“Bloody Americans.” Brigid snorted. “So bleedin’ friendly, the lot of you!”
WHEN IT WAS TIME to leave for Penny and Art’s, Squee ran and hid down in the ravine behind Eden’s house. Eden hollered his name into the twilight for half an hour, pleading, cajoling, begging, before she threatened to go get Roddy, who she was sure would be none too pleased with Squee for acting so irresponsibly at a time like this. Squee emerged, somber and reluctant, from the woods. “Don’t tell Roddy, OK?” he asked, and that was the last thing he said as Eden handed him a small old suitcase of Roderick’s packed with his washed and neatly folded clothes, and they drove down the hill to his grandparents’ house. Art had already gone to bed, but Penny greeted them at the door with a grandmotherly flourish and welcomed Squee inside like some sort of delicious prey. Eden stroked the boy’s hair as he stood beside her and paused a moment, her hand upon his head as though she were saying a prayer, before she bade them good night and made her way back to the car alone.
Eight
THE MECHANICS OF FLIGHT
To fly
Is to come toward
And
To go away from
—WILLIAM MOSLEY LANDIS, self-appointed poet laureate of Osprey Island, “The Osprey”
THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR of Suzy and Mia’s room after dinner that evening, and Suzy leapt to answer it. If she was disappointed to discover that it was not Roddy, her surprise at seeing her father in the doorway certainly masked any other emotion. Suzy started, then regained herself and put up a hand to shush Bud as she slipped into the hall with him and took pains to close the door quietly behind her. “Mia’s finally asleep,” she explained.
Bud nodded. His eyes were trained down. He looked almost humble, and humility was not something to which Suzy was even remotely accustomed in her father. “I’ve got to ask you . . .” he began, then fixed his eyes on her and spoke quickly, with urgent purpose. “I need you to take over for Lorna. I’ll try to find someone, but until then . . .” He stared, waiting for a one-word answer he might snatch from her like a relay baton.
“You want—?” Suzy screwed up her face. This was something she sensed she didn’t want to hear.
“You’re the only one who knows the Lodge. How things work. I’ll pay you, of course.”
Suzy’s lips pursed defiantly. “This is your way of asking ?”
Bud regarded his daughter blankly.
“Would please be so difficult?”
She exhausted him. Bud made a gesture as if to say, I concede to you, take anything you want from me, take everything, take it all! If “please” is what you require, then I give you “please.” He never said the word aloud.
“Fine,” Suzy said. “Fine. Whatever. Until you find someone.”
Bud sighed, eyes closed, shaking his head. “It’s going to be a hell of a time.”
“Yeah, well, for all of us.”
Bud nodded. He turned to go.
“You’re welcome,” Suzy called after him, the way she did with her first-graders.
He turned back around mid-stride, gave a cursory half nod, and continued down the hall.
Bud called a staff meeting in the dining room that evening. Nancy was back up at the house, still sleeping off the tranquilizers Doc Zobeck had pumped her full of that morning. The Lodge felt as it had the day they’d gotten word of Chas’s death in Vietnam. It had been Doc Zobeck back then too who’d given Nancy her fill of Valium, just to get her past the screaming, past the part when they were afraid she’d truly lose her mind. Bud hadn’t known what to do with himself that terrible day. He was the owner of a large hotel, always a thousand things to do. Except that day, when he couldn’t think of one. He was of no comfort to his wife, who howled like a dully stabbed beast; he could not even conceive of going to his daughter, who was sixteen and terrified him for that reason alone. Bud’s memory had blurred and distorted that time just after Chas’s death. Nothing had felt real. And it was dangerous, Bud knew, what a person might do if what was real didn’t feel real. Some time down the road, what was real would come back, and when it did the chances were good that it’d slam him so hard he wouldn’t have a choice but to feel the pain.