Useless Bay(43)

She creeps out from behind my legs and tentatively allows herself to be petted by the one boy in my life who doesn’t think mortal injury is a competition.

Today is supposed to be a special day in the Shepherd family. It’s the groundbreaking of “the Herons.” The damage to the garage was so extensive that Mr. Shepherd tore it down and is building a new one. And while he was at it, he tore down the Breakers, too. No one wanted to sleep in a place where Lyudmila had been strangled.

This new guest cottage is just for Ellen, Henry and Meredith’s mother. Instead of calling it Ellen’s cottage, she’s decided to call it the Herons.

Ellen gets everything she wants. I’ve met her a handful of times, and I like her. She’s got a shy expression that hides how she’s quickly sizing someone up, and you can see how she and Mr. Shepherd once fell in love. After her experience and long absence, she’s tentative around her kids, afraid they could be taken away from her again at any moment. She starts every conversation haltingly, as though thinking, “Is this how parents talk to their teenagers these days?” But all that matters is that Henry knows that she loves him so much he never even needed to be forgiven.

After the extent of Joyce’s influence was exposed and Henry told everyone that he had lied about at whose hands he had suffered the abuse, Mr. Shepherd did everything he could to make reparations to his ex-wife. Luckily, Ellen isn’t the litigious type. She just wants to be around her children as much as possible, tentatively or not. Since she’s a caterer, she tries to smooth things over by making them goose liver paté and duck confit.

Hannah tells her to ease off—snickerdoodles work just fine.

It was Ellen’s idea to call the new cottage the Herons after the birds in the lagoon. She thought it was appropriate because she loves the slow-motion way they walk on the sand searching for fish, so slow you’d think they won’t get anything, then, after what seems a lifetime, they do.

Henry and I make our way to the end of the trail, Grant following behind carrying Calamity and swinging her around. Calamity tolerates this. Barely. My brothers are setting up the volleyball net. Ellen is on the beach, applying sunscreen to Meredith’s back. Meredith’s too old to be treated like a child of three, but she seems to be enjoying it. They’re both eager to make up for lost time—that touch of skin on skin, the reassurance of someone physically loving you without demand or reservation. I see Sammy watching them, a smile on his face.

“Oh great, the panini have arrived!” Ellen says when she sees the cooler. She’d sent us up the bread earlier in the day. “Did you toast them already? Or shall we do it here?”

I watch the three women, Hannah, Ellen, and Mom, working at the outdoor cooktop. Of course, after two seconds, Mom starts singing a Rat Pack song. This one is “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” I cringe for a moment, thinking she could’ve picked something better to hum for Ellen’s sake, but apparently the Rat Pack is universal, because pretty soon Ellen is humming along with her.

And I think, If Ellen can hum this with a smile on her face after all she’s been through, then maybe someday I can embrace my real name. Marilyn Monroe.

Nah.

There’s a coolness in the air. We’re trying to make the most of a dying summer day. We go back to school in a week, so I’ll see Henry less. But I’ll go over to the mainland and be part of his world whenever I can. For now, on the island, he’s still part of mine.

The net’s in place and our sides are picked when Grant comes to me, visibly upset. “Oh my God, Pixie!”

“What is it?”

Everyone comes running over. We take Grant’s fears seriously these days. Very seriously.

He’s crying, inconsolable. “I lost your dog.”

I look around the beach. I don’t see her anywhere. Where could she have gone? This is the first time she’s been out of my sight since she came out of the crate two weeks ago.

There’s a cluster around Grant now. A crowd telling him not to worry, that she’ll turn up. Then a chorus of voices shouting “Calamity! Calamity! Here, girl!”

I don’t see her anywhere, but a cloud bank has rolled in over the beach.

Then I see another dog.

Patience is standing in a sea of driftwood logs at the edge of the spit, waiting for me to follow her.

She leads me around the point of the beach, almost to the lagoon. As I reach the edge of where the waters turn, I hear the creak and groan of timbers. It could be that Mr. Shepherd has accelerated construction of the Herons, but I know he has not. And then I see him.

? ? ?

There he is, this man I think of with so much affection. He sits on a log, Patience at his feet. He gently strokes her ears. This must be what it’s like to have a father.

I sit next to him. I love his nearness. I love his white hair and the way his uniform is so worn but so well kept. Most of all, I love the way his gray eyes have depths I can’t fully understand. I look for bits of myself in his features, and I fancy I find them. It’s not hard. He’s tall and has a similar long face to mine. He points over my shoulder, and I turn to see Calamity running toward us, practically tripping over her own feet.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with that dog, I say. She’s too timid to be a scent hound. She’s useless.

He smiles at me. That makes her perfect, doesn’t it?