“He enjoys belittling me. We know that. I shouldn’t have said anything. Please stop crying.”
I want to tell him everything, to unshoulder this burden, but I can’t. He’s barely fourteen, and this murder of crows in my belly is mine alone to carry. The wounds inside me will scab over and heal, however lopsidedly. And next time I will be prepared, armed with more than pills. In the distance, I hear the toll of a warning bell.
“We should head in,” I manage to gulp out, through my snot and tears and sobs.
“Elle, I don’t understand. Please stop crying. It’s not like it’s true.” He is anguished, confused. “Did something happen that you aren’t you telling me?”
I stare down at my waterlogged sneakers. An inch of seawater has collected in the bottom of the boat. I tap at it with my shoe, making little splashes, wipe my face with the sleeve of my plastic slicker.
I feel him scrutinizing me, trying to weigh things up. “Did Conrad hurt you?”
“No,” I say in a whisper.
“You swear on your life?”
I nod, but my face must betray me, because all of a sudden his body slumps, as if the sharp blade of discovery has de-boned him.
“Oh god.”
“You can’t say anything. Ever. No one knows.”
“Elle, I promise, he will never touch you again.”
I laugh, but the sound is bitter, hollow. “That’s what I promised myself after the first time he came into my room.”
A large shadow passes under our boat. It hovers for a moment before slipping off into the mists. Our boat rocks gently as I tell Jonas everything.
18
August
The most beautiful days in summer come after a heavy rain. White cumulus clouds hover in a deepened blue; the air is crisp enough to drink. Today is one of those days. Yesterday’s storm has washed the skies clean. I wake up having forgotten—I may even be smiling before memory strikes and I wish it away. A stick cracks outside my cabin door, the steps sag with a hollow groan. My mother’s face appears in the screen door.
“Why is this locked?” she says, rattling the handle.
“It catches sometimes.” I jump up and unlatch the door.
“Put this stuff away, please.” She dumps a pile of fresh folded laundry on my bed. “Leo thought it would be fun to take my father’s old boat out today.” My grandfather’s sailing dinghy has been parked on a trailer at the bottom of our driveway collecting pine needles all summer. “We’re thinking eleven-ish to hit the outgoing tide, so up you get. No dawdling.”
“I think I’ll skip it, if that’s okay. I’m not really in the mood.”
“Leo wants a family day. We’ll have a picnic and then sail out to the Point.”
The Point is the literal end of the Cape, a dwindling spit of sand that curves around the wide harbor in a protective embrace, the final barrier between civilization and the wide-open ocean. From the launch at the town beach you can sail out to the Point, drop anchor in the warm, glassy shallows of the sheltered bay, watch scuttling crabs in the sea grasses, dig for clams when the tide recedes. But three minutes’ walk around the point and you are facing out to sea, nothing between you and Portugal but an occasional yacht coming in for safe harbor, fishing boats in the far distance heading out to the rich waters of the Stellwagen Bank in search of bluefin tuna and halibut, the breaching whales.
“Why do I have to come? Why can’t you and Leo go by yourselves? Anyway, we won’t all fit.” The dinghy is barely big enough for two, three tops. And Leo is so huge, he’s basically two people already.
“We’ll go out two at a time. Conrad’s coming.”
“No way. I’m not going sailing with Conrad.”
She sighs. “Elle, I’m asking you to do this.”
“It’s a terrible idea. He’s like a big fat cat in the water.”
“Don’t be nasty, it doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s true.”
“Why are you being so unpleasant? What has Conrad ever done to you?” My mother shakes her head in dismay.
“Fine. But only if Jonas comes, too.”
“I told you. It’s a family day.”
“Mum. Seriously. Think about it. If we capsize in the bay, Conrad will be useless. I won’t be able to right the boat by myself if the water gets remotely choppy. So, either you, me, Leo, and Conrad squeeze into the boat, in which case it will definitely sink, or I need Jonas to help me sail.”
“Fine,” she says. “It’s too beautiful a day to argue.”