“But I’m going,” Janey agrees, her gray eyes dark and full of sorrow.
“But…” The word hangs on Caitlin’s lips, heavy and painful like an open wound. She doesn’t have to say the rest. Without Janey and Mary, the girls’ rebellion will shatter, fall to the ground in meaningless pieces.
“I know,” says Janey. “I’m sorry.” Mary bursts into tears again, burying her head in Janey’s lap while Janey strokes her dark, oily hair.
“We can always come back,” says Fiona, and her sentence hangs in the air, heavy with untruth. “We could!” she cries as if someone has argued with her.
Caitlin, her mouth still slightly open, her face hanging downward, shakes her head slowly. Fiona starts to cry.
The girls look toward the younger ones, hopping and laughing and playing near the sea, and suddenly Janey feels like she’s murdered something that was fresh and budding and alive. I’m sorry, Amanda, she thinks. I’m sorry, Rosie. And her bones feel so heavy when she rises that she waits to collapse like a corpse onto the sand.
Chapter Forty-Four
Caitlin
Caitlin tiptoes in past midnight to find Father snoring with his head on the kitchen table. Moving slowly, like a rodent skirting a dozing dog, she climbs the stairs and slips between the blankets next to Mother. Mother wakes with a gasp, throwing her arms out to shield herself, and then whispers, “Caitlin? Caitlin?”
“It’s me.”
Mother lets out a soft cry of joy. She gathers Caitlin into her soft, warm arms and Caitlin breathes in Mother’s scent gratefully. “You’re alive,” Mother whispers. “So many are sick. I thought you might be dead out there.”
“Father will kill me.”
“He’s been so drunk he probably thinks you left yesterday.”
“Mother, I…” Caitlin tries to think about how to tell her of her journey, of the beach, of Janey. “There was a dog,” she says, “and he ran into and out of the sea.” And then the sudden, sure realization that she is never going back to live on the beach with Janey strikes her, heavy as a load of stones, and she begins shaking and keening like a child lost in a nightmare. Mother cannot soothe her, although she holds Caitlin in her bruised arms until dawn.
Chapter Forty-Five
Caitlin
Coming home from the beach is like coming home from ten years of summers. She doesn’t mind the clothing, and welcomes being washed in hot water. But at night she wakes with a start and panics, trying vainly to remember the capture and punishment that led to her reinstallment in everyday life. It is only when she is fully awake that she remembers she came back of her own volition. It is a bitter draft to swallow. When Father comes into her room she closes her eyes and removes herself back to the beach. She walks barefoot in damp sand, sits close to Janey Solomon, sucks hot clam flesh from a jagged shell, squints into an early morning sunrise that promises rest. Sometimes it takes her so long to come back to herself that cold midmorning light is shining steadily in her window.
Mother’s obvious joy at having Caitlin back, however, warms her like a summer sun. Mother’s face, usually shadowed and afraid, glows with delight whenever she catches Caitlin’s eye, and she keeps Caitlin close by her side. They lean into each other, hug, touch each other briefly as they pass. Even during Father’s tempers, Mother keeps her head a little higher than usual, and her hands shake a little less. Luckily, Father treats the command not to leave the house as a suggestion and often stalks outside, leaving Caitlin and Mother to take their first deep breath of the day and smile at each other.
The women of the island have set up a way for information to be passed along. Mother has a line of communication with the nearest neighbors. On one side is Mrs. Gideon, Rosie’s mother, or at least she used to be; Caitlin keeps remembering with a sick, painful jolt that Rosie is dead and Mrs. Gideon has no children now. On the other side is Mrs. Adam the dung collector’s wife. Mother goes outside the house to face Mrs. Gideon, keeping as much distance as possible between them, and Mrs. Gideon shouts the news to Mother. Then Mother walks to the other side of the house, howls for Mrs. Adam, and yells the news to her. Caitlin hears everything twice, and loudly.
Everyone says that disease is spread through the breath of a sick person, and while Caitlin isn’t sure how far away one need be to avoid sucking in the kiss of illness, she is sure that Mother’s yawning distances from their neighbors are safe. She wonders exactly who the ancestors are trying to punish and if their final aim is to wipe out all of them.
The pastor has always said that disease is punishment for everyone, although he usually assigns extra blame to the women, who go home and rock and weep for afflicting their children. Punishments come regularly with the seasons: colds and gripes in the winter, flux and fevers as it gets warmer. Every child must wade through the poxes, the lumps, the rashes, and the other hardships of the young. Usually they make it through more or less intact, though some are sucked under and delivered to the ancestors early. There are drafts to calm fevers, pastes to soothe itching, tinctures to paint on erupted pox to help the pain, but these remedies work fitfully and inconsistently, mostly leaving the sick to bite their pillows, scratch their lesions, and pray for relief.
But Caitlin can’t remember a sickness like this, and Mother can’t either. So many people are sick that the names all blur into each other, except the girls Caitlin knows, like Letty and Heather Aaron. It’s hard to tell whether or not everyone is dying; some shouted news tolls the end of everyone, and other times optimistically reports recoveries. One theme never changes: the pregnant women and babies are all dying. Mrs. Gideon yells, “It’s the cruelest sickness!” to Mother, and Mother shrieks, “It’s the cruelest sickness!” to Mrs. Adam. Caitlin also hears that if the fever breaks and the sick person becomes damp, they are going to live, but if they get so hot you can’t touch them, they will die. A paste of oil and salt helps earlier in the day, to Mrs. Gideon’s relief, but later in the day it’s reported to be useless. A small amount of final draft, usually never touched until the end of life, is said to lead to a refreshing sleep, but might also kill you.
And then, Mrs. Gideon isn’t there to tell Mother anything, and so the chain is broken. She isn’t there the next day either, and Caitlin wonders if she’s dead. Mother is too frightened to walk past the Gideon house to see. Caitlin finds life more peaceful without the regular screeching updates. She and Mother sit in the house, which is already clean from top to bottom. Even the sprays of mold have been scrubbed as faint as possible. Mother sings, and they eat bread and pray.