whistle in his pocket. It felt as though he were gathering pieces of Danny and carrying them toward the water.
Her father slipped the whistle into the front pocket of his jeans.
“It was there when we left the dock,” he said. “I checked.”
“Why?”
“To make sure I still had it.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
Mason stood.
“You took your coat off on the boat?”
“It’s still on.”
“Could it have fallen out?”
“Not into a locked room on an island.”
Mercer said, “Unless Keller took it.”
Keller looked tired rather than angry.
“When?”
Mercer pointed toward the door.
“At the dock. On the boat. Pick one.”
“He would have needed to know what it was,” Mason said.
“He had their names.”
“He had Lena’s name.”
“He talked to the mother.”
Ethan stepped toward Mercer.
“Don’t.”
Mercer raised both hands.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“No, you like hearing yourself explain things.”
Ruth sat in one of the wooden chairs.
“Could we please stop accusing each other until we’re warm?”
Mercer looked toward her.
“We have a dead telephone ringing and a dead boy’s whistle in the next room.”
Lena felt every person in the room trying not to look at her.
Ruth said, “I know.”
“You don’t seem to.”
“I understand perfectly well that I’m frightened. Shouting the reasons won’t improve it.”
Mason returned the metal disc to the receiver.
“Is there a generator?”
Keller nodded toward the rear of the building.
“In the utility shed.”
“Fuel?”
“Maybe.”
“You know how to start it?”
“I know how to try.”
Mercer laughed.
“Another thing on the map?”
Keller ignored him.
Mason zipped the first-aid kit.
“We get the lights on. We find a working radio. Then we work out the rest.”
“There is no rest,” Mercer said. “Rescue knows where the boat went down.”
“They knew our last position.”
“The island was half a mile away.”
“In this weather that matters.”
Mercer went to the boarded window and pressed his face close to the narrow gap.
“It’s getting lighter.”
“It’s afternoon,” Ruth said.
“The rain’s letting up.”
Mason looked at Keller.
“Show me the generator.”
Keller picked up his coat.
Mercer followed them toward the door.
Mason turned.
“You’re staying here.”
“I’m not staying with that phone.”
“Then stand on the porch.”
“I’m coming.”
Keller opened the door. Cold air moved through the room.
Ethan took the plastic paddle.
“I’ll go.”
Lena said, “No.”
He looked back.
“You’re staying with Ruth.”
“You’re staying too.”
“We need—”
“They have three people.”
Mercer said, “We have two people and a liar.”
Keller went out onto the porch.
Mason followed.
Mercer hesitated only long enough to prove that he knew he had a choice, then went after them.
The door shut.
Rain ticked against the roof.
Ruth removed her wet canvas shoes and placed them beside the stove. Her socks were gray at the toes.
“Is there wood?” Ethan asked.
Lena checked the metal bin beside the stove.
Inside were four split logs and a pile of old newspapers.
Her father knelt and opened the stove door.
The ashes inside looked fresh enough that Lena touched one before he could stop her.
Cold.
She rubbed the gray powder between her fingers.
“Somebody used it.”
“Could be years old.”
“Ash blows away.”
“Not inside a stove.”
She wiped her fingers on her wet jeans.
Her father crumpled newspaper beneath the logs. He found matches in a tin on the shelf. The first snapped. The second flared, and for a moment his face looked older in the orange light.
Ruth watched him work.
“Was Danny your only son?”
Ethan’s hand paused near the stove.
“Yes.”
“You have other children?”
“Just Lena.”
Lena expected him to say she was enough. Adults liked saying things like that when they thought children were listening.
He only adjusted the newspaper.
Ruth pulled her knees closer together.
“My Anna was nine.”
Lena looked at her.
Ruth smiled a little.
“She’d be forty-three now.”
Lena had assumed the daughter died recently. Ruth’s grief sounded recent when she said it on the boat.
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
Ruth looked at the black telephone.
“Fever.”
The stove caught.
Ruth stretched her hands toward it.
“They kept saying children recovered from it all the time. Then they started saying there was nothing anyone could have done. People change sentences very quickly when they need to live with themselves.”
Ethan sat back on his heels.
Lena wondered what people had said to him.
She knew what her mother said: He went in after Danny.
She knew what her father said: I should have reached him sooner.
The police report said Danny entered the water from the north side of the reservoir and disappeared beneath the surface before his father reached him. Lena had read it on her mother’s laptop after finding the file open.
It did not say why Danny went into the water.
Her mother said he slipped.
Her father said he jumped.
Lena had asked once which was true. Her mother told her it did not matter.
It mattered because slipping meant Danny had been scared before he hit the water. Jumping meant he had thought he would come back out.
The telephone rang.
Ruth screamed.
Ethan stood so quickly he struck the stove door with his knee.
The telephone rang again.
Lena stayed beside Ruth.
Her father moved toward it.
“Don’t,” Lena said.
He stopped.
A third ring filled the room.
Ruth’s hands trembled.
The fourth ring began and cut off halfway through.
Silence returned.
Then a small voice came from the receiver.
The telephone was still on its hook.
“Mom?”
Ruth stood.
Lena heard the word clearly.
It was a girl’s voice, but that did not mean it was a child. A woman speaking quietly could sound young through an old telephone.
Ruth took one step.
Ethan blocked her.
“Stay back.”
The voice said, “Mom, I can’t find them.”
Ruth put both hands over her mouth.
Lena looked at her father.
He was staring at the telephone with the same expression he had worn when the radio spoke on the boat.
“What can’t she find?” he asked.
Ruth shook her head.
The voice came again.
“My red shoes.”
Ruth made a sound behind her hands.
Ethan reached for the receiver.
Lena caught his wrist.
He looked at her.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I’m not.”
“You were.”
“I want to hear.”
“You can hear it from there.”
The girl in the telephone began to cry.
Ruth pushed past Ethan.
“Anna?”
The crying stopped.
Ruth lifted the receiver.
There was no voice in the room now. Lena could hear something faint through the earpiece, but she could not make out words.
Ruth held the receiver against her head.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I remember.”
Ethan took her elbow.
“Ruth.”
She pulled away.
“No, sweetheart. They were under your bed.”
Lena felt cold beneath the wet sweatshirt.
“What is she saying?” Ethan asked.
Ruth smiled.
It was not a happy smile. It was the expression of someone trying not to frighten a sick child.
“I’m here,” she said into the receiver.
The line clicked.
Ruth listened another few seconds.
Then she lowered the phone.
Ethan took it from her and pressed it to his ear.
Nothing.
He replaced it carefully.
Ruth sat down.
Lena crouched in front of her.
“What did you hear?”
Ruth rubbed both hands over her face.
“I don’t know.”
“You answered her.”
“I know.”
“Was it Anna?”
Ruth looked at Lena.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Then she looked toward the hallway.
“I don’t know.”
The front door opened.
Mercer entered first, breathing hard.
“What happened?”
Mason and Keller came behind him carrying a red fuel can and a box of tools.
Ethan pointed at the telephone.
“It rang again.”
Mercer stopped.
Ruth said, “I heard my daughter.”
Mason set down the tools.
“Through the receiver?”
“It spoke before I picked it up.”
“What did it say?”
Ruth folded her hands.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What did it say?”
She looked at him.
“It asked about her shoes.”
Mercer frowned.
“Someone knows you.”
“No one here knows me.”
“Keller might.”
Keller put the fuel can beside the wall.
“I don’t.”
“You have passenger information.”
“I have names and emergency contacts.”
“Maybe your father wrote about her too.”
Ruth stood.
“My daughter died thirty-four years ago in Spokane. She wore red shoes to the hospital because she refused to take them off. I have never told that story outside my family.”
Mercer’s mouth remained open, but nothing came out.
Mason looked at the cut telephone cord.
“Did you say anything before it mentioned the shoes?”
“No.”
“On the boat?”
“No.”
“Since we arrived?”
“I said I lost my daughter.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Ruth looked offended.
Then her expression shifted.
“Her name.”
“You told us her name just now,” Lena said.
Ruth stared at her.
“I said Anna before I picked up the telephone.”
Lena nodded.
Ruth sat again.
Mason crouched beside the telephone.
Keller said, “My father wrote that the voices got better.”
Mercer turned on him.
“Better at what?”
Keller rubbed rainwater from his beard.
“He didn’t explain.”
“Of course he didn’t.”
“He said they began badly. Sounds in static. Words that could be mistaken for other words. Then names.”
Ethan took the whistle from his pocket.
“And after names?”
Keller looked at it.
“I don’t know.”
“You came here with his map and his key. You know more than you’re telling us.”
“I know what he wrote.”
“Where?”
Keller looked down the hallway.
“There may be records in the office.”
Mercer moved toward him.
“There may be?”
“He took notebooks home. I don’t know what he left.”
“You said he disappeared here.”
“He did.”
“Then how did you get the notebooks?”
Keller’s eyes closed briefly.
“The first time, he came home.”
Nobody spoke.