Barrier Islands Read online

4

  Three days before Christmas and the night before Brooke was scheduled to leave with Jodie for a week at her parents’ house, Onion arrived home from closing the restaurant drunk. He sat heavily on their thin double mattress and shook his sleeping wife’s shoulder.

  Brooke woke and checked the clock on the upturned apple crate that served as their nightstand—1:15. She had waited up till eleven, the time Onion normally got home after closing, then turned out the lights and went to bed. She would have to get up before dawn to get Jodie ready for the trip and get to the ferry dock by 6:30 to hold her reservation on the 7 AM crossing. “Where have you been?” Her voice was a little groggy, but her head was instantly clear and awake.

  “Never mind where I’ve been. Why are you leaving?”

  Brooke rolled her face into the pillow to muffle her scream then counted to ten in silence before again facing her husband in the room’s dim light from the pole lamp outside their window that Lil always kept on. She said it was to help them come and go in the dark, but Onion had told her long ago that his mother believed the island was inhabited by the spirits of those lost at sea and kept the light on to fend them off. Brooke took a deep breath then said, “My family has not seen Jodie since she was born. I’m going to visit them for a few days.”

  “What happened to the ‘Till death do us part?’”

  Brooke had assumed Onion was a little toked on pot. He almost always shared a joint or two with the clean-up crew before locking up. But tonight she smelled rum on his breath. That would explain why he was so late, and where he’d been—to Jack’s, the only bar on the island open late this time of year. “You’re welcome to come with me. I want you to come with me. I could use the help.”

  “You promised we’d never spend a night apart.”

  Early in their romance, Brooke had made Onion promise they would never spend a night apart and sealed it with a pinky swear and a subsequent twining of other body parts. To keep the vow, Onion had slept in the chair in the hospital room (or tried to) the night before and the night after Jodie’s birth. They’d ridden the ferry back together, Onion cradling the blanket-enshrouded Jodie the whole way as Brooke stretched out on the lounge’s bench to try to ease the pain of her episiotomy. They’d landed to a hero’s homecoming—all the Howards and half the rest of the village assembled on the dock with pink streamers and bows—as Onion emerged down the ramp with their prize and Brooke had followed walking gingerly. Daffy had brought out a wheelchair which Brooke at first declined then gladly accepted. Onion gave her Jodie, to hold on her lap, then took the wheelchair’s handles from Daffy and pushed his family through the crowd of well-wishers. When they reached the end of the ferry station’s paved walk and looked ahead to the path of soft sand, Brooke had made a move to rise from the wheelchair. But Onion pushed her back down and nodded to two of his cousins. They each grabbed a wheel of the chair and carried her and the newborn all the way through town to Bridge and Lil’s house.

  “I never promised not to see my family,” Brooke said quietly but firmly. They’d had this discussion numerous times in the last month.

  “Your home is out here.”

  “But my family is on the mainland. I’m going to see them for one week—one week out of fifty-two weeks, Onion!” Her voice had crept up in volume and frustration through that brief speech. She glanced toward the crib and was relieved to see no movement there. Jodie would be difficult enough tomorrow without losing sleep tonight.

  “And leaving me.”

  Brooke suddenly felt sorry for her husband. “Please come with us.” She brushed his cheek with her hand.

  “Your family hates me.”

  “They don’t hate you. They hardly know you. This will be your chance to get to know them.”

  “It’s Christmas, Brooke!”

  “Duh.”

  “I spend Christmas here.”

  “I spent last Christmas here. We can alternate.”

  “I don’t have a ferry reservation.”

  Brooke laughed at that one. “Your uncle is the ferry captain!”

  “He can’t break the rules.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since today.”

  “Come with us, Onion.”

  “Don’t leave.”

  “I’m going to see my family.”

  Onion stood suddenly and headed back out into the night.

  He still hadn’t returned when Brooke rose at 5:30. She wondered how she’d get Jodie plus all her stuff to the ferry station till Daffy tapped on the door at 6:10. Together they lugged her three bags plus Jodie through the empty village to the station.

  Daffy walked with her onto the ferry and helped get Jodie and the bags situated on the bench. She leaned over and hugged Brooke seated below. “Merry Christmas. We’ll miss you.” She rose up smiling.

  Brooke nodded and hoped her thanks showed through her eyes. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Hurry back. I can’t wait to give you my present!”

  “This is present enough.”

  “No. This is just helping a friend.”

  “Your sister-in-law.”

  “My friend.”

  Brooke hesitated then asked, “Am I awful for leaving?”

  “You’re doing what you have to do.”

  “And that’s O.K.?”

  “We do what we have to do.”

  “Onion?”

  “Him too.”

  “Will he be O.K.?”

  She grinned. “He slept in his old room last night.”

  Brooke sighed. “I don’t know if I should be relieved or terrified.”

  Daffy thought for a moment. “Maybe both.” She turned and headed out of the passenger lounge, back into the predawn dark, toward the sleeping village.