The Castaways

DELILAH

I t was two o’clock in the morning. The kids were asleep; the room smelled. Delilah was exhausted. She was scared. Her imagination was threatening guerrilla warfare. She had no defenses. She was about to surrender. Take me . Thoughts led to other, darker thoughts. This was awful. She had been so vigilant for so many long nights, but now she had nothing left. Her head fell forward on the limp stem of her neck. She rested her face on the cool tabletop.

Okay.

Here came Tess with the kids. The Kia pulled into the driveway as it had hundreds of times before, and as ever, Delilah checked to make sure the house was clean enough, orderly enough, a decent environment for raising children. TV turned off; dishes out of the sink. Her own kids had to be either outside playing or inside doing a creative project. These things mattered to Tess. Today Drew and Barney were out back, beating the hell out of the croquet balls.

Tess emerged from the car, looking adorable—the red polka-dot sunglasses, the jean shorts, the cute flip-flops. But Tess looked worried. Delilah had known the woman a long time, she recognized every expression, and something was wrong. Something was wrong with Delilah, too. Her head was heavy and aching, her teeth gritty. April Peck in the Scarlet Begonia. Greg singing “Tiny Dancer.” Greg and April Peck, pulled up at the beach. They had mended the fence. Greg had been lying, perhaps this whole time. Betraying Tess. Betraying Delilah. Supposedly he told her everything.

He would not get away with it.

Tess kissed the kids a hundred times. She hugged them, then hugged them again. She said, Please be good. I love you. You know I love you. The kids nodded, kissed her back, then tried to pull away. She held them fast until they twisted out of her grasp and ran out to the backyard to claim their favorite croquet mallets.

Delilah walked Tess back to her car. Was she going to do it? She was furious beyond fury, she was finished, she didn’t care if Greg ever spoke to her again. All she wanted was for him to pay. Her teeth tingled with a metallic residue. She had vomited; she had fought with her husband, who had done nothing wrong. She was not going to let Greg have a lovely anniversary.

She said to Tess sotto voce, How are you? Are you okay?

And Tess said, too quickly, Yes. Fine.

Delilah took a deep breath. Jump?

Tess said, I’m just worried about the kids.

Delilah bristled. Worried about leaving the kids with Delilah? They’ll be fine, she said. We’re going to pick strawberries this afternoon.

Tess said, I have a funny feeling .

Jump.

Delilah said, Listen, I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to say it. Okay?

Tess nodded mutely. One last chance to back out! Delilah heard the kids laughing in the backyard. Tess and Greg were her friends, they were the closest thing to family she had on this island—but as Jeffrey liked to remind Delilah, she did not belong in the middle of their private affairs.

She did not belong in the middle. The truth was in her cupped hands, but it was not Delilah’s job to set it free.

I know things have been hard for you and Greg, Delilah said. Jeffrey and I are rooting for you guys. Have a nice anniversary, okay?

Tess looked puzzled, as if to say, That’s it?

Okay, Tess said. Thank you.

Delilah said, You don’t have to thank me. Give a call when you get back.

Will do! Tess said. Suddenly she smiled. God, I’m nervous. I actually have butterflies about spending time with my own husband. I guess that’s a good sign, huh?

You know it is, Delilah said. She waved as Tess backed out of the driveway and drove away.

Delilah lay with her face on the table in the gloomy hotel room. There was a blue glow from the digital clock: 2:58.

Delilah had not told her. She had not said the words that would have kept Tess from getting on that boat. She had kept her mouth shut, the truth trapped. She had not wanted to get in the middle of Tess and Greg’s private affairs. Less generously, she had wanted to be the only person who knew Greg’s secrets. Always she had wanted to be the one who knew the most about him.

And…

And what?

Tess and Greg died. Greg’s mind was elsewhere, the wind got the best of him, he lost control, the boat went over, they got caught underneath. He tried to save Tess but couldn’t? He had pushed Tess off the boat on purpose, then had second thoughts and gone after her? He told Tess about April Peck himself and Tess had jumped? No one would ever know what happened, but Delilah knew one thing. Whatever happened, it had been within her power to stop it, and she had not.

Delilah woke up stiff-necked to the sound of Barney breathing through his nose.

She lifted her head off the table. Barney was sitting across from her.

“Mom,” he whispered. “I’m thirsty.”

He was pale and sweaty, his hair in cowlicks, his eyes sunken but alert. Delilah stood up. Her whole body ached from sleeping at the table like some overworked paralegal. She felt Barney’s forehead. Cool and moist. Drew lay in bed, stirring, but Chloe and Finn were still asleep and unmoving, with the covers pulled over their heads. Delilah went out to the hallway for a bucket of ice, and then, from the bathroom tap, she poured glasses of water.

She brought Barney water, which he inhaled, then she checked Drew’s forehead. Cool to the touch.

Delilah brought Barney a second glass of water. “I’m going downstairs to pay the bill,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Will you get dressed?”

“What about breakfast?” Barney said. “I’m hungry.”

“We’ll eat on the road,” Delilah said. “We’ll find a Bob Evans.”

“Awesome,” Drew said.

Delilah smiled. The kids felt better; they could be made happy with breakfast at Bob Evans and other things they didn’t have on Nantucket. The rest of the wide world was a cornucopia for them.

She went down to the desk to pay the bill. Lonnie was still working.

“Where are you headed today?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

He cocked his head, confused.

She thought back to the Delilah who had been determined to live deliberately. She would deliberately get the kids breakfast. Then, she would decide what to do. Her neck hurt. Her soul hurt.

Tess! Greg!

She was to blame for their deaths. This wasn’t something she could run away from.

When she got back to the room, the kids were gone. Delilah blinked. She checked the room number on the door: 432. She studied the room: it was empty. The TV was shut off. The overnight bag sat agape on the floor; the vomity clothes were in a pile. Where were the kids? Were they hiding? Delilah checked the closet, behind the brocade curtains, under the beds. Then she ran out into the hallway, shouting names. Shouting! She would wake up every other guest on the fourth floor, but she didn’t care.

“Drew! Barney! Barney DRAKE!”

Nothing.

Delilah couldn’t wait for the elevator. She dashed down the stairs to the lobby and called out to Lonnie. The kids, three boys, one girl. Where are they?

Lonnie stammered.

“You didn’t see them? Hear them? They didn’t run past here?”

No.

Where should she look? Were they at the pool? In the game room? She would check there first: yes, okay, the indoor pool, then the adjacent game room, the modest amusements of this crap hotel. Or they had decided they couldn’t wait for Bob Evans and had gone for breakfast at the rinky-dink restaurant. They were hungry, they wanted pancakes and bacon, a wedge of pale melon, a thin disk of out-of-season orange.

Delilah concentrated on breathing. She had not used Lamaze during the births of either of her children, but she was using it now. In deep, out in short puffs. She ran down the hall to the pool. The indoor pool was a sad turquoise rectangle in a disintegrating tile room that smelled strongly of mildew and chlorine. The plastic resin lifeguard chair was deserted, and a stack of scratchy white towels stood untouched. No one had been in here for days.

The adjacent game room held two old-fashioned pinball machines that flashed their lights and made distorted groaning noises, a defunct Ms Pacman game, and a foosball table with half the players amputated from the waist down. No Drew, no Barney, no Chloe, no Finn. She had managed to lose four children. Not only her own children, but other people’s children. She touched her face; her cheeks were burning.

The restaurant held a little more promise. It was hopping! Nearly all of the tables held families with small children eating pancakes meant to look like Mickey Mouse swimming in ponds of syrup and topped with butter meant to look like whipped cream. Delilah weaved through the tables. Had the kids been lured down here by the smell of bacon and sausage?

The kids were not in the restaurant. Delilah hurried back to the front desk. Lonnie was still there, looking as morose as ever.

“Did they come past?” Delilah asked.

Lonnie shook his droopy head.

Delilah walked through the automatic sliding door. She stood beneath the portico and surveyed the parking lot. Beyond this hotel was highway. Would they have walked? There was just no way.

“Drew!” she screamed. “Barney!”

Somewhere in the parking lot, a car alarm sounded. Had she set it off?

She raced through the parking lot. Lamaze breathing—but there wasn’t time! She had to find them! Delilah was not religious; she did not pray. This was a flaw, she saw now, a hole, a void. Tess and Andrea were Catholic, and Greg and the Chief, however reluctantly, had gone along with that strict and structured faith. Addison was Episcopalian, Phoebe had been Episcopalian but since 9/11 had developed her own religion, a cross between Buddhism and drug-induced hallucinogenic voodoo mysticism. Jeffrey was Presbyterian, a staunch farmer, pitchfork-wielding, American Gothic Protestant. He took the boys to the Congregational church on Sundays at 10:30 twice a month; he donated to the offertory basket, belted out the doxology, spent a month of weekends doing odd jobs around the antiquated, drafty interior. Delilah had been raised an unwieldy combination of Lutheran and Greek Orthodox but had dropped both. She went to church with Jeffrey on Christmas Eve because she liked the carols. But the rest of the time she was spiritually adrift.

Delilah circled the hotel, inspecting it from the outside. There were nooks and crannies, places to hide—service entrances, housekeeping headquarters, a separate, canopied entrance for the families who took their kids to the Holiday Inn for breakfast on the weekends as a treat.

“Barney!” she screamed. “Drew! Andrew DRAKE!”

“Mom!” someone shouted.

And then she saw them. She almost choked on her relief. It was a palpable thing, a thick chemical vapor that filled her up and made her wheeze as she tried to cry out. The relief nearly stopped her heart.

Behind the hotel, in what might have been called the back courtyard, was a playground. The skeleton of a swing set, two scabby seesaws, and the rusted disk of a merry-go-round on which spun Chloe, Finn, and Barney. Drew was pushing.

“Jesus!” she said. She was crying now. “I was so scared. I thought I’d lost you.”

They did not speak. They observed Delilah as if she were an alien just stepped off a flying saucer, as if she were some unidentifiable wildlife emerging from the bush.

“I was so worried!” she said. “Thank God you’re safe!” Thank God, thank God. She realized that this angst, this panic, this frantic hair-raising fucking worry was, of course, what Jeffrey, Andrea, the Chief, Phoebe, and Addison would be feeling once they realized Delilah was gone with the kids. Delilah couldn’t stand to think of anyone else feeling this way. Somewhere inside her guilty and broken self, there was a beating heart.

Delilah waited until the merry-go-round slowed, then she sat down between Finn and Barney. She gathered Drew and Chloe into her lap, and although they were way too old for this, they allowed her to hold them anyway.

“Are we going home now?” Barney asked.

She kissed the top of his head.

“Yep,” she said, like the unflappable mom she was. “We’re going home now.”