Heroes Are My Weakness(108)

Fran said it was better to be smart than strong, but Diggity didn’t believe that was true. He thought it was a lot better being strong.

One day after Fran made him come back home from the park, a strange thing happened. He went to his room to play his favorite video game, but as he touched the controller, an electric shock traveled up his arm and down through his chest into his legs, and the next thing he knew, everything went dark . . .

Theo wrote on into the night.


EACH MORNING WHEN ANNIE AWAKENED, she found another burnt offering on the aft deck of the Lucky Charm. The muffins, egg casserole, and homemade granola weren’t really charred, but they were burnt offerings nonetheless—rooted in guilt, petitioning for her silence, and—in the case of freshly squeezed orange juice—signaling sacrifice.

Not everything was edible. A bottle of scented hand lotion appeared, then a zippered Peregrine Island sweatshirt with the price tag from Tildy’s gift store still attached. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of the giver—Naomi delivering a bowl of chowder, Mrs. Nelson leaving the scented lotion. Even Marie left a pan of lemon bars.

With a decent phone signal available, Annie had begun contacting her former dog-walking clients. She talked to her old boss at Coffee, Coffee about getting her job back and about crashing on the couch in the back room until her first house-sitting job started. But she still had too many hours to fill, and the aching sadness wouldn’t ease.

Theo was furious with her, and he hadn’t come back. The pain of losing him was a circling vulture that refused to fly away. Pain, she reminded herself, that only she was feeling.

She thought a lot about Niven Garr, but she could only handle so much rejection at a time. She wanted to locate his family, but she’d wait until she was off the island and the worst of her misery over Theo had eased.

A couple of the younger women stopped by the boat, curious about why she’d left the cottage, so Annie knew the news about the transfer of ownership hadn’t leaked. She muttered something about needing to be close to town, and they seemed satisfied.

Annie’s fourth morning on the boat, Lisa hopped on board and grabbed her in a hug. Since she’d always been cool, Annie couldn’t imagine where this sudden enthusiasm had come from until Lisa finally let her go. “I can’t believe you’ve made Livia talk. I saw her today. It’s like a miracle.”

“It was a group effort,” Annie said, only to have Lisa hug her again and tell her she’d changed Jaycie’s life.

Lisa wasn’t her only visitor. Annie was in the cabin washing some underwear when she heard footsteps on the deck. “Annie?”

It was Barbara. Annie draped her wet bra over the fire extinguisher to dry, picked up her coat, and went on deck.

Barbara stood in the pilothouse, holding a loaf of homemade sweet bread in plastic wrap. Her big blond bouffant hairdo had collapsed, and all that remained of her customary heavy makeup was a bloodred slash of lipstick that had bled into the lines around her mouth. She set the bread next to the sonar equipment. “It’s been six days. You haven’t called the police. Not you or Theo. You haven’t told anyone.”

“Not yet,” Annie said.

“We’re trying to fix what we did. I want you to know that.” It was more a plea than a statement.

“Bully for you.”

Barbara tugged at a toggle button on her coat. “Naomi and I went to the mainland on Thursday to talk to a lawyer. He’s drawing up the paperwork to make the cottage yours forever.” She looked past Annie toward the fish house, no longer able to maintain eye contact. “All we ask is for you not to tell anyone.”

Annie ordered herself to dig in. “You don’t have the right to ask for anything.”

“I know, but . . .” Her eyes were bloodshot. “Most of us were born here. We’ve had our disagreements over the years, and not everybody likes every one of us, but . . . People respect us. That’s a precious thing.”

“Not so precious that you weren’t willing to throw it away. And now you want Theo and me to stay quiet so I can get my cottage back.”

The smeared red lipstick made her complexion ashen. “No. We’ll make sure you get it back, regardless. We’re just asking you to . . .”

“To behave better than you did.”

Barbara’s shoulders sagged. “That’s right. Better than all of us did.”

Annie could only be a hard-ass for so long. She’d made her decision the moment Lisa’s two little red-haired girls had raced into their grandmother’s living room and flung themselves at her. “Call off your lawyer,” she said. “The cottage is yours.”

Barbara gaped at her. “You don’t mean that.”

“I mean it.” She couldn’t come back here. If she held on to the cottage, it would only be for spite. “The cottage belongs to the island. I don’t. It’s yours. Free and clear. Do what you want with it.”

“But . . .”

Annie didn’t wait to hear any more. She wrapped her coat tighter around her and jumped to the dock.

A man was scraping a boat hull. The fishermen floated their boats onto Christmas Beach at high tide, did their repairs, then pushed them back in the water when the tide ebbed. Island life was stripped down like that—dependent on tides and weather, on fish and the whims of nature. She wandered through town, feeling as empty and disconnected as the solitary lobster trap leaning against Tildy’s shuttered gift shop.