Tom.
Right.
He straightened his spine and cleared his throat. “Oh. I don’t think I knew that. That’s awful, I’m sorry.”
Piper kept talking at a clip about Tom’s dad—how Tom cared about what he thought more than anyone in the world, that was why he became a waterman—but Anders was only halfway listening. The other half was busy berating himself for being so stupid. Piper was married! Or at least, she thought she was married. And he . . . ugh. Heat crawled up his neck, as he replayed the moment. He was suddenly glad for the cover of darkness. That Piper couldn’t see his embarrassment. Or his disappointment.
Or the dawning realization that perhaps there was another reason he wanted Piper to accept the fact that Tom was no longer here.
Chapter 23
It was just after 2:00 a.m. when Pearl, perched in the Victorian chair in her fleece robe and slippers, watched Anders creep past her in the dark living room and tentatively place his foot on the bottom stair.
“You need to be careful there,” she said.
Anders gasped sharply and clutched his chest, his eyes wild and groping in the direction her voice came from. “Oh my god, Mrs. Olecki. You scared me.”
She kept her piercing gaze on his and pursed her lips. “I don’t think Piper’s ready for . . . whatever’s going on between the two of you.”
Anders chuckled nervously and then lied: “What do you mean? We’re just . . . friends.” Pearl could tell he was lying because he was a terrible liar.
“Mm-hmm.”
Anders sighed and Pearl saw the distress cross his face like a cloud. “What else could we be? She thinks she’s still married.”
Pearl paused and then clucked her tongue. “Yes, well, that girl’s always had a very vivid imagination.”
Anders rounded on her. “Imagination? Is that all you think this is?”
“Keep your voice down,” Pearl admonished him.
He lowered his voice and pressed on. “You really don’t think it’s more serious than that? Is that why no one is helping her?”
Pearl set her lips in a tight line. She was no two-bit gossip and she’d already said too much.
Anders took a step forward, the desperation written all over his face. “Mrs. Olecki, please. You have to tell me. Why is everybody going along with it?”
Pearl sighed. Clearly the boy was smitten, just as she feared. And she supposed he’d spent enough time out here—and with Piper—that he did deserve to have his questions answered. But how could she explain? Especially when she didn’t fully understand it herself. “Come sit,” she said, resigned. Anders looked at her a beat and then crossed the room, taking the chair next to hers in a mirror image of how they had sat hours before. And Pearl thought back to that morning months ago, a few weeks after Tom went missing, when Piper waltzed into the kitchen, as if nothing had happened, declaring that Tom no longer snored, and then waltzed out with eggs for his breakfast.
Frick Island, it was often said, didn’t have a newspaper because by the time one came out, all the news would already be old on account of how quickly word spread by phone, reaching nearly every one of the ninety-four residents of the island in a matter of hours (or minutes, for really good gossip). Which was why Piper hadn’t yet made it to the front door of her carriage house that day before Mrs. Olecki had recovered enough to grab the handset to the rotary phone on her wall and turn the dial seven times in correlation with Lady Judy’s number. When Judy picked up, Mrs. Olecki skipped her usual pleasantries. “Was Tom Parrish revived from the dead and nobody thought to tell me?”
“If he was, nobody thought to tell his mother, God bless her soul. I just got back from checking on her—I don’t think the poor thing has moved from that recliner for forty-eight hours. Anyway, what are you on about?”
Pearl briefly told Lady Judy about her odd morning with Piper, and when she was done, Judy tutted. “Well, that is quite strange. I suppose we ought to call the doctor.”
“Yes, I thought so, too.”
Dr. Khari—who was more of a dentist than medical doctor, Pearl admitted—after listening on a three-way call where Mrs. Olecki related the encounter with Piper, took a deep breath. “I’d say it appears the girl is in denial, a quite common stage of the grieving process.”
“What should we do?” the women prodded.
Dr. Khari, possessing zero knowledge of psychoanalysis, didn’t rightly know, so he did what he always did when confronted with questions on the island that he wasn’t necessarily equipped to answer: He said whatever first came to his mind, and did so with great gusto and confidence. “If that’s what’s bringing her comfort right now, I don’t see any reason not to go along with it. She’ll come around when she’s ready.”
And the women, feeling a bit maternal, as they always did in their protection of Piper, ever since that poor girl’s mom left to go halfway across the world to study dirt of all things, took his advice to heart and made it their mission to inform every last resident of Frick Island that while Piper had finally left her house, she believed her husband was not only alive but still living in her house, and that not one person was to contradict that belief, under strict doctor’s orders, in the best interest of her grieving process.
At first, that was all it was. People loved Piper and didn’t want to cause her any more distress than necessary, so when they saw her at the Blue Point market or walking to the docks, they just avoided the topic of Tom’s death. When Piper started walking “Tom” out to the docks in the morning and back again in the afternoon at her usual time to meet Tom’s boat, most of the watermen just looked the other way, giving the grieving woman her space. It was unclear who the first person was who waved to him, calling out, “Good haul today, Tom?” across the marina. Some claimed it was Old Man Waverly, while others pointed the finger at Bobby, a child who always held Tom in great esteem when he was alive. Regardless, it broke something open in the town, and most people found that they enjoyed waving at Tom, talking to him. Maybe Piper was onto something, they thought. And before anyone really knew what was happening, even though they couldn’t see him, it was like Tom Parrish had never left.
A few weeks later, when Mrs. Olecki was out pulling cloth napkins from the clothesline in the backyard and she saw Piper coming up the drive, animatedly talking to the air at her side, eyes bright and smile wide, Pearl found herself smiling despite herself. “Evening, Piper. Tom,” she said, nodding twice, even though she could see only one person standing in front of her.
“Hi, Mrs. Olecki,” Piper said. “See you in the morning.” And then she giggled as if a phantom ghost had tickled her side. Maybe one had.