“This is where he’s been.”
The betrayal sits thick between us. I want to say something to make this better for Finn, who idolizes Gabe, who would do anything for him, but I can’t think of anything.
“Do you think Puffin’s dead?” Finn asks.
“No, she got away,” I say.
He studies his hands. They’re a little chapped on the knuckles from all the washing he’s been up to. “Yes, I thought so, too.”
I look away, to the shiny handles of the bathtub, so shiny that they remind me of the grille of Father Mooneyham’s car. “So,” I say, “one day?”
Finn nods solemnly. “One day. The worst will be early tomorrow morning, I think.”
“Sure, of course. How do you know?”
He looks impatient. “Everything. If people used their eyeballs, everybody would know.”
The door swings open then, without a knock, and Gabe stands in the doorway. He looks in better humor than I’ve seen him for a long time. “Is it a party you’re having in here?”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s started in the tub and then it spread to the loo. All that’s left is the sink if you want it.”
“Well, everyone’s wondering where you are. There’s lamb stew in the works, but only if you come out of the toilet.”
Finn and I exchange a glance. I wonder if he’s thinking what I’m thinking: that Gabe can’t just pretend that there’s no bad feeling, that he hasn’t been gone, that things will just go back the way they were. I thought, before, that a word from him would be enough, but now I know that I want him to court my good graces. If I can’t have a groveling apology, I don’t want anything at all.
As we head down the stairs, Gabe says, “You have the couch, I’m afraid, Finn, because you’re the shortest.”
“Under whose measure!” I say.
Gabe shrugs. “Well, you’re the shortest, technically, but Peg thinks you should be in a room with a door. So we’re in Beech’s room.”
“Where is Beech, then?”
“He and Tommy are on a mattress in the living room. Peg says it’ll work this way.”
Back in the kitchen, the boys are loud and talking over each other. Beech and Tommy have ahold of something and are trying to keep it out of each other’s reach, and a sheepdog’s appeared from nowhere and is trying to get it as well. Peg holds a spoon in one hand and a cat by its scruff in the other. She’s swearing at both of them.
“Put that out,” she says to Gabe, and he takes the cat from her and puts it on the other side of the door. She scowls at me. “I don’t cook. Cats make it worse.”
Before I have a chance to answer, Gabe asks, “Where’s Tom?”
It takes me a moment to realize that he means Thomas Gratton. I’d never considered that Thomas Gratton became Tom under his own roof.
“He went out to see if the Mackies were doing all right. Beech, get out. All of you, out. Go into the living room while I get this done. Out.”
Beech and Tommy obey and take their noise with them, and Finn files after them, interested because of the appearance of the dog.
I turn to go, but in the doorway, I hesitate and look back over my shoulder. Peg Gratton has turned back to the great black range to stir the pot, and Gabe stands just behind her, saying something into her ear. I just catch him saying “strong enough” and —
“Puck, catch it!” Tommy shouts.
I turn my face toward the living room in time to catch a sock full of beans in the mouth.
Beech guffaws but Tommy looks aggrieved and apologizes. The collie is now frolicking around my feet with great friendliness, very eager to have the sock, and I realize that this is what Beech and Tommy were fooling around with earlier.
“You should be sorry,” I say sternly to Tommy, who still looks beaten, standing on the other side of the worn green couch that will be Finn’s bed. And then I hurl the sock back to him.
Pleased to be so easily forgiven, he grins and whips it without pause to Beech, who loses it to the dog. Tommy has no qualms about making a fool of himself, scrabbling after the collie as she leads him on a merry chase, and even Finn’s laughing. I find myself wondering what drives Tommy to leave the island; he doesn’t have the brooding of Gabe or the sulkiness of Beech. I’ve never seen him when he doesn’t seem perfectly content, perfectly a part of island life. On the floor, Tommy snags the sock, finally, and around and around it goes to all of us, even the dog again, until Finn says, “Where’s Gabe?” and we realize that he hasn’t come out of the kitchen.
I start toward the kitchen, but Tommy takes my arm. “I’ll go.”
He peers around the door frame and I can’t hear what he says. Then he turns back to us, and he has a smile pinned on for us. “Good news. Food’s done.” Gabe appears in the doorway beside him and they exchange a look that infuriates me, because it’s yet more of the secret language of men.
Finally, Peg appears and addresses all of us. “If you want it, you have to serve yourself. And if you don’t like it, blame Tom. He did it.”
There’s not much conversation as we eat — maybe, like me, they’re all reimagining the events of the evening. But it’s a quiet without demands. The storm’s not loud enough to make itself known and it’s easy to pretend that we’re just over for a social visit. The only time Peg Gratton addresses me is to tell me that I’m welcome to give Dove more hay if she needs it before the end of the night, before the storm gets bad.
And she’s right about the storm. By the time we go to bed, the wind has become fitful and furious, shaking the windowpanes. The sheets on the bed are clean but the room still smells like Beech, who smells like salt ham. Before we turn off the lights, I see that there are no personal effects in the room, nothing to say that it is Beech’s. Just this bed and an austere desk with an empty vase and some coins on it, and a narrow dresser with well-worn corners. I wonder if there used to be more of Beech here, but he packed it all away to take with him to the mainland.
I consider this as I try to sleep. I lie on one side of the bed and Gabe lies on the other, but it’s a twin bed, so the two sides are really one side, and his elbow is kind of in my ribs and his shoulder is mashed against mine. It’s warmer here, too, than at our house, and having Gabe here makes it warmer still, so I’m not sure how I’ll sleep. Gabe’s breathing doesn’t sound like he’s sleeping, either.