The Mermaid Collector (29 page)

It was a theory that took root quickly, inciting more
frenzy in an already anxious town and sending officers in a mad hunt to query the other wives, to demand proof of their abandonment. Lydia had delivered them the letter, but she had known enough to hide the log book, stuffing it in a basket of Henry’s changing cloths.

“Had you noticed anything strange about your husband, ma’am? Anything at all?”

This was the question that undid her. Until then, Lydia had nodded dully through them all, determined to neither let the officers defame nor discourage her husband’s condition, determined to hold on to the chance that this had all been a grave misunderstanding and that Linus and the others would return from their fantastical leave within a few days.

She began to chuckle, the sound so unexpected that the two officers who sat across from her glanced at each other.

“Is something funny, ma’am?” one asked, frowning at her.

“No,” Lydia said, her tired chuckle fading and tears creeping up behind her eyes.

“Mrs. Banks said you came to see her several months ago,” the second officer announced. “She now has suspicions that your visit was part of some kind of scheme. That you came for compensation and that when she denied you that opportunity, you left with ill will. She also said she informed you that Mr. Banks was considering pressing charges for Linus’s negligence. Perhaps your husband feared arrest and concocted a plot to bring harm to Mr. Banks and the two other men?”

Dear God, what fools, Lydia thought, looking them squarely in their faces. Was this really what they believed? She’d tried for months to convince them all that something was terribly wrong. And when they’d told her it was only nerves, the exhaustion of carrying a baby, she’d convinced herself that Linus had withdrawn from her because of what she’d done with Angus.

Now four men were gone again. And that woman, that insincere, spoiled woman, had the gall to accuse Lydia of being false.

A third man came into the room, moving close enough to one officer to whisper in his ear. When he left, the officer turned to Lydia. “The log book is missing.”

“I’m sure I don’t know where it is,” she said evenly. “Linus never let me see it.”

The men shared a narrowed look.

“Perhaps it left with him,” Lydia suggested.

But in the hours that followed, when no word came of a ransom request, thoughts of wrongdoing seemed to fade with the daylight. And with that dimming light, Lydia felt something shift within her too. Something that had trembled and faltered briefly once before but righted itself just in time. She’d been so certain the dark interlude of the last year was finally over; now, collapse was imminent.

AS THE ONE-WEEK MARK APPROACHED
, there was speculation—hope, really—that there might be something to the
anniversary, and that perhaps this two-week duration was becoming routine for the men’s disappearance, but when week three came and went, and with it, a fifth search party that returned with no evidence of the missing men, the town grew attached to its fate.

For Lydia, the days were a series of moments out of focus, food without taste. She was aware only of the constant filling and emptying of her breasts of their milk, of Henry’s fingernails, tiny white crescents she studied as he nursed, of the swirl at the top of his skull where his thickening hair coiled like a miniature tornado. Everything else, everyone else, was a blur.

When she received a letter from Pearl that her sister had heard reports of a strange incident and wanted to come to make certain all was well, Lydia didn’t hesitate, knowing if she did, she would lose her nerve. She wrote a letter of her own, one she would not have imagined ever writing in her whole life; yet the words came with ease, just as Linus’s confession had flowed, unhampered.

But perhaps this was what came with accepting life’s twists and ruptures. The truth.

IT WOULD BE A WARM
day, clouds hugging the skyline, though babies could never be too warm, Lydia thought as she dressed Henry in layers, glancing every now and then to the window to make certain the Keenes’ buggy had not yet left its station. She didn’t have to worry about the man
in the lighthouse the coast guard had sent; that officer had already informed her of his plan to check the channel markers and that he would be gone till noon.

The chimes lay on the bed. She’d made them herself out of her wedding silver, tethering them with a heavy cord she’d found in the shed. They weren’t much to look at, but they clamored fiercely, glinting like icicles in the path of the sun, just as the book had instructed. She carried them in one hand, Henry in the other, snug against her chest, down the road to the Keenes’ shingled cottage. Sarah was in her kitchen, bunching herbs for drying, when Lydia stepped into the fragrant room.

“I was hoping you could watch him for me,” Lydia said. “I won’t be long.”

Sarah brushed off her hands on her apron and took Henry into her arms. “Of course.” The woman’s eyes dropped at once to the chimes. “What do you mean to do with those?”

Lydia studied her son for several moments before she answered, her heart aching to watch him twist restlessly in Sarah’s arms. “Hang them from the gallery,” she said at last.

“Hang them? Whatever for?”

“For the sound, of course.”

Sarah Keene looked nervously at Lydia, as if wanting to know more but not feeling right to ask. “Miles can do that for you, you know. He’d be more than happy.”

“That’s all right.” Lydia stroked her son’s warm cheek,
his skin as soft as a leaf of lamb’s ears, her touch calming him at once. “It’s something I need to do myself.”

Looking back in the years that would follow, Sarah Keene would recall that moment more than all the others, the few seconds of quiet, of pause, when she could have reached for Lydia and stalled her neighbor, her friend. Instead, she said nothing, just stepped back to watch Lydia walk out into the bright day as the tinkling of the chimes trailed after her, drawing Henry’s eyes, round and blinking, toward the sound.

IT WAS EASIER SOMEHOW THIS
time, Lydia thought as she climbed the curved metal stairs. Maybe it was holding the chimes, maybe it was the distraction of their ringing, or maybe she’d just made peace with so many things, that fear no longer had its hold on her. Only when she stepped out onto the gallery and felt the wind pick up, snapping her hair around her face, her skirts and sleeves like sails, only then did she feel a short rush of panic. Her fingers shook as she tied the end of the cord to the railing, knotting it twice.

She gripped the stretch of iron to steady herself, letting the song carry and imagining the clamor, like a ribbon of sound, trailing across the sea. She would miss this place, she thought, sweeping her gaze over the land, the grass she and Linus had rolled over like children when they’d first arrived, the garden she’d meant to see grow
wild and tall, so lush that she’d have needed a wagon to harvest it.

But those memories were gone. Not even memories, really. Only dreams.

Saying good-bye would be the best thing for all of them; she knew that now. Her beloved sisters, Pearl and Rachel. Her precious son, Henry, whose eyes were finally losing their blue, turning brown now, like his father’s.

Of all people, Linus would understand.

Sometimes in life, you simply did what you had to do.

Friday

First Day of the Mermaid Festival

OPENING DAY OF THE CRADLE
Harbor Mermaid Festival arrived with a sky so clear, someone would have been hard-pressed to find the line of the horizon. Though the opening ceremonies wouldn’t start until that evening, by ten the center of town was already packed with visitors, the narrow road that circled the green and looped around the four blocks of shops crowded and filled with noise.

Down at the Point, traffic hadn’t yet begun to the lighthouse, but as he stood at the sink looking out onto the
driveway, Tom knew it was only a matter of time before cars began to snake down the road, slowing as they passed the keeper’s house and rolling on by, bound for the lighthouse.

It had been a long night for all of them in the keeper’s house. He’d barely slept, catching short, restless stints of sleep, only to be woken by the frequent cries of Mia, then the hurried padding of Petra’s bare feet up and down the stairs. Tom had risen at four and stumbled into the hall in the shapeless blue light, offering to help, but Petra had declined, twisting the baby away from him each time as if he’d come at her with flames jutting from his fingertips, then closing herself and her baby inside Dean’s room, her eyes bright with suspicion. For Dean’s part, he’d taken the stairs even slower than usual, though never with the baby. As far as Tom could tell, the child had never left her mother’s arms.

Hearing the creak of the stairs, Tom looked up to see Dean arrive in the kitchen doorway. His brother’s eyes were bloodshot, his hair wild.

Tom moved to the coffeepot. “I’ll make more,” he said before Dean could reach the empty carafe. “Where’s Petra?”

“She refuses to come down. She says this place scares her.”

She scares
me,
Tom wanted to say but didn’t. Those huge black eyes spooked the hell out of him. But she was young and plush with swishing ribbons of jet-black hair, and that was just how Dean fancied his women. How
amazing it was that the baby had come into the world with Dean’s bright red hair, Tom thought. Despite all that dark, she’d still come out glowing like a clementine.

Dean settled in to the table, pulling the saucer he’d been using as an ashtray in front of him and retrieving his cigarettes. Tom scooped out the grinds and saw his own hands shaking slightly.

“I can’t stay, Tommy,” Dean announced.

Tom turned to his brother, panicked at the thought. “What are you talking about?”

“Petra has family in Philadelphia. We can live in her grandmother’s house. She’s in a nursing home, and they’re just sitting on it.”

“Dean, you’re not leaving here. You can’t even take care of yourself; you think I’d stand by and let you ride off into the sunset with a
baby
?”

“What do you know about what I can do, Tommy? Shit, I don’t even know myself.”

“No one’s going anywhere,” Tom said firmly. “Not you. Not that woman. Not that baby. We live here now. This is our home.”

“Says who?”
Dean demanded, his eyes fierce. “I never agreed to stay here. I said I’d see how things went.”

“I think we can both see
how things went
, Dean,” Tom said, nodding to the stairs.

Dean pushed back his chair, hard enough to send a shriek across the linoleum. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Tom shoved the carafe back onto its plate and turned to Dean. “‘What is that supposed to mean?’” he repeated slowly. “Which part, Dean? Which part isn’t clear to you?”

“Don’t start with me, Tommy,” Dean warned, rising and moving to the counter. “I’m this close to packing up right now.”

Tom just stared at his brother. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “After everything I’ve done for you, you’d just pick up and take off without a second thought, wouldn’t you?”

“What you’ve done for me?” Dean turned to face Tom. “What the fuck have you
done
for me, Tommy, besides drag me out to this dump?”

“I put my whole life on hold for you, that’s what. I lost sleep; I lost jobs. I took blood money for you, for Christ’s sake.”

“You did what?”

“Forget it,” Tom said, pushing past Dean and heading for the front door.

“No, I won’t forget it.” Dean followed his brother out of the house and down the steps, the screen door slapping the clapboards behind them. “What the hell do you mean
blood money
?”

Tom stopped at the edge of the lawn and turned around, finding Dean there, rigid and waiting. Here it was, he thought—his chance to finally get it all out. And what difference did it make now anyway? Everything he’d tried to
protect, everything he’d worked so hard to secure for them, Dean had washed it all away in an afternoon.

“This
dump
, as you call it,” Tom said, pointing behind them. “This whole damn place. Everything. Frank Hammond wasn’t a friend of the family, Dean. He was the son of a bitch who ran us off the road.”

Dean blinked with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“He found us,” Tom said, not afraid now, the confession he’d been dreading for so long suddenly no heavier than smoke. “He found out where we lived and he started sending money every month and I took it. I took it because I
had
to.”

“You’re lying,” Dean said quietly. “Tell me this is a fucking joke, Tommy.…”

“It’s not a joke.” Tom swallowed, keeping his eyes leveled with his brother’s. “I didn’t have a choice. You needed treatment and therapy, and there was no money, no insurance.”

“Bullshit,” said Dean. “There was the trust!”

“There was never any trust. I made that up. All the money came from him.”

Dean stared at Tom, the truth sinking into his features and twisting them. “And so you bring me here?” he said. “You bring me to live in
his house,
and you tell me he’s some saintly friend of the family? How could you do that? How could you be so fucking selfish?”

Anger flared in Tom like a lit match. All the times he’d put Dean’s needs first, and never complained, never dared to, and Dean called him selfish? “I took that money for
you
,” Tom said. “Everything I’ve ever done has been to take care of
you
.”

“Take care of me?” cried Dean. “You fucking
suffocate
me is what you do!”

Tom came toward Dean, his hands fisting at his sides as he uttered slowly, “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to take care of you my whole goddamn life?”

“Don’t you dare,” Dean warned, thrusting a finger in Tom’s face. “Don’t you fucking dare pity me, you sanctimonious prick.”