And she just sobbed harder until finally he had to take her in his arms. It was easier to hold her and feel her sadness than it was to stand by and feel his own. So he held on to her, relieved that he had something to hold on to, at the same time realizing that the real relief would be in letting her go.
BRIGID WAS IN THE ROOM when Peg returned from Eden’s. She was lying on her bed, on her back, in gym shorts and a skimpy tank. It was hard for Peg to know what to say to her. It was hard for Brigid to know what to say to Peg. Peg was well enough aware that Brigid hadn’t come back to work with the rest of the girls after lunch; she’d run off after Lance Squire and never returned to her duties. The way Peg thought of it, she didn’t see Brigid as having run after Squee— didn’t even consider that Brigid might be concerned about the boy at all.
Brigid, for her part, had still been sitting on the Squires’ porch with Lance when the other girls had gotten off work, and had seen Peg climb into a car and get whisked away down Sand Beach Road. She hadn’t come to dinner. No one knew where she’d gone, not even Jeremy, who’d passed the meal in a state of demonstrable concern.
“Where’ve you been at?” Brigid said, looking off toward the window as if she was merely asking out of politeness and couldn’t have cared less where Peg had spent the last few hours.
“Pardon?” Peg said.
Brigid turned back into the room. “People wondered where you’d gone,” she said.
Peg paused. “The girls were likewise wondering where you’d knocked off to this afternoon.”
Brigid’s face went deadpan with annoyance as she tried to stop her eyes from rolling. “I was in plain sight of the lot of you on the Squires’ porch all afternoon. You couldn’t’ve wondered all that much, now could you?”
Peg couldn’t help herself. “How’s the boy?” she said, her tone a mixture of accusation and longing.
“Squee? He’s just fine,” Brigid said quickly. “They took him to the beach, with Mia.”
“Who took him to the beach?”
Brigid paused, waiting for the acid to drain back from her lips before she spoke. She forced a terrible smile: “Gavin and his new little hoor.”
“Well, if you’re getting off with Lance Squire, what precisely did you expect?”
Brigid sat up. “You’ve bloody got to be kidding.”
“What?”
“You think I’ve passed over Gavin in favor of Lance Squire?” Brigid took it for granted that no one in her right mind would ever pass over Gavin.
“So you haven’t, then?” Peg said casually.
Brigid flopped back down onto the bed and turned to the window.
“Oh, I see, now,” Peg said snidely.
Brigid lay fuming in her bed by the window, words flashing through her brain, retorts and explanations so loud in her skull it seemed Peg should have been able to hear them. She tried to speak, but whatever came to her tongue felt inadequate, and she swallowed a number of beginnings before she managed to sit up and say: “The man’s wife has just passed on. Am I the only one around in this bloody place who thinks he deserves a bit of sympathy? You lot treat him as though he’d killed her himself!”
That struck Peg unexpectedly, for it was true: that was precisely the way she thought of him. “Oh, don’t be thick,” she snapped. “I’ve simply a bit more concern for the welfare of the child who’s been left in his care and’ll likely be scarred for life, or worse, if no one steps in and does a bloody thing about it—”
“Jesus Christ!” Brigid cried. “Who do think you are, then?” She was stammering for the next line when Peg cut her off.
“I’m someone who bloody cares what’ll happen to that child!”
Brigid’s astonishment stopped her from replying. She just sat there blinking at this girl who was her roommate. “My god,” was all she could manage. “Oh my fucking god.”
Peg was riled, every ill feeling she’d ever entertained toward Brigid rising to the surface. “You pass your time licking up to this man and that without opening your eyes and seeing what’s in front of your bloody face! I don’t see how you can so much as sit and talk with the man when you’ve seen the way he treats his son—the way he treats bloody everyone!—acting as though it’s altogether just grand!”
Brigid shook her head back and forth, slowly, in utter disbelief. “Heaven forbid,” she said, “that a man who’s just lost his wife doesn’t act like a bloody saint every fucking minute of the day! God forbid you cut the man just the tiniest bit of slack when he’s been through the worst thing you’ll ever imagine!” She stood up, the words jamming in her throat. She held up her hands: there was nothing more she could even think to say to someone so ignorant.
“You must be blind!” Peg hissed, but Brigid waved her hands by her ears to say she’d hear no more.
“You’re bleedin’ unbelievable,” Brigid finally managed to say. She stared at Peg another moment as she tried to figure out what she might do with herself at that point. Then, suddenly, she snatched the covers from her bed and grabbed up her pillow with the other hand. “Absolutely unbelievable!” And she slammed out of the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Peg cried. And then she heard the outside door slam at the end of the hall, and she was quiet, listening. All she could hear were the crickets.
Brigid hadn’t a clue where she was going except that she was going away from that self-righteous, arrogant, preachy little priss she’d been unlucky enough to get lodged with. It was dark out, and the first thing Brigid saw were the lights of the Squire cottage across the way. People were still out on the porch of the Lodge, but Brigid didn’t want to see any of them. She walked across the path and up the steps. Through the window she could see Lance sitting in his easy chair, a beer in hand. Squee was on the couch, his legs crossed under him, playing with an action figure of some sort. They were watching TV. Like any normal, regular, American family, Brigid thought—even a normal, regular American family who’ve recently lost one of their own!— peacefully watching the television in their own bloody living room! She hated Peg with all the ire in her. She knocked on the door, heard Lance call, “C’min,” and opened the door.
“Hi,” said Squee, looking up briefly from his play.
“Hey there,” Lance said, waving her inside.
“Could I knock about with you lot a bit this evening?” Brigid said bitterly. “My roommate’s a bloody mulchie wanker!”
Lance’s face broke into a wide, winning grin. “I don’t know what the fuck that means, but our casa is your casa.” With his old magnanimous flair Lance swept an arm broadly across the room. “Beer’s in the fridge.”
She got herself a can, and as she shuffled toward the couch to curl up beside Squee with her blanket and pillow, Brigid could honestly say that she felt welcome and grateful and at home for the first time since she’d arrived on Osprey Island. And as they watched mindless American blather, Brigid settled into an oblivion of comfort for which she was enormously thankful.
Eighteen
WWCD?
One July day in 1957, when Great Island should have been a scene of activity with young birds at the flying stage, I scanned the marsh through my telescope. I saw the usual number of adults about—but where were the young? The nesting season obviously had been a failure. The next year confirmed my suspicions. Although young ospreys ordinarily pip the shell in about 5 weeks, many adults sat on unhatched eggs for 60 to 70 days. Other eggs mysteriously disappeared. One bird brought a rubber ball to the nest and faithfully sat on it for six weeks!