The Rattled Bones(24)

CHAPTER EIGHT


After dinner, Gram disappears to her attic to paint and I head to bed. The sun sinks down the sky, trailing its pinks and oranges as I text Hattie: Me: Found a sternman so you don’t need to bag chum

Hatt: Thank GOD!

Me: Hang tomorrow?

Hatt: Rodents of Unusual Size couldn’t keep me away I smile, throw on Reed’s old Red Sox T-shirt, which is soft with age and wear. As I climb into bed, I grab the moleskin and pull at a piece of paper sticking out of the top. An inventory list written on a piece of University of Southern Maine stationery. My fingers trace the blue-and-gold seal at the top, how it’s proudly embossed on the page. I envy Sam, the way he carries his university with him. I imagined it would be that way for me at the University of Rhode Island. That the moment I was on campus, I would be home, my identity linked to my education, my future. But now I think that’s the Rilla Brae who may never get a chance to exist.

I focus on the simple list, written in Sam’s steady, neat hand. There are check boxes next to the names of tools, some having eleven marks next to their names. Eleven days. It seems like nothing, a hiccup of time, yet the last eleven days have filled with the unexpected and morphed into eleven lifetimes.

I’m careful with the pages of the binder as I turn to the photo of the two-room schoolhouse with its fresh white trim paint and sturdy lines. All of its windows straight, their panes unbroken. On the school’s front porch, thirteen children pose: small boys in smart vests, a young girl with a doll. No one looks like my girl from the shore, as if it’s even possible for her to live then and now. Under the photo is a notation about the missionaries from Massachusetts who made the school a reality. My heart buckles.

The school. The children. All gone now.

There’s another photo of the same children standing on a ridge, the open sky behind them. The features of the children on the right blur under the shade of a tree just beyond the photo’s frame. The children pose dutifully in their finest tiny sweaters, overalls, and dresses. The youngest girl still clings to her doll.

Were the islanders fearful of the photographer? Untrusting? Even now Mainers are a guarded lot. What must it have felt like to have a stranger bring the camera to the island? A person from the mainland carrying a huge and strange device that ignited a loud, smoky flash?

The next page is an official notice. That same photo of the children on the ridge is centered within the poster. Below the group, a declaration: IMMEDIATE ACTION TO REMOVE MALAGA ISLAND PEOPLE.

And there it is, their fate.

The eviction notice from the state of Maine.

Island residents forced from their homes.

My room begins to warm as if the heat is too high even as the window is open to an easterly wind that pushes the cool smell of salt and sea into my room. The heat fires on my neck and I can feel the redness rise from anger, from disbelief . . . but also, something more.

Breath.

Breath on my neck.

Then Reed is scrambling up the trellis, and I slip the binder under my pillow. I consider telling Reed I’m not feeling well, that I need a good night’s sleep, that I’m beat. But it’s Hattie who crawls through the window, and I jump up, meet her in the middle of my room.

“Hatt? Everything okay?”

“Totally. Just didn’t want to wait for tomorrow.”

I let out a huge sigh, for what, I don’t know. Maybe just relief that it’s Hattie and she is good and kind and I need good and kind.

I move to my bed. No, more like collapse onto it.

“Tough day at the office?” Hattie lies down next to me.

“Long day.”

“Tell me about your sternman. But only if he’s hot.”

I elbow her. “Dork.”

“Okay, I’ll settle for dependable.”

“I’ll know tomorrow. He’s from the desert, never fished. Can you imagine? I hired a total landlubber.”

“Careful, Rills. I’ve seen Deadliest Catch. I know how a crappy greenhorn can take down a crew.”

“Liar.” I elbow her again. “There’s zero chance you’ve watched Deadliest.”

“Not true. My uncle made me suffer through one episode and I wanted to stick needles in my eyes. And I’m telling you, there was a greenhorn who sucked. Everyone hated him. He was trouble.”

“I don’t think Sam will be trouble.”

Hattie twists to face me, props her head onto her elbow. “Sam, huh? What does this Sam look like?”

“He looks like a boy.”

“Ugh. Booooring. I want deets.”

“I have zero deets.”

“See? That’s the problem with you married ladies; you’ve forgotten how to ogle.”

“I’m not sure I was ever much of an ogler.”

“Then let me be your guide. Is he tall?”

“Yes.”

“Broad shoulders?”

“Yes.”

“Sexy, smoldering stare?”

“No clue.”

“Thin or bulky?”

“Medium.”

“Oh, I like medium. What’s his hair sitch? Blond, brown, black, red?”

“Black. Really black.” Like a waterfall. That’s what I’d thought of Sam’s hair when I first saw it loose. “And long. Like, to his shoulders long . . . not like eighties metal rocker long. It’s super silky and straight—”