it, seemed to whip them with sand and particles of things broken in the night. Vida brushed her hair back from her forehead, tried not to be afraid of the gathering emptiness inside her. The ocean had given them no new treasures—only the same old boards and planks as before, more eroded now.
Then her eye caught sight of something in a bright and happy hue. A pale pink—almost like a wedding dress color, but not quite white enough.
Her throat closed. She rushed toward that burst of color, one hand pulling her skirt back from her feet, the other arm swinging crazily. When she reached the bright petticoat she sank onto her knees. The sand was damp; it soaked her skirt. She lifted the petticoat, and buried her face in it.
She told herself not to cry. She was Vida Hazzard—she was not some flimsy thing. If she lost this last principle of her old self, she feared she would be nothing, nothing at all.
But she could not hold back. The weather inside her was beyond her control. She choked, gasped; her sobs had a life of their own. They came like breakers across her chest. The ugly sound of her heaving, the way her body shook, her waist convulsing within the corseted dress she’d worn when all was fizzy and fine—she was helpless to stop any of that.
The typhoon that had come in the night had left them nothing. So how could a boat made of wood, piloted by a few men, be otherwise but buried in the depths of the ocean?
She knew what had become of them. She knew, and her heart closed around what she had lost.
Fitzhugh, who had been at first a pleasant fantasy, and then a very compelling one. And also a handsome face and an excellent story. A story of a sickly boy who had made himself strong and able. He, that grand self-invention, was surely nothing now. He had seemed a bright star, the lone man who might suit her own impressive self, but he was no more. She had to put both hands against the sand for balance. Otherwise the convulsions of her sobs might be too much; she might break apart, too.
Somehow the weather inside her—like the weather that had come over the island—passed. When she looked up, Sal was the only person she saw. He was a few yards ahead of her, shoeless, ragged, staring out at the horizon. He seemed a person who would like to cry but can’t, who is too stunned to have the slightest idea what they feel. Vida knew she was being ridiculous. Fitz had been wonderful. But he had not really been hers—it was just a fantasy she had had, a possibility that had passed through her mind. Sal, as far as she knew, had been following Fitzhugh around the world all his life, and could follow him no more.
Fitz had been their leader. Sal was supposed to lead in his place, but he was in shock. Vida waited for one of the other men to speak up, take charge. To step forward with some brave proclamation, some inspiring plan. But several minutes passed, and no one did anything like that. Vida sighed, rose to her feet, smoothed her skirt as best she was able. She touched Sal’s shoulder. “We’ll be all right,” she told him.
His head moved around but it wasn’t exactly a nod of agreement. “It’s all over,” he said.
His eyes were dark with despair. She wanted to look away from that despair. She would have liked to throw the petticoat out to sea, but she couldn’t do that. They might need it yet. She wouldn’t give up, or abandon Sal or any of the others. She held his gaze. “I know, but we can’t let them think that. Come,” she said.
The others were scattered across the beach in various poses of shock—some sitting, some howling, some quite frighteningly still in the face of loss. Camilla was one of these. It seemed strange that once upon a time her very presence had seemed to diminish Vida’s own. Now her lips were paler than her sun-reddened face, and her light blue eyes made her seem otherworldly. Vida wanted Camilla to look up, to give her a reassuring glance, but she was absorbed in misery. The Misses Van Huysen held each other and wept. Young Peter sat apart from the rest, scowling out to sea. Vida offered Sal her arm and he took it, leaning on