*
The war in our house after the incident with the photographs had hot periods and cold periods. The cold periods were not moments of peace, but rather moments of regrouping, rearming and strategizing. Cold war. I don’t know exactly when Hunter found out that his father had taken the pictures of Emma with her dress pulled down, but it was during the three weeks after they were taken and the time Hunter posted them on that Web site. I think it all happened quickly, and was driven by his fury at Emma and his father. As much as Mr. Martin worshipped and adored his son, Hunter idolized and admired his father. He loved to tell embellished stories about Mr. Martin’s business conquests and wealth, and even insinuated that his father had side dealings with organized crime. His father had wounded him deeply by coveting Emma and giving in to his desires. And Emma had been vicious by using his father as a weapon against him.
Posting those pictures was done without much thought or planning. Hunter paid the price by having his face punched by Witt and being blamed for everything by Mrs. Martin. I think if he had not been driven by his emotions, his own fierce rage, he would have come up with a better plan.
He learned from this mistake.
The cold war in our house went on for months, with Mr. Martin avoiding Emma so he didn’t have to think about her breasts, Hunter staying at school as much as he could to punish his father, and Emma gloating at her victory in the last battle, even though it had cost her the boy she’d met over the summer. There are always more boys, she said. The cold war ended with a devastating attack over spring break when we all went as a family to St. Barts. It was a quick and decisive strike. Yet it was so subtle that I nearly missed it myself—and I had devoted myself to observing the war as a matter of survival.
I can see that now, being older and having been through everything that happened on the island.
The teachers at the Soundview Academy told us that human beings have a natural desire to learn. What I think is more accurate is that human beings have a natural desire to learn the things they have to learn to survive. On the island, that meant learning about people—what motivates them, what their expressions mean, what causes them to act and react. And what they desire in their darkest, most secret places. These were things that could not be found in the textbooks Lucy bought, but I still managed to learn them. And I did it without even knowing I was doing it.
When I finally came home, it felt as though someone had injected my brain with this knowledge. I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. It felt like I had put on ice skates for the first time and somehow just knew how to land a triple jump. I used this knowledge to help them find the island, and to find my sister. But I also used it on every memory that rushed into my brain. Things that had not made sense to me were now clear. Things that were done, by my mother, Mr. Martin, Hunter, Emma and even myself were now understood for what they were.
Not forgiven. But understood.
That spring break when the cold war turned hot, we rented a house up in the hills. It overlooked the ocean and I think it was the best house we’d had there in the three years we’d been going. St. Barts is a very fancy place. And very expensive. It is a French territory, so there is a lot of gourmet food and dance clubs that are open all night long. Models and movie stars go there, which was why Mrs. Martin had insisted on making it our spring break tradition after she married Mr. Martin. My father had refused to take her. He said it was too showy, and anyway, he loved to ski and made her go to Utah, where she would sulk and stay inside rather than make a fool of herself trying to learn. My father was an expert skier and he offered to get her private lessons. But she preferred to protest the trip.
Hunter always had a few friends from school who were in St. Barts during spring break, and he would meet them in town or at the beach. Emma had always gone with him. But this year she was not invited. I could tell this made her sad because she was stuck at the pool with me and our mother and then just me when the adults went out at night. She was so sad that she tried to make peace with Hunter by asking him to put suntan lotion on her back. I know this sounds like nothing. But she was doing more than asking for help with her sunscreen. She was asking for things to go back to the way they were. She was saying she was sorry about letting Mr. Martin take the pictures and that she forgave him for calling her a whore and not telling her about Joe’s girlfriend before she had sex with him. And she was even willing to forgive him for posting those pictures on the Internet. These were very large concessions.
But as I have said, Hunter had learned his lesson about making his war plans without proper planning, and he had been plotting his next move for months. So he told her no. He could not help her with her suntan lotion.
I’m in a rush, Em. Cass can help you.
Emma stormed to her room and didn’t come out all day.
The next afternoon Hunter did not meet his friends. He stayed home and sat by the pool with me and Emma and Mrs. Martin. Mr. Martin did not like the sun, so he would go to town every day, as he did on this day, to drink wine and walk around. This also served the purpose of not seeing Emma in her tiny bikinis. He avoided us the whole trip, which Mrs. Martin was happy about because it meant she could sit and read the kind of magazines that made Mr. Martin think less of her. I think if she had not been so happy, she would have seen what was happening and then she would not have been happy at all.
Hunter sat facing the ocean. His sunglasses were on, so we could not tell if he was watching us or the ocean or nothing. A long time went by. Emma listened to music and texted her friends, laughing here and there, running her hands through her short hair. I was reading a book for school—The Giver, which is about a made-up place where people don’t have feelings anymore. It was very awkward, being there with two enemies, pretending to be a family on vacation when really they were thinking of ways to destroy each other.
It was right before lunch when Hunter made his one deadly move, a move that would escalate the war and lead to everything bad that happened to Emma. And to me.
It’s so hot today! Mrs. Martin said. She put down her magazine, took a sip of her rum drink, and reached for her suntan lotion.