Unseen Messages(153)

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APRIL

Conner shed fifteen for sixteen under a starry evening and crude jokes.

He and Galloway hung out while Pippa, Coco, and I spent the evening doing whatever we could to treat Conner like a king.

We’d all chipped in and created him a flax sleeping bag for the nights he wanted to camp away and Galloway had carved a doll with big lips and boobs, saying it was his first girlfriend.

That had earned him a punch followed by surly curses.

Two days after Conner’s birthday, we lay on the sand digesting breakfast of taro and fish, and for the first time, we heard something that wasn’t the wind rustling through the trees.

The loud foghorn hung heavily in the air, echoing in my ears, heralding all of us to the shore.

We stared for minutes, doing our best to squint on the horizon. If we had my phone, we could’ve taken a photo and zoomed in to see what lay out there (like a cheap version of binoculars).

We’d done that a few times.

Conner had repeatedly snapped images of every inch of the horizon, enlarging the photo to its maximum potential and studying for any signs of life, any other island, any hint that we weren’t so alone.

Over the course of our years here, we’d seen plumes of commercial airliners, soaring thousands of feet above our head. We’d spotted a fishing trawler far, far out to sea that didn’t notice our hastily burning signal fire. And imagined voices when tiredness turned our thoughts into mush.

But this...this sounded closer.

Real.

Was it a tanker? A barge? A ferry? Some sort of nautical magic that could whisk us away from here?

As the afternoon ticked on, our legs grew tired, and we sat, one by one, in the sand.

And we stared.

We stared and stared until daylight switched to moonlight and we had to admit what we’d been chanting in our heads for hours.

They’re gone.

No one’s there.

We’re alone.

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MAY

Rustling multihued feathers switched the calendar to May, donating hundreds of squawking parrots to our island.

We didn’t know where they’d migrated from but we tracked the jewels creatures through the trees in awe. Pippa trailed beneath them, collecting discarded indigo and emerald feathers, while Conner climbed into the branches to see if they were tame.

We didn’t look at them as food.

Merely pretty animals to enjoy.

Not that they stayed long.

As quickly as they’d arrived, they flew off.

A pandemonium of parrots in a rainbow blur.

A few days later, Pippa decided she no longer needed Puffin as a security blanket.

And Coco much preferred her flax voodoo doll, courtesy of Conner, to the tatty stuffed kitten.

I didn’t know why that upset me, but it did. The faded cat was no longer wanted. No longer carted around the island by its paw.

It was discarded.

However, I gave it a forever home on our shelves in the house, sitting pride of place between the salt bowl and dried mint.

RIP, Puffin.

He’d gained new employment as our mascot.





Chapter Fifty-Six


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G A L L O W A Y

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ONE YEAR BEFORE THE CRASH

“DID YOU KNOW about this?”

I stared into the distrusting eyes of my term manager. We were all assigned a caseworker to take our grumblings and requests to the bosses.

I never summoned mine. Never had a reason to. And they’d never summoned me in return. I was a murderer serving a life sentence. There was nothing more to discuss.

Until now.

“Answer the question, Mr. Oak.”

I shook my head. “No, how could I?”

“You didn’t plant this evidence?”

“No.”

“Yet you admitted to committing the crime?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

My manager closed the folder in front of him. “Well, it just so happens, the truth has been proved a lie.”

My heart (that’d been dead every day since they’d imprisoned me) picked up. “What?”

“You’re free to go, Mr. Oak. Time to leave.”

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JUNE

IT’S TIME TO leave.

We’d waited too long.

We no longer had a choice.

“I love you, Estelle.” Her back bowed as I entered her.

She was hot and wet and slippery.

And always so ready for me.

No matter that it’d been a busy day of fishing and repairing the net after it snagged on coral. No matter that Coconut had been colicky and unable to rest. No matter that our happiness levels had shrivelled more and more as life got harder and harder. She never said no to me. Never made me feel like a nuisance or hindrance.

I adored her for that.

She still smiled when she looked my way. Still blew me kisses as we worked side by side. And still welcomed me to take her no matter what time of day.

I loved her.

I’d married her.

But I didn’t know how much longer I could keep her.

“We’ll try to leave soon,” I murmured as I thrust gently into her.