“But everyone got on,” Randy said. “Milly married Curso and they stayed together for me.”
“Ditto for the Hasten family,” she said. “Then, of all the islands in all the oceans your mom draws fire duty with my dad.”
“The odds were pretty good,” Randy said. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them and they laughed. For an instant it was just the two of them, and their past and Respite’s history didn’t threaten to drag them down. “We should get back.”
They worked their way back across the island, the night quiet and serene until Randy’s scream broke the calm. “Damn it!”
“What?”
“Raked my hand against a pricker vine,” he said. Blood dripped from his index finger, and a deep gash ran across his thumb.
“Sit,” Hazel said. She wiped the wound with a rag that hung from her waist and poured water on it from her coconut canteen.
“Ouch, easy,” Randy said.
“Don’t be such an infant,” Hazel said. “You all right now?” She’d finished cleaning him up. “Hold a leaf on your thumb. We’ll head to the Womb and bandage you up.”
They continued on through the tree ferns back to the Fire Wood, its stink rising above the salt air. “Must have been awkward after the sea receded on The Day and my grandfather was standing there,” Hazel said.
Randy laughed. “That’s one way to put it. My grandmother was excited to see him alive. Remember, she cared for him. Then the guilt flooded through her, the shame, all the things that drove them apart,” Randy said. They reached the cupola at the center of the Fire Wood. “She described his face and the hatred she’d seen there. She knew right away he blamed her, but she feared for her husband and would do anything to spare him, and their marriage. They had to find a way to get along. Respite is a small place.”
“But she treated him like shit,” Hazel said.
“If Ben believed my grandmother wronged him, why didn’t he raise a ruckus? Publicly call her out,” Randy said.
“He loved her, Randy, and he knew your grandmother didn’t want your grandpa Gary to find out about what she’d done, and if he revealed their secret, your grandmother would never speak to him again.”
“So they just screwed and forgot about it?” Randy said.
Hazel sighed. “Pretty much. It was easy to find time to be together. The motivation was raw and ugly.”
The weight of irony again cast its shadowed gaze across Randy. “My grandmother was saving her marriage and protecting her husband from humiliation,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“I think she loved Ben in some strange way,” Randy said. “Question is, what was your grandfather getting out of it?”
“Sex. Revenge for what he thought she’d done to him. Control over her, and the fear that made her feel and the power it gave him. Maybe he cared for her,” Hazel said. “Like I said, ugly and raw.”
“Sex and anger do have a way of getting intertwined in strange ways,” Randy said. He looked at the forest floor.
“Who are we talking about now? Your grandfather, your father, or yourself?” Hazel said.
“All three.”
The small work fire smoldered, and tiny flames fought to stay alive above the cinders. Hazel went to the wood pile and handed Randy two logs that he placed on the fire. The noni wood caught like dried beach grass, and the flames roared.
“Let me push the wood cart up to the Womb, and we’ll bandage your hand,” Hazel said.
They walked the rest of the way to the Womb and unloaded the wood as Fire Master Aragron watched. He looked preoccupied and didn’t ask them to do anything. When the Perpetual Flame was blazing, and the wood pile stacked, Aragorn nodded and Randy and Hazel made their way to the Hampton Infirmary. As they entered, Hazel lit two torches, and shadows danced in the recesses of the rough stone walls.
Cots made of dried vines sat along one wall, and water dripped into a stone pool in the corner, the plop and splash of each drop echoing through the cave. A table made from old world metal salvaged from the cruise ship sat in the center of the space, and beneath it a bamboo grate covered the hole that led to the tunnels below the Perpetual Flame. Bottles containing liquids and herbs filled the pocks and natural shelves in the cave walls. Doc Hampton’s anatomy and remedies books rested on the tabletop, as did the stethoscope and other instruments he’d brought.
“Sit here,” Hazel said, motioning toward a cut piece of lumber that served as a stool. She went about cleaning and bandaging Randy’s wound.
“I always feel a little weird in here,” Randy said. Their shadows danced and writhed on the cave walls.
She gave him her you’re strange look. “Why, because you were born here?”
“That and I almost died here,” Randy said. “I remember laying on that cot right there, so afraid I would never see…”
“What?”
“I was scared I’d never see you again,” Randy said. “Damn tree left this to remind me.” Randy lifted his shirt revealing a long scar that ran horizontally across his abdomen.
“Yes, the legendary tree incident,” Hazel said, ignoring his reference to her. “The entire island came running.” He heard the sarcasm in her voice loud and clear, and she looked away. “My parents were both born here and so was your dad, but not everyone on Respite is equal.”
“Shit don’t mean shit,” Randy said.
“But that’s not true, and the character that said that knew it better than most, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself. Sounds like someone I know.”
Randy sighed and got up. “Can you imagine what it must have been like the first night? They had no light
