“I’ll see you when I get back,” was all he said that morning as he slipped out the door for the cab that was waiting to take him to O’Hare. He wouldn’t be back for three weeks or until the merger closed. She’d said nothing.
She hadn’t prepared to go to Evening Island, either. She hadn’t bought the necessary staples required for such a trip! She knew that if she took the time to go to the store, load up on sunscreen and new swimsuits, got the girls haircuts, and fretted over snacks for the car ride that she would lose her nerve, stay put, and she didn’t want to stay put. She was frankly starting to fear that if she did stay put she would go crazy.
But now, sitting in the car at the ferry dock in Blue Harbor, staring at the lake and the island off in the distance, she feared she had gone crazy. She’d done it. Loaded up all the clothes that made sense into the suitcases, stuffed in toiletries and hairbrushes and a hair dryer and her cosmetic case, all without a list. She had the unsettling feeling that she had forgotten something (contact lens solution, or her toothbrush) but then she told herself to calm down, that she could just buy it there. She just needed to get there, first. She needed to get out of the car and go.
She turned to the girls, who were quietly eating their crackers. The backseat was covered in crumbs. Empty (at least, she hoped they were empty) sugar-free, organic juice boxes were splayed on the seat between them.
“Ready for some girl time?” That’s what she’d called it, because that’s what it was, really. A little time with her sisters, her daughters, not much different than the summers she’d spent here with Gran and her mother.
The twins cheered, even though she suspected they had no idea what girl time meant and were only picking up on her enthusiasm, even if it was coming from her strangled throat. On the drive here, she’d received no less than four phone calls from various neighbors, and one from the dentist, whose appointment she had skipped, literally clear forgotten and skipped, scheduled for ten o’clock this morning! She religiously went with the girls every six months, all three of them keeping their oral hygiene in order, checking that box and moving on, and now, she had played hooky.
Would she like to reschedule for another day this week, they had asked. And she had experienced the strange thrill of saying no, she couldn’t, and she actually couldn’t reschedule at this time at all!
For the first time in her entire existence, her calendar did not contain a dentist appointment on it for the foreseeable future. She felt scared. She felt rebellious.
She felt freaking wonderful.
She took the bags from the trunk and, with a daughter on either side of her, managed to get everything to the ticket booth. “Three to the island,” she said.
“Round-trip?” When she didn’t respond immediately, the man inside the booth added, “Good for a week.”
“One way then,” she said, fighting back a wave of nausea as he handed her a long-term parking sticker for the car.
But it wasn’t until they were seated on the boat, her hands now gripping the bodies of her wiggling children so they wouldn’t slip and fall as the motor started and the boat began to slide over the smooth water of Lake Huron, that what she had done finally sank in.
She had done it. Done what she had said she would do. She hadn’t just muttered under her breath or gone to bed angry or passive aggressively left Evan’s dirty mug on the counter instead of placing it in the dishwasher with the others. She had packed up her girls, driven four hundred miles, and now she was on a boat, the wind in her hair, the air so fresh and clean that she could almost smell the island, and Chicago, and her life, was so far behind her that for one glorious moment, she nearly forgot it ever existed.
That moment ended quickly, when Rose tapped her on the leg, looked at her with round, scared eyes, and then vomited all her crackers, organic juice, and carrot sticks into Hope’s lap. Onto her white capris, technically.
Rose started to cry, and Victoria, seeing what had happened, started to scream.
And for a moment, just one moment, Hope began to wonder if this had been such a good idea, after all.
“Oh, let me.” A man was beside her, handing her a wad of napkins that bore the logo of a fast food chain she would never allow her girls to eat at, not on her watch. (Evan, she knew, had snuck them there the very few times he had “babysat” so she could attend a meeting at the preschool or, once, the neighborhood book club, that only lasted one session when it was clear no one wanted to actually read the book—well, Hope had read the book, and taken notes in the margin.)
“Thank you.” Flustered, Hope took the napkins, using them first to wipe Rose’s face and then attempt damage control on herself.
Rose’s face was chalk white now, and Hope was intensely afraid that she would throw up again, but by her calculation, there was probably nothing left in her.
She pulled her daughter down into her lap. “We’re almost there,” she said, as much to herself as to the girls. They were almost there. They’d actually done it. And once there, everything would be better. It always was.
“I have some…” The man, whom Hope finally looked at properly, pulled the sticks of what appeared to be a couple lollipops from his pocket. “I always grab a few when I stop by the bank.”
He was attractive, a few years older than she was, with kind hazel eyes and a rather amused smile, all things considered. Dressed in a white polo and khakis, it was hard to determine his reasons for travelling to the island. Hardly vacation attire, and he didn’t look familiar.
His grin quirked and she felt her shoulders relax. Normally, she never gave her girls high-fructose corn syrup, let alone red dye, but normally she didn’t feel a little flutter at the kindness of what she now realized was quite a handsome man, either.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“My pleasure,” he said, holding out the two lollipops for the girls, who glanced at her for approval before greedily yanking the candy from the man’s hands. He laughed and, seeming satisfied with that interaction, said, “Have a nice time.”
“You too,” she said wistfully. She watched him go, until he was at the far helm of the boat, thinking that this was the most help and support she had received in a very long time and that she sort of loved him for it, more than she probably should.
She watched to see if he was alone, or going to meet someone who was waiting, but then Victoria was thrusting a sticky wrapper at her, and Rose was asking her to help peel the wrapper, and she thought it was just as well.
He probably had children of his own, she thought, reining in her disappointment. After all, she was a married woman. For now.
***
They took a carriage to the house, something that thrilled the girls to no end, and something that made her smile, too, and not because of the smell of manure. Her car was part of her life back home, and she wanted to forget about that life for a while, the way she used to every summer as a girl, before the pressure of school and grades started all over again.
The house came into view and she inhaled sharply, all at once sure that she had made the right decision in coming here. With its white gable and wraparound porch, it was just as wonderful as she’d remembered it, maybe more so.
The sky was blue and the grass was green and the water was right there, sparkling and still. Later, she’d take the girls over to wade in it and collect rocks.