When I return, my brother-in-law has passed out in the bed, and my poor sister is washing all the mounds of dirty diapers while Mom is trying to do her lacing. I walked in the door yesterday afternoon, and it really hit me how different the mood in the house was from when I was a girl. Back then, it had been my mother’s house. An island woman and her two island girls. My mother might have been sad and lonely, but she did give us freedom to roam the island and explore. I know I’ve always been a disappointment to her, but the important thing is she let me go. But now, my old home feels like a stranger’s house. It belongs to Matthew Young, and he lords it over all of us. He holds my sister prisoner. She doesn’t see it herself, but truly, I’ve never seen her so miserable. It breaks my heart. I tried to talk to Mom about it, but she puts it down to baby blues.
And the truth is, Ava, the reason I’ve stayed so long to help with Lynsey is that I am afraid for my sister. Bruises on her arms, which when I ask her how she got them she makes a lame excuse, like she banged her arm against the door, or fell over.
‘I don’t think Matthew Young is a good man,’ I tell my mom.
I believe she understands. I see it in her face, but she won’t admit it. After all, she pushed Katie into the marriage.
‘Your sister has made her bed, Susie, and now she has to lie in it.’
What can I do? Katie will tell me nothing about what happens between her and Matthew in private. Every time I suggest he is a bully, she gets angry with me, and defensive. I guess it’s time for me to come home, my darling. I will be back soon.
She had taken Lynsey on a glorious summer walk around the island. It had been a perfect afternoon, and Susannah had enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face as she pushed the baby carriage down the road and along Main Street. The leaves rustled in the trees, some fluttering to the sidewalk in the breeze, a lush green trail all the way into town. Today, instead of going to the library, she took a turn that brought her up a hill to a viewing point of the bay and harbour. Taking Lynsey out of the carriage, she held her close to her chest, wrapping the blanket tight about her, although the air was warm.
‘This is your childhood kingdom, darling,’ she told her baby niece.
Lynsey blinked, and indeed she tipped her tiny chin as if trying to catch a view of the big wide open Atlantic ocean. The serenity of the blue waters of Vinalhaven harbour, and all the little islands dotted all the way out to the ocean. Susannah remembered the time she’d ‘borrowed’ an old rowing boat from the harbour and had taken Kate out in it. She’d been nine and Kate seven at the time. Susannah had wanted to go on an adventure. See what was beyond the island. Follow in their father’s footsteps. But the boat had had a hole in the bottom, and they were hardly out of the harbour before they began to sink. Susannah had tried to stay calm, but Kate got frightened and began to scream. Luckily one of the summer visitors had been sailing into the harbour and came to their rescue, but not until both sisters were up to their waists in water. Ever since that day, Kate had refused to go out any deeper than up to her knees in the ocean. She’d only paddle by the shoreline, or in the granite quarries inland which they used as bathing pools in the summer months. She couldn’t swim for that reason. Hated going on boats. It struck Susannah as extremely odd that she would choose to marry a man who spent his life on fishing boats.
‘When you’re a big girl, leave this island,’ Susannah whispered into Lynsey’s little shell ear. ‘Leave and never come back.’
As soon as she stepped into the house, Susannah knew something was very wrong. The same feeling as when a bad nor’easter has just blown across the island. Devastation and uneasy calm.
She called out for her mom and her sister, but there was no answer.
Looking out of the window, she saw her mom in the garden, standing at the white picket fence and staring out at the ocean. Leaving Lynsey still asleep and tucked up in her carriage, Susannah ventured outside.
‘Mom, are you okay?’
Her mother turned to her.
‘Too much shouting,’ she said, her face pale, as she put her hands over her ears. ‘None of my business.’
‘Where’s Katie? Is he asleep?’
Her mother shook her head. ‘He indeed! Every woman should have a man. What’s wrong with you, Susannah?’
Susannah ignored her mother, and ran back into the house, searching for Kate downstairs in the kitchen and knocking on the door of her and Matthew’s bedroom but there was no answer.
Eventually she found her sister upstairs in her own bedroom, their childhood bedroom, curled up in a foetal position on the bed. Susannah ran over to her.
‘Katie, what’s wrong? Where’s Matthew?’
‘Out,’ Kate whispered.
She looked like she’d seen a ghost. Susannah knew something was terribly wrong because she didn’t even ask for Lynsey.
‘What happened? Please, Katie, tell me?’
Her sister sat up in the bed. Her breasts had leaked through her shirt. Any minute now, Lynsey would wake up crying for her feed.
‘He said I’m disgusting,’ Kate whispered. ‘But he is stuck with me. I’m his wife and I need to do my duty.’
‘What did he do to you?’ Susannah whispered in horror.
‘Tell me, Susie, what’s it like when you make love with
