lightning flashed over the Gulf and made momentary blue patterns on the wall.
As she extended herself—exploring those fabled limits of endurance—the dreams either ceased or played themselves out far below the eye of her memory. She began to awaken feeling not so much refreshed as unwound all the way to the core of herself. And although each day was essentially the same as the day before, each began to seem like a new thing—its own thing—instead of an extension of the old thing. One day she woke realizing that Amy’s death had begun to be something that had happened instead of something that was happening.
She decided she would ask her father to come down—and bring Melody if he wanted to. She would give them a nice dinner. They could stay over (what the hell, it was his house). And then she’d start thinking about what she wanted to do with her real life, the one she would soon resume on the other side of the drawbridge: what she wanted to keep and what she wanted to cast away.
She would make that call soon, she thought. In a week. Two, at the most. It wasn’t quite time yet, but almost. Almost.
–4–
Not a very nice man.
One afternoon not long after July became August, Deke Hollis told her she had company on the island. He called it the island, never the key.
Deke was a weathered fifty, or maybe seventy. He was tall and rangy and wore a battered old straw hat that looked like an inverted soup bowl. From seven in the morning until seven at night, he ran the drawbridge between Vermillion and the mainland. This was Monday to Friday. On weekends, “the kid” took over (said kid being about thirty). Some days when Em ran up to the drawbridge and saw the kid instead of Deke in the old cane chair outside the gatehouse, reading Maxim or Popular Mechanics rather than The New York Times, she was startled to realize that Saturday had come around again.
This afternoon, though, it was Deke. The channel between Vermillion and the mainland—which Deke called the thrut (throat, she assumed)—was deserted and dark under a dark sky. A heron stood on the drawbridge’s Gulf-side rail, either meditating or looking for fish.
“Company?” Em said. “I don’t have any company.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Pickering’s back. At 366? Brought one of his ‘nieces.’” The punctuation for nieces was provided by a roll of Deke’s eyes, of a blue so faded they were nearly colorless.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Em said.
“No,” he agreed. “Crossed over in that big red M’cedes of his about an hour ago, while you were probably still lacin’ up your tennies.” He leaned forward over his newspaper; it crackled against his flat belly. She saw he had the crossword about half completed. “Different niece every summer. Always young.” He paused. “Sometimes two nieces, one in August and one in September.”
“I don’t know him,” Em said. “And I didn’t see any red Mercedes.” Nor did she know which house belonged to 366. She noticed the houses themselves, but rarely paid attention to the mailboxes. Except, of course, for 219. That was the one with the little line of carved birds on top of it. (The house behind it was, of course, Birdland.)
“Just as well,” Deke said. This time instead of rolling his eyes, he twitched down the corners of his mouth, as if he had something bad tasting in there. “He brings ’em down in the M’cedes, then takes ’em back to St. Petersburg in his boat. Big white yacht. The Playpen. Went through this morning.” The corners of his mouth did that thing again. In the far distance, thunder mumbled. “So the nieces get a tour of the house, then a nice little cruise up the coast, and we don’t see Pickering again until January, when it gets cold up in Chicagoland.”
Em thought she might have seen a moored white pleasure craft on her morning beach run but wasn’t sure.
“Day or two from now—maybe a week—he’ll send out a couple of fellas, and one will
As she extended herself—exploring those fabled limits of endurance—the dreams either ceased or played themselves out far below the eye of her memory. She began to awaken feeling not so much refreshed as unwound all the way to the core of herself. And although each day was essentially the same as the day before, each began to seem like a new thing—its own thing—instead of an extension of the old thing. One day she woke realizing that Amy’s death had begun to be something that had happened instead of something that was happening.
She decided she would ask her father to come down—and bring Melody if he wanted to. She would give them a nice dinner. They could stay over (what the hell, it was his house). And then she’d start thinking about what she wanted to do with her real life, the one she would soon resume on the other side of the drawbridge: what she wanted to keep and what she wanted to cast away.
She would make that call soon, she thought. In a week. Two, at the most. It wasn’t quite time yet, but almost. Almost.
–4–
Not a very nice man.
One afternoon not long after July became August, Deke Hollis told her she had company on the island. He called it the island, never the key.
Deke was a weathered fifty, or maybe seventy. He was tall and rangy and wore a battered old straw hat that looked like an inverted soup bowl. From seven in the morning until seven at night, he ran the drawbridge between Vermillion and the mainland. This was Monday to Friday. On weekends, “the kid” took over (said kid being about thirty). Some days when Em ran up to the drawbridge and saw the kid instead of Deke in the old cane chair outside the gatehouse, reading Maxim or Popular Mechanics rather than The New York Times, she was startled to realize that Saturday had come around again.
This afternoon, though, it was Deke. The channel between Vermillion and the mainland—which Deke called the thrut (throat, she assumed)—was deserted and dark under a dark sky. A heron stood on the drawbridge’s Gulf-side rail, either meditating or looking for fish.
“Company?” Em said. “I don’t have any company.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Pickering’s back. At 366? Brought one of his ‘nieces.’” The punctuation for nieces was provided by a roll of Deke’s eyes, of a blue so faded they were nearly colorless.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Em said.
“No,” he agreed. “Crossed over in that big red M’cedes of his about an hour ago, while you were probably still lacin’ up your tennies.” He leaned forward over his newspaper; it crackled against his flat belly. She saw he had the crossword about half completed. “Different niece every summer. Always young.” He paused. “Sometimes two nieces, one in August and one in September.”
“I don’t know him,” Em said. “And I didn’t see any red Mercedes.” Nor did she know which house belonged to 366. She noticed the houses themselves, but rarely paid attention to the mailboxes. Except, of course, for 219. That was the one with the little line of carved birds on top of it. (The house behind it was, of course, Birdland.)
“Just as well,” Deke said. This time instead of rolling his eyes, he twitched down the corners of his mouth, as if he had something bad tasting in there. “He brings ’em down in the M’cedes, then takes ’em back to St. Petersburg in his boat. Big white yacht. The Playpen. Went through this morning.” The corners of his mouth did that thing again. In the far distance, thunder mumbled. “So the nieces get a tour of the house, then a nice little cruise up the coast, and we don’t see Pickering again until January, when it gets cold up in Chicagoland.”
Em thought she might have seen a moored white pleasure craft on her morning beach run but wasn’t sure.
“Day or two from now—maybe a week—he’ll send out a couple of fellas, and one will
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