The Castaways

ADDISON

F or maybe ten years now, Addison Wheeler had considered himself a rich man. He had a beautiful home, four cars, membership in two private clubs, a case of 1967 port in his wine cellar, and eight figures invested with his broker in New York. He had a sixteen-year-old daughter in the best private school in southern California, and an ex-wife who was so wealthy on her own that all she asked Addison for were special favors. (He had a client who could get him tickets to anything, anywhere—the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards.) But from now on, money would mean nothing. Money couldn’t help him. Money didn’t matter.

Tess was dead.

They gathered at the Drake house, because they always gathered at the Drake house. Greg and Tess’s house was too small, Andrea and the Chief’s house was too police-chiefy (there was a scanner in their house that squawked all the live-long day, and somewhere in the house, everyone knew, the Chief kept guns). Addison and Phoebe had the biggest house, with views over Sesachacha Pond. From their widow’s walk, you could see all three of Nantucket’s lighthouses. Addison and Phoebe had tried to host gatherings in the past, but these gatherings were never quite right. Phoebe raided the fancy Italian cheese store for hundreds of dollars’ worth of asiago and salumi, and Addison, hands down, had the best wine, not to mention the most sophisticated stereo and TV, but something was missing. Their house was too cold, too formal. They had no kids; that might have been the problem. And yet in their basement was a home theater with every DVD from The Breakfast Club to Bee Movie , as well as a pool table. They had beanbag chairs, a basketball hoop, and a swimming pool, half of which was only three feet deep. It was heaven for kids, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was something else.

Or maybe this was just Addison’s insecurity talking (he was rich, yes, but not rich enough to quiet the voice in his head that constantly reminded him of his shortcomings). Maybe it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Addison and Phoebe’s house; the Drake house was simply better. It was warmer. It was, in essence, a farmhouse, with a captivating mix of woods and woven rugs, bright fabrics, copper pots, a fire in the fireplace or the grill smoking on the deck. Delilah made everything from scratch rather than buying it prepared; she was an easy, natural hostess, pouring your drink before your coat was off. She made the most delicious cocktails, she had the funniest cocktail napkins, she cooked with cream and butter, herbs and just-picked produce. She had the best mixes on her iPod, and she was always, always ready to turn it up a notch. Addison loved it at the Drake house, and Phoebe would have put their own house on the market and moved in with the Drakes at the drop of a hat. There was just something about it. It was happy, balanced.

But not, of course, today.

Addison and Phoebe arrived at ten minutes to seven, though it felt much earlier. It was the longest day of the year. The Chief and Andrea had arrived, and instinctively Addison looked for Tess’s Kia. For the past six months, when he had pulled into this driveway, he had looked for Tess’s car. He had her license plate memorized: K22 M3E. He had waited, dozens of times over the past winter, for that car to pull into the driveway of the cottage in Quaise, an exclusive listing of his, where they used to meet.

Tess’s car wasn’t there. It was in the lot across from the town pier.

Next to him, Phoebe was as still and quiet as a statue in a garden. She had self-medicated, which was dangerous after an event like this, but Addison hadn’t had the wherewithal to check what she had put in her mouth. He tried to monitor what Dr. Field prescribed her, what she took, what she stashed away, what she gave to Delilah (Phoebe was a very generous woman, even with her pharmaceuticals)—but this had dropped off in recent months, partly because of Tess, and partly because the responsibility of being on constant watch with his wife was wearying. He had tried lecturing, he had tried an intervention (a mini-intervention, him and Dr. Field, explaining to Phoebe that she was becoming dependent on these drugs and she had to wean herself off them—the antidepressants, the pain meds, the sleep aides). Nothing worked. Phoebe popped pills, and rather than killing her, they seemed to be keeping her alive. So whereas Addison felt like he wanted to take a steak knife and eviscerate his insides, cut his heart out so it would stop hurting—Tess was dead!—Phoebe was as calm as a houseplant. She wasn’t a person so much as a topiary.

Addison turned off the car. He wasn’t sure that he could go into that house and pull off the acting job that was required.

“He killed her,” Addison said.

Phoebe turned to him. “What?” she said.

There had been a text message, sent to his phone at quarter to ten that morning. Addison had been in his office, reviewing the purchase-and-sale agreement for the big deal. He saw that the text was from Tess and he willed it to say I love you —he found he needed constant reassurance of this from her—but when he opened it, it said, I’m afraid.

He had stared at the message, wondering how to respond. Tess was right to be afraid. Addison himself was terrified. Greg was pulling out all the stops to win her back. She had to be careful, she had to resist him! The text came just as they would have been sailing out of the harbor, so Addison thought that Tess meant she was afraid of the water. She had nearly drowned in Dorchester Bay as a child. She swam with her kids at the beach, but only on the north shore, where the water was placid, and even then she went right in and came right out. When her kids were swimming in Addison’s pool, she stood at the side, vigilant, even though Chloe and Finn had suffered through years of swimming lessons, born from this very same fear. Sailing, fishing, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, even the ferry back and forth to the mainland, made Tess uncomfortable. She remembered what it had been like, at age nine, to slip under the water’s surface and not be able to fight her way back up.

Addison shuddered.

Phoebe said, “I think we should offer to take the kids.”

“Let’s go in,” Addison said.

The Drake house was not the Drake house. There was no food or drink, no music, no Delilah. In the living room, Jeffrey sat with the Chief, face-to-face, saying nothing.

Addison said, “We’re here.”

The two men nodded.

Phoebe said, “Where’s Delilah?”

“In our bedroom,” Jeffrey said. “Waiting for you.”

Phoebe said, “Where are the kids?”

“Downstairs.”

“Do they know?” Addison asked.

“Not yet,” the Chief said.

“We’ll take them,” Phoebe said. “We have lots of room.”

“Phoebe—” Addison said. He should have headed off this notion while they were still outside. No one was going to be comfortable with Addison and Phoebe taking even temporary custody of the kids.

“One step at a time,” the Chief said.

“Where’s Andrea?” Addison said.

“Asleep upstairs,” the Chief said.

“Asleep?”

“The doctor gave her something. She can’t handle it. Tess was… everything to her.”

She was everything to me, Addison thought. And no one will ever know it.

I’m afraid , the text had said.

Phoebe tiptoed down the hall to Delilah. Downstairs, Addison could hear the kids.

“What happened, exactly?” Addison said.

“It’s not clear,” the Chief said. “The boat capsized, they drowned. They got caught underneath the boat. Greg’s foot was tangled in the ropes. They had been drinking.”

Addison pictured Tess and Greg on the deck of the boat, drinking champagne, eating strawberries, kissing. Talking—about what? There was so much anger between the two of them, so much suspicion and confusion about what had happened the previous fall with April Peck. Greg had never come clean; he stuck to his preposterous story. Addison had asked him once when they were both very drunk: “Tell me what happened, man. The truth.”

And Greg had hesitated, as if thinking about it. Could he trust Addison? He and Addison were very close friends. But in the end, the answer must have been no. He said, “Man, I already told everybody the truth.”

It ate away at Tess. Her trust in Greg had been destroyed. She didn’t believe in anything anymore: not marriage, not friendship. She had fallen in love with Addison. Or she claimed to have fallen in love. Addison worried that Tess was using him unconsciously (God, of course unconsciously, the woman didn’t have a mean bone in her body) to get back at Greg. She still cared what Greg thought; she worried what Greg did, where he went, whom he saw.

“The Coast Guard retrieved their things. Greg’s guitar, the picnic basket, their shoes…”

“He killed her,” Addison whispered. He said this to himself. He was in such agony he couldn’t help it, and he didn’t care if they knew what he thought. They did not hear him.

The Chief said, “Greg thought he was a better sailor than he was. He had no business trying to get them to the Vineyard. I should have stopped them.”

“I should have stopped them,” Addison said. He had been dying to tell her not to go; he had wanted to give her an ultimatum. If you love me, you won’t go. But at the time he hadn’t seen that this would accomplish anything besides upsetting Tess and, possibly, learning some things he didn’t want to know. Such as that she still loved Greg, despite her anger and distrust. Such as that if Addison forced her to choose—him or me—she would choose him.

But if he’d insisted, she might still be alive.

“I’m going downstairs now to tell the kids,” the Chief said.

“Or I could do it,” Jeffrey offered.

“I had pictured this as Andrea’s territory,” the Chief said. “But she isn’t capable.”

“And neither is Delilah,” Jeffrey said.

“I’m their uncle,” the Chief said. He took an audible breath, and Addison noticed how old he looked—a bad sign, since he and Addison were the same age. Forty-nine. “I’ve done a lot of crappy duties with this job, but…”

“This is the worst,” Jeffrey said.

“The worst,” Addison echoed. He was so, so upset, but there was no way for him to express it. Should he be the one going down to tell Chloe and Finn their parents were dead? Absolutely not. And yet he and Tess had been so intimate. For the past six months, it had been just the two of them in a make-believe world, a carefully preserved fantasy, touching, kissing, experiencing unprecedented tenderness. They were simpatico. He held her while she slept, he listened to her, he bought her cookies and marzipan and truffles for her sweet tooth. He tickled her, they laughed, he combed her hair, she rubbed his back, and when they parted, she cried. I don’t want to go back to him .

After Easter, they had begun to talk about running away. Living together. Addison was the one who broached the subject first. He had loads of money, he could make anything happen, he could pay lawyers, he could leave Phoebe the house and they could buy a new house together. They could buy the cottage. Then they would never have to leave, never have to say goodbye.

Tess played along, but not wholeheartedly. Addison sensed she was repeating his words back to him because she knew it made him happy. Never have to leave. Never have to say goodbye.

He loved her more than he had ever loved anyone else, including fiery Mary Rose Garth, including Phoebe, including his own daughter. Tess unlocked something in him. Everything he’d done, everything he’d seen, everything he owned, had meant nothing until she became his. She gave him a reason.

But would Tess want him to be the one to tell her kids that she was dead?

He was sure the answer was no.

The Chief went downstairs.

Addison and Jeffrey sat together in awkward silence. They were waiting. Listening for… what? Addison’s own daughter, Vanessa, was high-strung and prone to melodrama. If informed that he or Mary Rose was dead, Vanessa would shriek to break glass. She would climb into her Miata and drive like Richard Petty through Beverly Hills, wailing to her friends on her cell phone. But how would two sweet, levelheaded seven-year-olds react? Addison and Jeffrey waited. The happy noise downstairs quieted. Then Addison heard footsteps on the stairs. He turned. It was Jeffrey’s boys, Drew and Barney. They were crying the way boys cried once they’d outgrown the baby stuff. Red eyes, tears, but no noise.

Jeffrey said, “Come here,” and opened his arms.

“The Chief told us,” Drew said. “Then he asked us to come upstairs.”

“He needs time with Chloe and Finn,” Jeffrey said. He hugged his boys fiercely and made a grunting noise. Addison both recognized it – I love you guys, I will always love you, we are so lucky this isn’t us – and was made uncomfortable by it. The emotion was so raw, he felt voyeuristic. Addison stood up.

In the mudroom, he found the bag the Chief had collected from the Coast Guard. The personal effects. Addison lifted Greg’s guitar out of the bag.

I’m afraid.

Greg had killed her.

But to say so would only damage the kids.

Addison rooted through the bag. He needed something to do. Andrea was asleep, Delilah and Phoebe were cloistered away in a lair of female bonding. The Chief had the twins and Jeffrey was consumed with his own boys. From the bag Addison removed pieces of Tupperware, some still containing food. He inspected the contents of one: a half-eaten lobster sandwich. Had this been Tess’s sandwich? Had her lips touched the bread? Addison lifted out the picnic basket; the fibers were waterlogged and disintegrating. He pulled out Tess’s flip-flops. Size five and a half J.Crew flip-flops in red and navy grosgrain ribbon. He turned them. Her tiny, doll-like feet had been in these shoes this morning. Her feet were so small, she had a hard time finding shoes that fit. He would keep these flip-flops. But no, he couldn’t. Where would he put them? What would he do with them? He yanked out Greg’s deck shoe, which most closely resembled an overcooked steak; two striped beach towels; a small suitcase. Did Addison dare open it? He did not. Then he came across Tess’s iPhone wrapped in its sunny yellow prophylactic. Addison didn’t think. This was her cell phone, it was important, it was evidence; there was the text, I’m afraid, and who knew what else she’d kept or erased? Addison crammed the phone into his pants pocket. He pitched the Ziploc bag into the trash. Would the Chief notice that the phone was missing? He might. If he’d had the chance to study the contents of the bag of personal effects, he would notice. Would he have had that chance? The Chief’s afternoon had been frantic. He had gotten the whole story from the Coast Guard, more of the story than he was telling, certainly. Knowing Ed as Addison did, Addison realized that yes, Ed would have found time to go through this bag. He may even have documented the contents. He would notice that the phone was missing.

Well, that was too bad. If he wanted it, he could fight Addison for it.

Addison needed air. The house was too warm; the wind had died down and the heat of the day was sticky and uncomfortable. Addison was going to vomit or faint. Tess was dead. She had been trapped under the boat, unable to swim out from under it. She had been afraid. God, just the thought of her fear and her panic, her struggle against the water, her need for air, her lungs about to explode, her cries for her kids. Chloe! Finn! She would have been thinking only of them in the end.

Addison wanted to take the pilfered phone and get in his car and drive. Drive away, heedless and fast.

He erupted with a broken shout, and tears blurred his vision. He stepped out onto the deck. All their cars were there in the driveway, except for the one that mattered. Never have to leave. Never have to say goodbye.

He pulled the felt heart out of his pocket, and sure enough, it ripped.

No! His heart!

He held the two pieces together. Could it be glued? It looked like an apple with a bite missing. He put the two pieces of the torn heart in his pocket. It was the only thing Tess had ever given him.

This, she’d said, is my heart.