Chapter 72
When the last ferry departed, the island returned to itself.
Women clipped their undergarments to dry on clotheslines.
A fisherman nodded off in his rowboat; a grouper tugged at his lure and then, miraculously, unhooked its lip and slipped away unnoticed.
Cats stalked meadow voles, and wrens warbled in their nests.
Households unfolded blankets on their lawns and set out dresses and jeans their children had outgrown, gravy boats they’d never used, extra boxes of nuts and bolts husbands had finally admitted they’d never get to in this lifetime, so other families could take what they needed.
Some sat on porches to chat with whoever stopped by, and others retreated into their homes, too tired, after such a week, for conversation.
The doctor visited Vince to check on his shoulder, which was healing but would leave a scar, a raised welt that would pulse every time the boy saw fireworks.
On the way home, the doctor picked up a glass vase for his wife’s gardenias and learned that the young woman with the shaved head had boarded Terry’s boat and sailed off.
The Pruitts would leave shortly, and they would all feel it, the calm of a fresh sheet falling over a bed.
No guests remained at the hotel, and so it was time to close for the season.
A bundle of black vests was shoved into the washing machine in its basement.
Curtains were drawn, the refrigerator emptied and unplugged, eggs and bacon and heavy cream doled out among the staff.
The younger employees would return to school in a few weeks.
The older ones would take odd jobs at the grocery store or restaurants on the mainland, if it came to it.
In one room, a girl with freshly painted nails found a sapphire bracelet on the bedside table, and she slipped it into her skirt pocket.
On the shore, the island breathed the surf in and out.
A seagull’s cry woke the fisherman in his rowboat, which was drifting too close to the beach, its oars nudging the sandy bottom.
After inspecting his fishing rod, he noticed something in the distance breaching the water like the spine of a whale.
It surfaced only briefly, the water’s current pulling the mass back into the ocean’s depths, but even in that instant, the fisherman understood: it was a man’s body.
A broad, lifeless back shrouded in wet denim.
The fisherman reeled in his lure and gingerly set the rod at his feet.
Children sprinted across the sand. He would only tell Red the following afternoon, who would instruct him to do nothing.
No one on the island was missing. An investigation would only bring questions, baseless accusations, more strangers.
Follow the law of inertia. Allow what is at rest to remain at rest.
In the evening, the children from the beach bounded through their houses’ screen doors, and the adults finished their talk of the wedding.
Anytime outsiders visited the island, especially wealthy outsiders, there was gossip and jokes about how many mainlanders it took to change a lightbulb, to clean a crab.
But eventually the banter would run its course, and they’d feel a little guilty for making fun of people they barely knew, for holding them at such a distance.
And so, when it came time to sit at the table, to close their eyes and say grace, they wished all who had departed the island’s shores safe passage through the waters that lay ahead.