both those parents teach at her school. Two years ago when we agreed to let Rudy live on campus I had promised both him and Harmon that I wouldn’t “hover over” Rudy. He could totally ignore us, which is what he did until he met Lila, who, homesick for her close-knit family back on Long Island, was charmed by the idea of having access to an off-campus house. She was the one who had suggested to Rudy they buy food and cook in our kitchen and bring their laundry over.
“I thought we were going to be empty-nesters,” Harmon had complained.
“Shut up,” I told him. “She’s a good influence.” And in fact, Harmon had grown fond of her too, even volunteering to help her with her essay for the local historical society scholarship contest.
I park in the lot behind Duke and in front of Warden House, so called because it was the warden’s house back in the nineteenth century when the school was the Refuge for Wayward Girls. Rudy and I had lived here when it was faculty housing. Behind the house a peninsula juts into the sea, one of those fingers of land that clutch at the ocean along the Maine coast. This one ends in a promontory called the Point, perhaps because it seems to be pointing directly to Maiden Island, a bare rock separated from the peninsula by a quarter-mile sand and stone causeway that’s only passable at low tide. Every year the coast guard holds an assembly about the dangers of crossing the causeway that only seems to increase its appeal.
When I get out of the car I can hear the dense pines that stand sentinel over the peninsula creaking in the salt-laced wind . . . and something else.
A sound like a girl crying.
I freeze and listen. It could just be the wind in the trees or the mournful sigh of the tide retreating over the rocks below the coastal path, but then, peering through the fog, I catch a glimpse of something white that looks like a girl running through the woods.
What if it’s Lila? I think.
I walk in between the trees, wending my way slowly through the fog until I come to the clearing with the stone circle where students build bonfires and tell ghost stories about the spirits of the nine Abenaki sisters who drowned on the causeway. Tonight the circle is empty, but as I stand here I remember the ghosts who are said to haunt these woods. I can almost hear them . . . I shake myself and check my phone. It’s 3:29. I’ve wasted ten minutes wandering in the fog while Rudy waits for me.
I look around, remembering that there’s a path that cuts straight down the middle of the peninsula to the Point, but the thought of plunging into the fogbound woods unnerves me. There’s also a path on the south side of the peninsula but it’s rockier and more dangerous. I head to the path that hugs the north side of the peninsula instead, which is fairly level and well cleared. Still, I walk carefully. It’s a significant drop to the rocks below.
When I reach the Point, a bank of fog laps up against the rocks like a ghostly sea. But then the mist parts like a curtain being drawn and moonlight silvers the stone and sand causeway that leads to the island.
I turn my back to the sea and climb a narrow path to Rudy’s safe place, a shallow cave in a rock ledge above the sea. You can see for miles but no one can see you, he’d told me. It is the perfect hiding place. If I didn’t know where to look I could easily miss him—but there he is, hunched in a tight ball, his dark purple sweatshirt hood up, head down. He’s made himself so small that for a moment I’m sure this can’t be my gangly seventeen-year-old son. Instead I see a five-year-old boy, huddled at the prow of a rowboat.
“Rudy?” I whisper.
He doesn’t stir. I reach out and touch his arm. His sweatshirt is damp and cold to the touch.
“Rudy!” I grab his arm and shake him. He flinches and flails an arm that catches me on my cheekbone. I step back and nearly topple down to the rocks.
“What the hell, Mom!” Rudy grabs my arm before I fall. “You scared me. I was asleep and you’re on my bad side.” His voice is aggrieved.