I knew three things about Richard Foley. First, he was not easily conquered by that kind of power Mrs. Martin had taught me about. However strong his desire was, his will not to give in to it was even stronger. The second thing had to do with his experience in Alaska witnessing the assault of that woman. He had a conscience, and he had morality. He had been so disturbed by what he saw that he became a drug addict just to shut it out of his brain. And he had then cleaned up and made amends by returning to Alaska and telling the story to the newspaper with the names of the men who had done it. The third thing I knew about Richard Foley was that the first two things fit together like a hand and glove.
It was not complicated. I started taking long walks at the times I knew the boat was coming with supplies or to take Bill to the mainland. I waited until Rick was alone on the trail, and I would be there as well, not every day, but many days. Our paths crossing had to appear coincidental. And on those days, I walked slowly, with my arms folded around my body, and my face swollen with despair. Sometimes I would be sitting on the dock, staring out at the ocean that held me prisoner, silent pleas flowing down my cheeks. I would not look at him or even acknowledge him for several weeks. I did not speak until he did.
It began in March one and a half years after we’d first arrived there in his boat. I was on the path to the dock, the ground packed with snow. The trees bare. I had stopped walking and crouched against a tree, knees to chest, rocking back and forth with violent shivers. Rick saw me and stopped for a second, like I had startled him and then shocked him. He got a hold of himself and walked past me, but then he stopped, turned and, for the first time in all that time, spoke to me.
You should get back to the house. The rain’s coming. And it’s too cold out here.
I looked up at him, met his eyes, and then reached out my hand. He hesitated, but took it and helped me to my feet. I had been crying, so it was not hard to start again, to make the tears fall and the breath heave in and out. He started to let go, but I reached out and grabbed both his forearms. I grabbed them tight like they were ropes from a lifeboat trying to drift away and leave me to drown. I pulled on those arms and pulled myself closer to him and then I rested just the very top of my forehead on his chest. I did not move any closer than that. I did not try to hold him or make him hold me. I waited for him to push me away, but he didn’t. He just let me hold his arms, the top of my head on his chest, until I had finished crying.
When I was done, I looked up at him again for a second only, wiped my face and then marched back to the house.
I had learned a lot from Mrs. Martin, and from Emma. I had gotten smarter from them. Everybody needs something. And what Rick needed was to do what he had failed to do years before on that fishing boat. He needed to save the woman. So I became a woman he could save. I let him save me with small moments like the one on that trail. And then he saved me some more by listening to me talk and keeping me company on my walks. And then he saved me the most by loving me and letting me love him.
Now, at the same time I had planted the seeds to undermine his loyalty to the Pratts. That is the part I told to Dr. Winter and Agent Strauss. Nothing I had to offer would have been enough to overcome that loyalty, so I had to break its back first. I did not take any chances. And I was patient. So incredibly patient.
There were many days when I thought I didn’t have one more drop of patience. My desire to leave, to be free and seek revenge, was growing too big. Every day, seeing Lucy with the baby, pretending it didn’t make me want to kill her, stealing moments with the baby because I loved her as much as I loved Emma. Maybe even more. I loved her smell. I loved her laugh. I loved her pudgy arms and bright blue eyes. It was the first love that I knew was pure because she was too little to do anything to force me to love her, or trick me into loving her. I loved her so much that it was torture to see her so close and not be able to hold her. From that wretched day on the dock, it took 247 days to break Richard Foley. And then it took those 286 days more to conquer that loyalty so he would help me leave. I held this painful desire all that time.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but my wanting Richard Foley to manipulate and control him so I could escape the island blurred into just wanting Richard Foley. I had to truly want him to make him believe me. And so with every interaction, every look, every moment getting ready to see him—brushing my hair, choosing my clothes, pinching my cheeks so they would be flushed with pink—I thought of nothing else but his hands on my body, his mouth on my mouth, his skin touching my skin. I thought about him at night. I thought about him when the air turned warm or the sunlight reached my face. The desire to leave became all mixed up with the desire to have this man.
I can see him now, his tortured face as he held my cheeks in his strong hands. He did not want to do it, but he was too beaten down to fight me anymore. I had done that; I had beaten him down with my words and my power. I looked at him with desire, and it was pure and true, even though I made myself pretend to pull away. He held my face even stronger and drew it to his. It was a kiss I will never forget, and not only because it was my first kiss, but also because we were both starving, drowning, dying, and this kiss was all that could save us.
We lay down in the tall grass just before the rocks on the west side of the island. He stopped looking at me and I felt as though the connection that had been in that place, in our eyes and our thoughts and our words, shifted to our bodies and that was where it would stay for all those days we were lovers. I would be waiting for him somewhere—the grass, the dock, the shed that held the generator. And he would kiss me and remove my clothes and place me where he wanted me. Sometimes face-to-face. Sometimes he was behind me. But I was always beneath him, feeling his power over me the way I had used my power over him. It’s hard to describe. It’s hard to think about now. But he was gentle with his power, no matter how much rage he wanted to unleash in those moments. And he could have. He could have raged on my body—with the rage that had driven him from his home when he was young and the rage of hatred for himself for not helping that woman on that fishing boat. Holding back the rage somehow healed him, bit by bit like little drops of water seeping from a large pool.
On day four of my return, my thoughts turned to being with Richard Foley. My body missed his body. And my mind was twisted in knots. That is where desire begins, and it does not just vanish the minute we command it to. I felt things I didn’t want to feel. Longing. Hunger. Disgust. I thought I had left those feelings on the island, and so I wondered that morning if these feelings had been with me here as well, in this house, waiting here for my return.
I took a shower, a long shower, to wash them all away.