Stone Cove Island (9 page)

“I know,” I said. “This must be the worst thing that’s
ever happened to Stone Cove.” Okay, so I was baiting her. I thought I saw Greg give Nancy a look, but not quickly enough to stop her reply.

“It’s right up there with Bess Linsky, that’s for sure.”

“The girl who drowned, right?” I prompted.

“Was killed. Yes. It was just terrible. That poor girl.”

“Did you know her?”

“We all knew her. But she and her mom kept to themselves. Karen did most of her shopping at the marina mart. Didn’t come into town that much. And Bess was a nice girl, but not, you know, a real island girl like you or Meredith.” I must have looked blank, because she continued. “She wasn’t a joiner. Wasn’t so much part of things, like your family is, or some of the other old families.” Wasn’t a joiner? I couldn’t help thinking of Charlie. Everyone kept saying he wasn’t a joiner, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for him. And my parents? My mom was closer to a shut-in than a joiner. I let Nancy go on.

“Maybe if she’d taken Grant’s name it would have made some difference. But probably not. I thought Karen should take her back to Gloucester after Grant’s accident. This isn’t an easy place for a single mom, you know.” I couldn’t think of any single moms on Stone Cove Island. I could see how you might stand out in that situation.

“What happened to Grant?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“He drowned too,” said Nancy. “But that was hardly a surprise. The way he and his buddies drank and went out on those boats.”

“He was out with friends when it happened?” I asked.
Nancy seemed doubtful for a moment. She looked at Greg to confirm.

“Not that day, I don’t think. Wasn’t he alone, Greg?”

“Think so,” agreed Greg. The coffee was done and Greg poured me a large cup. I accepted it gratefully.

“It’s always interesting to hear the old stories,” I said, hoping that I was coming off as curious, not pushy. “About the island’s history.”

“Your dad knows just as much,” said Nancy with a modest blush. She liked to be thought of as the island historian, I could tell.

“Poor Bess,” I said, redirecting the conversation. “She was alone too? Swimming, I mean?”

“Well, she was alone before she ended up in the lighthouse. No one knows much after that. They did find her clothes. And her hair.” Nancy made a face at that.

“Who found them?” I asked.

She looked blank, as though she’d never considered that part of the story. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding surprised at herself. “Do you remember, Greg?”

“Kids, I think. Kids who went surfing the next day. Don’t remember exactly who.” Huh. That seemed like something I could look into. The door jangled as Mr. Morgan came in with Jimmy Pender.

“I’d better go,” I said. “Or I’ll be late for school.”

“Nice chatting with you, Eliza. Morning, Jimmy. Morning, Ned.”

As I had not been able to charge my cell phone, I could not check to see if I’d gotten any late night or early morning texts from Charlie. As far as I knew, he was busy
today, and I didn’t know when I would see him again. Running into Jimmy Pender had made me feel self-conscious, as though I were stalking their family, though of course I had gotten to the Picnic Basket first. Jimmy was as friendly as usual, but I resisted asking anything about Charlie and what they were busy with that day.

ALL DAY AT SCHOOL
, I kept my head down. I stayed away from old yearbooks, I asked no probing questions. In English class though, I still felt Mr. Malloy’s eye on me. As class was ending, he stopped at my desk and put a hand down, fingers spread.

“She was wonderful in
The Crucible
. Played Goody Proctor. She really seemed to inhabit the role, as they are fond of saying in theater reviews. And she was a very good writer. That is what I remember most,” he said. His voice was low. I looked up, surprised.

“You asked about Bess.” His eyes were reddish and watery, like he’d been in a smoke-filled room. His shoulders drooped a little, as he leaned his weight onto my desk. “She was a very good writer. That’s the thing that stands out in my memory. One paper in particular I remember. I’ve sometimes used it as an example in my European literature class.”

He straightened up and seemed to wake up from whatever reverie had taken him over. Then he nodded at me curtly, to say I was dismissed, and walked back to his desk at the front of the classroom.

I HAD PLANNED TO
go to the town library on my way home to look at news stories again. I wanted to find out who had
discovered Bess’s bloody clothes and hair. Instead I went home. I wasn’t sure why staying away from Charlie felt connected to staying away from the Bess story, but somehow it did. It was like being on some kind of diet. I had to abstain from it all.

But as soon as I got home, I realized it was a mistake. I was bored. The power was still out. I didn’t want to do my homework. I was still thinking about Charlie and I was still thinking about Bess’s murder.

I reread Bess’s letter. The phrases:
do not await the last judgment; it takes place every day
; and
to breathe is to judge
still stood out to me as odd, like it had been written by a different person from the rest of the letter. Was it possible more than one person had committed her murder? Could it have been two people? A group of people?

I wandered from room to room, looking for a distraction. Salty trotted after me. I picked up a new book my dad was reading about a sailing rescue at sea. Normally I liked those kinds of stories, but I closed this after reading a page or two.

I moved to Mom’s closet. Nowadays she dressed in the neutral-colored, tastefully generic, linen and knit clothes a much older woman might wear, but she had kept her dresses and bags from when she was younger. I liked to take them out and look at them. We had the same size feet, and I would try on her old shoes. Now I put on some white patent-leather sandals, with wide straps that crossed in front and buckled at the ankle. I’d never seen Mom actually wear any heels this high. I could barely walk in them.

The top of the closet was where she kept her old purses.
There was an alligator satchel—not real, I was sure—shaped like a doctor’s bag, a leather saddlebag in black and light brown leather. Another bag seemed to be made of an old kilim rug. I was looking for one in particular, an evening bag. It was black and rectangular, with a flap held shut by a gold panther, curled in a
C
shape. I loved this purse, partly because it fascinated me to imagine why she’d bought it and where she’d taken it. It was the kind of bag ladies in New York took with them to dinner in fancy uptown bistros. My mother had rarely been as far as Boston. I would take it down and look at it periodically, trying to imagine the person my mother had been when she’d worn it across her thin shoulder.

This time I had trouble finding it. It wasn’t on the shelf in its soft protective cover, where it usually was. I finally located it in a shoe box at the bottom of a stack. As I slid the box out, I accidentally pulled the boxes resting on top and the whole pile rained down on my head. Salty leaped away and hid under my parents’ bed. I swore as I hopped off the step stool I’d dragged from the kitchen and tried to put the closet back the way I’d found it. The panther bag had skidded out of its open box and was resting, open and clasp down, on the floor. Damn. I hoped I hadn’t scratched the leather. I righted it carefully and went to click it shut. As I did, I saw that the bag wasn’t empty. Inside was a small, plain black sketchbook, the kind art students carry around. I opened it to the first page. The date, April 10, 1989, was printed across the top of the page in my mom’s very girly, very recognizable handwriting. I knew instantly it was her diary.

Almost any diary is irresistible, but the diary of my own mother, this person who was so shut off and incomprehensible to me, a window into her thoughts and even better, her thoughts at my age? I didn’t even hesitate. Before I dove in, I did make sure the closet was put back exactly as I had found it. Then I went out the newly functional back door and sat on the old wood swing my dad had made when I was a kid. If I read the diary in my room, I might be surprised by my parents’ return and be cornered, but out here, I could see the driveway and escape through the backyard if I needed to. I could hide the diary in the shed. No, not in the shed. My dad’s workshop was in the shed. But someplace. At any rate, this would give me more options.

“April of 1989,” I murmured, working backward in my head. My mother would have been seventeen. Her birthday was in the fall, late September. I thought back to her most recent birthday celebration, which had taken place just a few weeks earlier, right before the storm. Flowers from my
dad. Maybe a sweater? I couldn’t even remember what his gift to her had been. I had given her a bottle of perfume, same one she always wore, same as every year. Dinner at home, as usual. It blurred with every other past birthday. That April, the April of the diary, she would have been exactly as old as I was now. I opened the book to the first page and began to read.

Perfect day today. A on history test. Warm enough for no coat. Yay! Finally spring. Such a long winter
.

So, even at seventeen my mother was boring. I trudged onward, prepared for further tedium, and found it.

Jimmy asked Cat to the Anchor Club Spring Fling. She said no. I really don’t get it, since all she’s talked about all winter is going to the stupid dance with him. She says I don’t understand how the game is played. Her theory is now he’ll really want to go with her. What I think is he’ll ask someone else. But she’s the expert
.

Cat. The first page of her diary, and it really does sounds like Cat is her best friend. It was impossible to picture it.

What do I know? Or care. It’s just a party. Two apples. One yogurt. 3/4c popcorn. Piece of chicken for dinner (half). Weight: 108. 372 steps to the end of our block. Teeth = 74 brushstrokes
.

Whoa. The diary swerved suddenly off the rails into new, dark territory. This was my mother? This was what was inside her seventeen-year-old brain? Her current brain?

Talked to 11 people today, incl. 2 strangers
.

I tried not to let it throw me, but it did. My mother did not just sound nervous, stressed-out or tightly wound. She did not seem just a little shy. She sounded crazy. I had thought I wanted a glimpse inside Mom’s world. Now that I’d entered, I felt stifled, hot and uncomfortable. I decided
to skip ahead to see if her entries from August would reveal any facts, beyond how many calories she’d taken in and how many cracks in the sidewalk she’d stepped over.

There were several entries for August, most of them short and disjointed. They included abbreviations I couldn’t decode:

LB invited us to sleepover. Bess said yes before I could stop her. Cat will have cow now and make things even worse. B hung out at beach all day with N. Wanted to know if I think he likes her? Doesn’t everybody? Wish I could be B. Not care what people think. Say things like “school is a waste of time.” He’s nice. I think B likes him more than J. That would solve Cat’s problems, right? And he’s never going to notice me with B around
.

Another one read:
Was supposed to go to Jimmy’s party with Cat and Bess. Right before, it happened again. Had to stay home. Cat and Bess were mad at me. Can’t explain to them what it feels like. Thought Bess would understand, but she doesn’t. Oh well. They’re better off without me. Everyone will be better off without me
.

Each entry ended with similar compulsive stats:
Weight 105. 1 cottage cheese plus 8 grapes, 3 Triscuits. Diet soda counts? 152 sit-ups. Walked to lighthouse and back. 82 stairs. Talked to 4 people, 1 stranger
. Or
Weight 107. Gum, 2 apples, popcorn, 3 bites ice cream, ½ hamburger Ferry dock 387 boards = to entrance gate. Talked to 0 people
.

I was scared now, of my mom or for my mom, I wasn’t sure which. But I couldn’t put the book down, however much I wanted to. Why had she kept this horrible documentation of her past? Did she actually want to remember being this way? Was she
still
this way? It was an unbearable
thought. Finally I reached the date of Bess’s murder. There was a long entry, written about a week later. This one was different. It read more like … a eulogy? It was impossible to imagine the Willa of this diary standing in front of a crowd, delivering a eulogy. It was more like an apology. A confession.

It was my fault that she was murdered. The night Bess died, she left the bar at the marina late. She would have had a couple of drinks, not enough to get drunk. She would have danced, maybe with Jimmy, maybe with Nate, maybe with some older guy we didn’t know. She would have walked home alone. Unless I was sleeping over, she always walked home alone. She was mad at me that night …

Bess had been too good a swimmer to drown. Not too good a swimmer to get caught in a riptide; too good a swimmer to go swimming alone on a moonless night in the Atlantic Ocean. Her clothes were found in the lighthouse, covered in blood. Her killer had cut off all her hair. Some people said a huge anchor had been painted across the front door of their house. Others said that was only a rumor. I never saw it. I didn’t go to her house again after that night. Her body was never found
.

Her mother refused to talk about Bess afterward. She got rid of all her stuff. I wanted to keep something to remember her, but Karen said no. I knew that Bess had been scared before she died. She had shown me—just me, she told me—the letter
.

I only read it once. But I can still remember every word. “Uninvited guest,” it began and then later, “down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.” The more I tried to push that line from my mind, the more fiercely it returned, and I couldn’t not picture her face. I hoped he had not done anything to her face. I should have
gone with Bess to The Slip that night. I should have told someone about the letter. But I never did
.

I closed the diary.

Now I knew three things: