The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (22 page)

“You’re a little strange today,” he said, his fingers
still running over the keys. “Unless you’re just desperate to get me alone.”

“That’s it.” She sat down beside him. “Anyway, we won’t be alone long. Alec is coming home any minute.”

“Great! I’ve been working on a song I want to ask him about. I’ve transposed it into a different key, which shouldn’t make any difference, but it doesn’t feel quite right. Listen.”

He launched into a melody full of loneliness and despair, diving so deeply that he didn’t hear the front door open, or even Hoover’s ecstatic yaps as he flew across the room to his master. Alec held the dog close, whispering soft greetings, but he had eyes only for the boy at the piano, devouring him. Skye saw that he wasn’t at all impatient to interrupt Jeffrey, to be noticed, to start explaining, and she could also see how scared he was. She wanted to soothe Alec, to tell him it would all be fine. But she wasn’t sure it would be, and besides, her first loyalty was to the son, not the father. She put her arm around Jeffrey’s shoulder—a gesture unusual enough to make him stop playing and look up.

“Alec, you’re back!” he said, then grinned at Skye. “You’re
very
strange today.”

“Hello, Jeffrey,” said Alec quietly. “How are you?”

“I’m …” Jeffrey stopped, struck by Alec’s hesitation and his obvious exhaustion. “You look terrible.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, and looked at Skye, who shook her head no—she hadn’t given up his secret.
“It’s been a long twenty-four hours. I’ve missed you, Jeffrey.”

“We’ve missed you, too.” Jeffrey’s hands started wandering the piano keys again, picking out nervous spurts of notes. “And now you’re both being strange.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” said Alec, coming closer to the piano. “I have something important to tell you, and I don’t know where to begin.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Skye asked Alec.

“No.” They said it together, the man and the boy, then looked at each other, one pleading, one wary.

“All right,” she said, pulling Jeffrey in tighter. “Then Alec, maybe you can begin with the photograph.”

So Alec began with the photograph, and then went on to his trip to Arundel, and why he needed to go there, and all the while Jeffrey kept playing the piano, his head down, until Skye wasn’t sure that he was even listening. But when Alec came to the part about confronting his ex-wife, Jeffrey carefully closed the piano lid, folded his hands like a small schoolchild, and interrupted.

“You’re not making any sense,” he said.

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Alec sadly. “I’ll start again.”

He started again but this time went all the way back to being a young musician in Boston who fell in love with and married a beautiful college student, and how happy they were for a few months, until they discovered that they had nothing in common but love,
and the arguments and sulks began and then got worse, until one day the beautiful wife was suddenly gone, fled back to her home in the Berkshires. And how Alec tried to go after her, but her father—an ex–army man, a general—wouldn’t let him see her, and insisted they get divorced.

“And I never saw her again,” finished Alec. “But what I didn’t know, Jeffrey, was that when she left me, she was pregnant. Even she didn’t know it, and then when she found out, she decided not to tell me.”

Jeffrey sat very still. Only his fingers moved, convulsively, as if they were trying to get to the piano keys under the lid. At last he shook off Skye’s arm.

“He’s saying that he’s my father,” he said to her.

“I know.”

“And you helped him figure that out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I asked her not to,” said Alec. “I had to see Brenda first, to be absolutely certain.”

“My mother,” he said reprovingly, as though Alec shouldn’t be bandying about her first name.

Skye put her arm around him again. “Jeffrey, Alec was married to her. Don’t you understand?”

Now Alec was taking a letter out of his wallet. “I met Churchie, too, Jeffrey. She gave me this letter for you.”

He handed over the letter, which Jeffrey took, careful to keep from touching Alec.

“Is there anything from my mother?”

“She was too upset—she couldn’t—no, she didn’t send anything.” Alec shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop that,” said Jeffrey sharply. “I don’t want your sympathy.”

He stood abruptly and pushed his way out onto the deck, where he stood, his shoulders hunched, reading Churchie’s letter. Skye felt more helpless than she’d ever felt before, and wanted to get angry, and cry and rage, but she kept it under control, for friendship, because she was the OAP, but mostly because she was afraid that if she started raging, she wouldn’t be able to stop.

After a while, Jeffrey came back inside, tucking the letter into his pocket. “Skye, remember the night we made wishes on the bonfire? My wish was that if I ever found my father, he’d be just like Alec. Do you think this is the Firegod’s idea of a bad joke?”

“Jeffrey, no.”

He waved off her concern and turned to Alec. “I don’t care that my mother didn’t tell you about me. You should have asked. You should have
known
.”

“You’re right. I should have. I was a fool.”

“Yes, you were a fool. I think I’ll leave now.” But instead he advanced, with a fierce scowl Skye had never seen before. “Do I have grandparents?”

“Yes, and two uncles, and three cousins.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I deserve that,” said Alec. “Jeffrey, I promise I’ll do anything I can to make this up to you.”

“At least now I understand why Mother hates my music. It’s because of you. How can you make that up to me?” He beat his fists against his thighs. “All those years!”

“I don’t know, but I’ll try. Jeffrey, listen to me, please. Don’t you realize that I let myself wish I had a son like you? Almost from the first day we met.”

Jeffrey turned his back on Alec and then asked, very quietly, “What do you want from me?”

“To let me love you. Love you and help keep you safe.”

“No.” Jeffrey shook his head, again and again. “Too late for that.”

And now he did leave, slipping through the door, and before Skye could react, he’d leaped off the deck and was gone.

“What should I do?” she gasped at Alec.

“Go after Jeffrey. I’ll tell your aunt what happened.”

“But what about you?”

“Go! He’s the most important—just go.”

Jeffrey was already running down Ocean Boulevard at top speed. Skye tore off after him, determined to keep him in sight, because if he disappeared, she might never have the chance to tell him how
sorry she was. And how she should have kept this from happening, and how she should have paid more attention, and … that she was sorry.

Before Jeffrey reached the dock, he abruptly veered off the side of the road, jumped, and vanished from Skye’s view. “No, you don’t,” she muttered, picking up speed, and seconds later was also plunging down a pebbly slope, falling and getting up again, then continuing to track Jeffrey as he leaped out onto the great boulders, from one to another and another. Skye let up her chase only when he finally collapsed, facing out to sea.

Now that he was no longer moving and had nowhere farther to go, she stopped, teetering on slippery rock. And watched him for a while, and tried to get her thoughts in order. But the wild merry-go-round was back in her brain, and the only words that flew off it were
sorry, sorry, sorry
. So that is what she would tell him, she decided, and quietly, carefully, crept across the remaining rocks between them.

Jeffrey heard her coming. “Leave me alone, Skye,” he said without turning around.

“Jeffrey, I—”

“Really, I can’t talk now. Go away.”

“All right, but I can’t leave you out here all by yourself. You wouldn’t leave me, and you know it. I’ll be back near the road if you change your mind.”

For several painful moments, Skye waited, hoping he’d say something, anything at all that would help her help him, but when he resolutely stayed silent, she headed back the way she’d come. At the base of the pebbly slope was a wide strip of rough sand—here she sat down, a sad and weary sentry at the beginning of her watch. The scene before her did nothing to raise her spirits. Rocks and more rocks, a wall of clouds advancing across the sky, and, too far away, a huddled and wretched boy. It was a small relief when Jane arrived a few minutes later, sent by Aunt Claire to make sure the runaways hadn’t disappeared altogether.

“Is Jeffrey all right?” she asked, making her way down the slope.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t want to talk,” answered Skye. “So I’m guarding him. Has Aunt Claire told you everything?”

“Yes.” Jane looked as strained and unhappy as Skye felt. “But it doesn’t seem real yet. I keep remembering last summer—when he talked about how one day he’d see his father somewhere and they’d just automatically recognize each other. And then it happened, and they didn’t.”

“They kind of did, though, when you think about it. Besides, they had you to figure it out.”

“I guess so, but I can’t decide if maybe I shouldn’t have.”

No one could decide that, Skye thought, without going crazy. Because craziness would be just as big a problem as rage, she sent Jane away, back to Birches to report that no one had drowned or run away to Canada. Alone again, Skye wrapped her arms around her knees and settled in for a long wait. She would think about … She knew better what
not
to think about. Jeffrey’s words of reproach,
And you helped him figure that out? Why didn’t you tell me?
Alec’s anguished cry,
Go! He’s the most important—just go
. No, she wouldn’t think about those things or any of the others that had happened in the last half hour.
Leave me alone, Skye. Go away
. Instead, she would recite the prime numbers in order, up to 1,249, which was as far as she’d memorized.

She began, “Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen …”

The wall of clouds reached the sun, covered it, and marched onward. The sky and the sea turned from blue to blue-gray to gray, and curious seagulls circled the motionless boy on the rocks, trying to identify this addition to their territory. Skye reached the end of her prime numbers and began over again, and again and again, and when Jeffrey still hadn’t moved, she worked out the next few primes after 1,249—1,259, 1,277, and 1,279—but doing it in her head was so laborious that she went back to reciting the ones she knew. Once she thought she heard
snatches of music—the faint cry of a saxophone—but Jeffrey stayed where he was, and the tide came almost to his sneakers and retreated again.

Pebbles and sand were raining down on Skye, and words, too, including “whoops,” “whoa,” and “help.” Jane was back again, this time loaded down with a heavy, bulging bag, plus a clarinet case. Skye jumped up and helped with the precarious descent down the slope. When both sisters were on solid ground, she peered into the bag. It was stuffed full of food—sandwiches, several bottles of lemonade, and an entire pie.

Jane set down her burdens and shook out her aching arms. “Aunt Claire sent me to Moose Market for the pie. Chocolate crème. Very decadent.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Skye before realizing that she was desperately hungry. “How long have I been out here?”

“Almost two hours, and the food is mostly for Jeffrey, anyway. Aunt Claire said that he doesn’t have to talk, but he has to eat—and she sends her love to him, too. Mercedes helped me with the sandwiches, so they might be messy, but we put in lots of napkins. The clarinet was Batty’s idea. She was sure he’d want it.”

“I don’t want to bother him, Jane. He said to leave him alone.”

“And Aunt Claire made me promise the food
would get to him because no one can mourn on an empty stomach.”

That was true, and Skye knew that being a mouse or a man counted with friendship, too. She would go out to Jeffrey, but not quite yet. “How is Alec doing?”

“Aunt Claire went next door to see him and came back five minutes later. He doesn’t want to talk either.”

“And how’s Batty?”

“Upset and having trouble with some of the basic concepts. You should hear her and Mercedes asking Aunt Claire why Alec didn’t know that daddies are a part of making babies.”

Skye almost smiled. “Poor Aunt Claire. And you?”

“I’m doing better since I called down revenge and curses upon Mrs. T-D, just like Rosalind told us not to. I added in some for Dexter, and one or two for Dominic while I was at it. But I said it all to my pillow on the porch, to keep it private. I didn’t think Aunt Claire would approve of all that revenge.”

“We should have made voodoo dolls after all.”

“We should have. But, Skye, are you stalling? Because if you don’t want to see Jeffrey, I’m going out there onto the rocks myself.”

“No, I’ll do it.” She had to. “Go back and get Batty and Mercedes, then watch through the binoculars. I’ll signal you if it’s okay to come.”

“Make sure he eats some of that pie.” Jane scrambled up the slope and was gone.

Sick of Caesar and Napoleon, Skye called instead on her gentle father for inspiration. And realized that Jeffrey could do nothing worse than accuse her of bothering him—thus failing him all over again—but she’d live through that. Picking up the clarinet and the unwieldy food bag, she set off on the journey to her friend.

He’d been sitting there for such a long time without speaking or moving that the seagulls had decided he was just another boulder, or maybe an odd mound of seaweed. This, then, was what Skye saw as she carefully picked her way—a somber world of pale gray sky and ocean, dark gray rocks, gray-green seaweed, and proud and foolish gulls marching around their newfound boulder. Or was he seaweed? He, at least, added a spot of color, but only with the blue of his shorts and shirt—the rest of him was blanched with sadness and worry—and Skye hoped more than anything that he would be ready to talk to her.

The seagulls saw her coming and stuck to their discovery as long as they could, but when it was clear that the new arrival was heading straight to him, they reluctantly flew away. Only the bravest of them waited until the very end, which came when the mound of seaweed turned back into a boy and spoke.