14. Juliette
— ? —
Juliette
The nor’easter comes in fast, the way they do on islands - one minute the sky is gray and threatening, the next the wind is horizontal and the rain is hitting the windows like gunfire.
I’m in the kitchen when the power goes out.
The darkness is total, absolute, the kind of black that makes you question whether you ever knew what light was. I fumble for my phone and turn on the flashlight, and that’s when I hear the crash.
Not thunder. Something solid hitting something structural.
The back window.
I find it by following the sound of rain where rain shouldn’t be - pouring through a gash in the glass, soaking the curtains, pooling on the floor. A branch from the old oak tree is jutting through the broken pane, and the wind is screaming through the gap.
“Shit.”
Headlights.
Through the front window, the silver Mercedes, parked at the end of my lane where it’s been parked every morning. Of course he was already here when the storm hit. Of course the man who won’t leave me alone is the only person close enough to help.
I open the front door.
“Zachary!”
He’s out of the car before I finish shouting, running toward the cottage through rain so thick it’s almost solid. By the time he reaches the porch, he’s soaked through, his hair plastered to his forehead, his shirt transparent against his chest.
Don’t look at that.
“I heard the crash,” he says. “What happened?”
“Back window. Branch through it.”
“Show me.”
I lead him to the kitchen, where the situation has gotten worse. The pool of water is spreading, and the wind is catching the curtains and snapping them like flags.
“I need plywood,” I say. “There’s some in the shed, but-”
“I’ll get it.” He’s already moving. “Hammer?”
“You don’t have a coat.”
“I have momentum.” He’s rolling up his sleeves as he heads for the door. “Storm’s not going to reschedule while I dress for it.”
“Toolbox by the fireplace.”
“Got it.”
He disappears into the storm.
The shed is fifty yards from the house.
From the back door he’s a shape fighting his way across the yard, bent nearly double against the wind. Lightning cracks the sky, and for one second he’s illuminated - soaked, struggling, determined - and something in my chest twists that has nothing to do with the storm.
He makes it to the shed. Disappears inside. Emerges with two sheets of plywood under his arm and a box of nails in his teeth.
The wind catches the plywood like a sail. I see him stagger, adjust his grip, push forward. The rain is coming down so hard he’s barely visible, just a shape in the darkness, refusing to let go.
“Hold the door!” he shouts when he reaches the porch.
The wind fights me for it - the door’s a sail, the night’s a hand, and I brace it with my whole body while he wrestles the plywood through the gap, and the storm follows him in for one wild second, rain and leaves and cold, before I get the door shut and the house is ours again.
I do. He stumbles inside with the plywood and drops it on the kitchen floor, breathing hard. Water is streaming off him, pooling at his feet.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” He wipes his face with his forearm. “Let’s do this before the whole window goes.”
We drag the plywood to the broken window. The branch is still jutting through, and every gust of wind shifts it, widening the hole.
“On three.” He grips the branch with both hands. “One. Two-”
“Wait - pull toward the-”
He pulls on two. The branch surrenders with a crack and a gallon of collected rainwater, all of it his, collar to belt, and he stands there baptized in his ruined shirt while the storm applauds through the broken window.
“Toward the tarp,” I finish.
“Toward the tarp,” he agrees, dripping. “Next branch, definitely.”
“I’ll hold the board,” I say. “You hammer.”
“Other way around.”
“I’m not tall enough to hold it that high.”
“Then I’ll lift you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Juliette-”
“Give me the hammer.”
He hands it over. Hoists the first sheet of plywood into position, his arms straining against the weight. The wet wood is slippery, and his grip keeps slipping, and every time his hands slide I have to wait for him to readjust before I can nail.
“Left side’s coming down!” he shouts over the wind.
I move to steady it and our hands overlap on the plywood edge. His fingers are cold and wet and surprisingly strong, and for one moment we’re both holding the same piece of wood, faces close, the flashlight between us casting shadows that make his eyes look darker than they are.
Focus.
I nail the board into place.
“Next one!” he shouts, and hoists the second sheet, and the wind chooses that exact moment to change its mind.
The plywood bucks. He staggers into me, I grab the board, and for one suspended lightning-lit moment we are chest to chest behind a sheet of wood, pinned between the storm and the wall, his arms caged around me holding four feet of plywood and a hundred pounds of weather at bay.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hold the board.”
“I am holding the board.”
“Hold it somewhere else.”
“There is nowhere else. There’s storm, and there’s here.” Rain is running off his jaw. His face is close enough that I can see he knows exactly what he’s doing and exactly what he’s not going to do about it. “Nail it, Juliette.”
I nail it. My hands are not entirely steady, and it has nothing to do with the thunder, and we both pretend otherwise, which is its own kind of conversation.
We repeat the process with the second sheet, working in the narrow beam of the single flashlight, passing nails back and forth. By the time the window is secure, we’re both shivering.
“Done,” I say, stepping back. “We should-”
Lightning hits somewhere close.
The thunder is instantaneous, a crack that makes the whole cottage shake, and I flinch backward into Zachary’s chest. His arms come up around me, instinctive, protective, and for one moment we’re standing in the dark kitchen pressed together while the storm rages outside.
His heart is pounding against my back. Or maybe that’s my heart. It’s impossible to tell.
“Sorry.” I pull away. “Reflex.”
“Don’t be.” His voice is rough. “I’ve got good reflexes too.”
The flashlight has fallen and is pointing at the ceiling, casting strange shadows. We’re both soaked and shivering and there’s no ferry running and no way to get him off this island.
“You can take the couch,” I say.
“Juliette-”
“It’s the couch or the storm.”
He doesn’t argue.
Dinner is peanut butter sandwiches by lantern light, because the power’s out and the storm gets what the storm gets.
“I haven’t had one of these since prep school,” he says, examining it like an artifact. Then, after the first bite, with genuine wonder: “Why did anyone let me stop?”
“Money. Chefs. The tragic arc of your class.”
“My class is a disaster.” He builds a second sandwich with the concentration of a man who just discovered carpentry. “The crusts stay on?”
“The crusts stay on. This is a crust household.”
“A crust household,” he repeats, filing it with the dish towels and the jar systems, one more law of a country he’s applying to enter.
I find towels and dry clothes - an old sweatshirt of my mother’s and a pair of sweatpants that belonged to my father. I leave them outside the bathroom door without comment.
When he emerges, dressed in my parents’ clothes with his hair still dripping, something in my chest tightens.
He looks ridiculous. The sweatshirt is too small across the shoulders, the sweatpants are too short at the ankles, and he’s holding his soaked suit jacket like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
He looks like a man instead of a CEO.
He looks like someone I could-
Stop.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
“Don’t thank me. Thank the storm for not killing us both.”
“I’m thanking you.”
I turn away and busy myself with the lantern. The power is still out, which means the only thing illuminating this cottage is one uneasy flame.
“My hands are still shaking,” he says. “From the plywood.”
“Adrenaline.”
“Yeah.” He sits on the couch, folding his long frame into the corner. “You get that too? After?”
“Everyone gets that.”
“You seem calm.”
“I’m not.” The admission slips out before I can stop it. “I’m just better at hiding it.”
“What else?” he asks.
“What else what?”
“What else are you better at hiding than I ever noticed?”
The lantern light moves on the walls. Outside, the storm is dismantling the night, and something about a house holding - a house full of her jars and her quilts, holding - makes the truth cheaper than usual.
“I hid how much I liked it,” I say. “Being Mrs. Dean. At the beginning, before I knew the price. The name, the wedding, the way rooms rearranged when we walked in. I liked it. I’ve spent months telling the story like I was a hostage the whole time, and I wasn’t.
I bought the ticket. That’s the part that makes me angriest. I bought the ticket. ”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“Thank you,” he says. “For telling me one.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“I know the rules,” he says, and doesn’t push, and the not-pushing is the newest thing about him.
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “You shouldn’t have to hide things.”
“Everyone hides things.”
“Name one of yours.” He says it carefully, an opening bid, not a demand. “One thing you hid. Even trade.”
“That’s not how tonight works.”