Osprey Island

There was an awkward pause. Then Suzy looked right at Reesa as though she were surfacing into another conversation entirely. “You ever worry that you don’t know what’s right for your kids? Like you try to do right by them, but what if you don’t even know what right is?”

JANNA TRUDGED a sniffling Mia up the hill, prepared to drop her in Gavin’s care at the staff barracks while she went and wrested Squee away from Lance, but as the Squires’ cottage came into view she could see Lance on the front porch with one of the Irish girls, and Janna shifted direction and walked toward them, waving as she approached. No one waved back. Lance’s head was down, and as they got closer he lifted his eyes, caught sight of Janna and Mia, and started fumbling fast to light a cigarette, turning his face away as though they’d come in on a strong wind. Janna smiled at Brigid. Brigid made no reciprocal gesture. She appeared to be at once ministering to and covering for Lance. From a good twenty feet away Janna made her voice offhandedly casual. “Squee want to come to the beach?”

Lance, still turned away, waved a hand and jerked his head toward the cottage door—Go ask him yourself. Mia stayed where she was, unwilling to come any closer. Janna went up the steps and leaned in the door: “Hey, Squee, get your suit! We’re going to the beach!” She paused for a response. Her eyes were adjusting to the inside light, and for a minute all she could see were splotches and shadows. Then she made out Squee, still sitting, stonelike, at his chair. “Come on! Move it, grab your suit!” She watched as he slowly collected himself and got up from the table to follow her orders. On the porch Lance started to speak. He was looking straight out at Mia. From where she now stood on the porch, Janna could see that Lance had been crying.

“You know what pisses me off the most?” Lance said to Mia, his voice ugly and threatening. Mia said nothing, just stood there, frozen. “They think I’m stupid. Send Janna,” he cooed in a singsong mimicry. “He liiikes Janna. Send Janna over to get the little fucker . . .”

Mia just took it in, rooted to the ground in her fear. Janna went inside to hurry Squee. Brigid reached her hand out and pressed it to Lance’s upper arm in consolation. He turned at her touch, put his elbows on his knees, and bent over them, shaking his head at the floorboards as if they’d let him down once again. And just when it looked as if he was giving up, he raised his head to Mia again and spat as he spoke. “Your mother is a back-stabbing cunt.” He stood, quickly—Brigid jerked back in alarm—and slammed inside.

PEG SPENT THE ENTIRE AFTERNOON worrying herself nearly sick over the fate of the little Squire boy. Someone else might have excused herself from the maid’s room, gone down to the office, looked up Roddy’s home telephone number, and called him the minute Lance had ordered Squee away from the lunch table. But it was important to Peg to be dutiful, obedient, and—perhaps above all—blameless in all that she undertook, and thus she agonized through her chores until the five o’clock whistle blew down at the ferry docks, whereupon she dashed with breathless determination to the Lodge office and found Cybelle Schwartz behind the desk, reading a dog-eared, three-year-old issue of Cosmopolitan.

“May I . . .” Peg began, “please, can I ring someone?”

Cybelle eyed her suspiciously.

“I’ve . . . I’ve got to—you—I’ve got to make a call . . . on the telephone!”

“Staff’s supposed to use the pay phone downstairs.”

“Please!” Peg cried. “It’s desperately important!”

“Is it long distance? I can’t let you call long distance.”

“No—it’s right here! Do you . . . can you get the number, for the man, the one who fixes things . . . Roddy?”

Cybelle was nodding, haughty and self-important. “That’s Roddy Jacobs. He doesn’t have a phone himself, but you can sometimes get him here.” She dialed the number at Eden’s and passed the receiver to Peg.

Someone answered, and Peg asked for Roddy. He wasn’t in—an obstacle Peg hadn’t anticipated. She paused for such a long time that Eden asked, “Hello? Can I help you with something?”

“Oh,” wailed Peg. She looked to Cybelle nervously, unsure of how she might proceed. “I don’t know . . . I . . . I’m working here at the Lodge and I’ve . . . I’ve got to talk with Mr. . . . with Roddy.” She said his name as if it were a foreign word. “I’m terribly, I’m afraid . . . with Squee . . . I’m just entirely . . .”

“Squee?” Eden said sharply. “What happened to Squee?”

“What?” said Peg. “No, I don’t . . . I’ve just . . .” And then she burst into tears.

Cybelle, embarrassed, disappeared into the back room.

“Please, sweetheart,” Eden said on the line, “please calm down. Did something happen to Squee? I’m Roddy’s mother,” she explained to the sobbing girl. “Can you tell me what happened, please?”

Peg’s tears abated slightly. “Do you . . . ? You know the Squire . . . Squee? You know Squee?”

“What happened?” Eden’s voice was rip-cord tense. “I’m his god-mother,” she said, and though it wasn’t true, she couldn’t find words that were, some way to explain her relationship to the child. “Please,” Eden said shrilly. “Please, is he all right?”

Peg took a gulp of air, and when she let it out inside another sob, all she could think to say was “It’s really that I don’t know . . .”

Eden broke in. “You’re at the Lodge? Why don’t I come there? I’m coming down there.”

Peg’s next sob conveyed acquiescence.

“Go down to the Sand Beach Road entrance,” Eden instructed. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Roddy, who’d also finished up work at the Lodge at five, pulled into the driveway at home just as Eden was pulling out. She saw him and bristled: What in god’s name was Roddy doing home when something was wrong with Squee down at the Lodge? Then she felt relief: if Roddy was home, it could be nothing too bad down there. And then the relief turned to fear: Roddy was home to tell her about whatever terrible thing had happened down at the Lodge. They stopped their vehicles in the driveway and spoke through the windows. In the confusion it took some moments before they were able to make themselves clear.

“I was just there,” Roddy said. “Nothing’s wrong down at the Lodge. Not more than usual. Now . . .”

“She wanted to talk to you,” Eden said.