It’s a strange thing, needing food. Listening to the complaints of your body all the time and obeying the whims and growls of flesh. But my physical hunger sometimes feels like a phantom, standing in for something far more nourishing.
Hector and I finish the last of the flour, making pancakes. Father knew how little I ate, and the food stores he’d left were more a token of care than anything substantial. There is no more jam, no sugar. The new provisions from the camp store are piled on the countertop, but it’s a small pile. Hector watches that, too, like it’s going to vanish if he turns his back. And yet when he spies me studying the pile from afar, he’ll quietly bring me a wrapped bar before I can ask if it’s okay to eat. Even though we’ve nearly outeaten the tiny house.
And not just that. The house has grown too small for us, though the math doesn’t work. We’re still just two people, yet together, we’ve managed to expand and become something that needs far more space than these walls. I bump into him constantly. The house seems keen on keeping me off balance. Hector doesn’t seem to mind; he cannot hide his smile every time we softly collide.
I look out the window, staring at the clouds, but they’re ominously silent. So I turn on the weather radio and sit with it for almost an hour. Hector thinks I’m simply concerned with the forecast.
West winds nearing forty-five knots by afternoon Hmm. Already angry with me, it seems.
A slight chance of thunderstorms in the early evening That’s a threat. Or an invitation.
Temperatures holding at forty-five, dropping to thirty overnight It’s funny how I used to listen to the forecast to tell me what I already knew. It was a spineless friend that would parrot my own thoughts and feelings. Now I’m needing the radio to interpret for me. I’m becoming an outsider in my own life.
The day before November 1, Hector wakes up and makes a breakfast of oatmeal. He watches me carefully as I lift the spoon to my mouth. I swallow and repeat until the bowl is empty. He barely lifts his own spoon. His own gruel has gone congealed and cold as he watches me lick the bowl clean.
“That oatmeal was salted,” he says.
I blink at him, not knowing if I’m supposed to answer.
“I substituted sugar for salt. A lot of salt. On purpose.”
I blink again. What is he trying to say? But he only gets up to eat his oatmeal alone outside the house, staring at where the wreck of the St. Anne should be.
That’s when I realize he’s testing me.
He does it several times that week. Once, he tells me, “Anda, it’s windy outside,” when it isn’t. The air is so still, it hangs heavy like curtains in a shut room. It’s another test, only I’m not sure if I should fail or succeed. So I bring the wind. It hits Hector so hard that he trips and falls backward, agape.
“Yes,” I agree with him. “It’s windy outside.”
Another time, he remarks on how he misses the green leaves in spring.
“Fall is always so gloomy,” he says, which confuses me. A cycle is a cycle, and the cycle is magnificence itself. But it upsets him. When I don’t respond, he goes outside and paces next to the house. I’ve already forgotten that I need to be careful about what I do. I ought to conceal myself and what I am, but it’s not easy when I’ve never been able to hide from him. Not once.
I lift my forefinger, pushing against sleep and slumber inside the soil, and force a marsh pea vine into the cutting air, letting the pea flowers bloom with pink and purple duskiness. Hector sees it immediately. His eyes widen as he watches the display, before plucking the narrow stem bedecked with flowers. He stares and stares, turning it left and right. He stares at them so long, the sun sets hours later and he’s still fixated by their ghostliness in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-One
HECTOR
None of it makes sense.
I hold the flower until it wilts in my hand, and then lay it carefully on the ground. In the gloom just past twilight, I can still see it, the pale pink against the soil’s darkness. As soon as it touches the ground, it disintegrates. When my fingers touch where it was, the only thing that comes away is ash.
I don’t have words for the theories forming in my mind. There are too many things that don’t make sense. Part of me wants to leave and run clear over to the other side of the island. But part of me knows that somehow, I’d arrive and find her waiting for me.
There are too many reasons to stay. Like having a bona fide roof over my head. And the fact that Anda doesn’t ask me questions or psychologize me to death. I haven’t ever spent this much time in the presence of another human and not felt like running away. It’s narcotic, the feeling I get being around her.
That night, I wash up and get ready to sleep. Anda has been in her room, door closed, for hours. I don’t bother her. Since I’ve camped out in her place, she hasn’t asked me to leave. And she doesn’t say things like “good morning” or “good night.” I’m relieved not to abide by all the fake words that people use. It used to bother me when people said hi, what’s up. Because they didn’t really want to hear the answer, the truth. So I wouldn’t answer. That may explain why I have no friends.
I curl up on the sofa, pulling a nubbly knit blanket over me, and shut my eyes. It’s a relief knowing that my uncle isn’t in this cabin, or on this island, or within a hundred miles. Even with the camping, I’ve never slept as peacefully as I have on this island, frozen ass and all.
Just when I’m drifting off, a shuffling noise rouses me. I don’t move, just listen carefully. It’s a shuffling of feet, and I crack one eye open in the darkness. The moon is full and shining through the window, casting a weirdly bluish-metallic rectangle on the floor near the sofa.
Anda walks to the window where the moonlight is streaming through, and the light illuminates her white hair like a halo. She stares out the window at the moon on the lake water. Her hands are balled in fists, like she’s quietly struggling with something. There’s a tiny plop. I raise my head just a bit to see a liquid splash on the floor. Is she crying?
She turns. It’s too late to hide that I’m awake. Her hands are still in fists, and her eyes are red-rimmed and hostile.
Oh shit. Here it comes.
She steps closer to me, and I don’t move a muscle. I’m afraid to look her in the eye, but that becomes impossible when she kneels by the sofa and we’re face-to-face. There are a million emotions across her features, and none of them are peaceful. She reaches out, and her warm hand slips right under my jaw, right against my windpipe.