behind me.
“I’ve cut my foot, Mommy” is what she says.
I turn in the cockpit. Her face is sticky and puffed with sleep, her mouth beginning to twist with the first messages of pain. She has on her summer baseball pajamas, shorts and a T-shirt — Red Sox, they say. Her feet are white and tiny and bare, and from her right foot the blood is spreading. She moves slightly toward me and makes a smudge on the white abraded surface of the cockpit floor. A small stray shard from last night’s broken glass must have fallen below the ladder of the companionway. My opening the hatch this morning has woken Billie, who then walked into the small triangle under the ladder to retrieve one of Blackbeard’s treasures, the key chain.
I go below to get towels and hydrogen peroxide and bandages from the first-aid kit, and after I have washed and dressed the cut and am holding Billie in my arms, I look up and realize there is no trace, nothing left at all, of the red band in the sky.
Rich comes up onto the deck, puts his hands to his waist, and examines the color and texture of the sky, which is not altogether clear, not as it was the day before. To the east, just below the morning sun, a thin layer of cloud sits on the horizon like an unraveling roll of discolored cotton wool. Rich, who looks mildly concerned, goes below to listen to the radio. When he returns to the deck, he brings with him a mug of coffee. He sits opposite Billie and me in the cockpit.
“How did it happen?”
“She cut it on a piece of glass.”
“She’s all right?”
“I think so. The bleeding seems to have stopped.”
“NOAA says there’s a cold front coming through later today. But NOAA is not to be entirely trusted.”
Rich moves his head so that he can see beyond me. There is a gentle chop, but the harbor still seems well protected. Across the way, there is activity aboard a ketch anchored near us. Rich nods at a woman in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts.
“Looks like they’re leaving,” he says.
“So soon? They just got in last night.”
A sudden breeze blows the skirt of my robe open, and I fold it closed over my knees. I do not really like to be seen in the morning. I have a sense of not being entirely covered, not yet protected. Rich has on a clean white T-shirt and a faded navy-blue bathing suit. He is barefoot and has recently showered. The top of his head is wet, and he doesn’t have a beard. I wonder where Adaline is.
“I don’t know,” he says, speculating out loud about the storm.
“It isn’t clear how bad it will be, or even if it will definitely be here by tonight.”
I shift Billie on my lap. I look over toward Smuttynose. Rich must see the hesitation on my face.
“You need to go over to the island again,” he says.
“I should.”
“I’ll take you.”
“I can take myself,” I say quickly. “I did it last night.”
This surprises him.
“After everyone was asleep. I wanted night shots.”
Rich studies me over the rim of his coffee. “You should have woken me,” he says. “It isn’t safe to go off like that by yourself. At night, especially.”
“Was it scary, Mommy?”
“No. Actually, it was very beautiful. The moon was out and was so bright I could see my way without a flashlight.”
Rich is silent. I pick up my own mug from the deck. The coffee is cold. Billie sits up suddenly, jogging my arm. The coffee spills onto the sleeve of my white robe.
“Mommy, can I go over with you tonight? To the island when it’s dark? Maybe there will be ghosts there.”
“Not tonight,” says Rich. “No one’s going over there tonight. We may be having a storm later. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“Oh,” she says, dropping her shoulders in disappointment.
“I’ve got landscape shots from the water,” I say, tallying up my meager inventory. “And night shots, and I’ve done Maren’s Rock. But I need shots from the island itself, looking out to Appledore and Star, and to the east, out to sea. And also some detail shots.”
“Like what?”
“Scrub pine. Rose hips. A window of the Haley house, the footprint of the Hontvedt house. I should have done this yesterday when I had the chance. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he says. “We have time.”
“Me too!” says Billie excitedly.
Rich shakes his head. “You stay here with your dad