The Watery Part of the World - Michael Parker [92]
She stayed right mad at him for that. The anger helped her get through the hours of that day and, more important, the endless night. She would not let herself feel guilty because clearly Woodrow was just proving a point, showing her how they all could change, how the island itself would change if only one of them—well, the right one of them—went across.
Okay. She gave up. He had proved his point. They ate out of the cupboard, cans: Chef Boyardee, peaches, green beans that tasted of rust. No mail. No prices to read aloud of an evening.
And Maggie, good Lord—you’d of thought she was married to Woodrow the way all the wind went out of her. She had not been this bad since that Boyd. Thing was, they didn’t talk about it. Three days he was gone and not one word passed between them on the subject of Woodrow—on any subject much—until one of those O’Malley boys came dragging his bulk up the beach road late afternoon of the third day.
Whaley was sitting on the porch. She never sat on the porch in the afternoon but she could not bear the thought of Maggie seeing Woodrow first when he came back across. It was white-hot and breezeless and one of the O’Malley boys came up in the yard sweating and huffing.
“Miss Whaley,” he said.
“I knew your daddy,” said Whaley.
O’Malley looked a little emotional. “I am the daddy.”
“You’re Marvin?”
“Hiram.”
“Close,” she said. She meant the sound of his name was close to Marvin. But he looked bothered, and real hot.
“Well,” he said. “It’s Mr. Woodrow.”
“That’s what y’all call him?”
“Always have.”
“To his face or behind his back?”
O’Malley took a red kerchief out of his pocket and unfolded it.
“Where’s he at?” she said. Because she was still hoping this was some sick point he was hellbound out to prove. Okay, Woodrow. I give up.
“They found his boat almost clear down to Lenoxville.”
“Just his boat?”
“He could have had a stroke. Fell out.”
She looked past him, up the island. The steeple of the church showed passing boats here is God’s love, bountiful and all-forgiving. But she hid there in the belfry and let the wind take Sarah and she said something to Woodrow so hurtful he up and jumped off his boat. Where was God’s love?
She said, “Woodrow has not fell out and he did not either have any stroke.”
Hiram or Marvin O’Malley said, “Well.”
A long time passed. Her great-great-great-grandmother Theo floated in the breakers. Somehow the portrait Theo was taking to present to her disgraced father turned up on her doorstep. People left in droves. The progging fell off. Most of what washed up on the beach was Japanese and plastic. The roof of the old hospital caved in. Mail stopped coming.
“They’ll find him directly,” said O’Malley.
Storms battered the island. One took the power, the light. It cut an inlet down southside. That was okay. They had each other. Sisters. She never did marry. Ducks and egrets would light on the water so many it looked like an island. Babe Ruth came. Decorations for women’s hats out of the plumage.
Maggie came up on the porch. O’Malley the younger shifted his bulk and said, “Miss Maggie.”
“We killed her,” said Whaley to her sister. Only it wasn’t Maggie she was talking to but little Liz kneeling beside her chair in the little sitting area she’d set up for the interview.
“We let that woman die.”
Little Liz shook her head, her lips tight and trembling.
“No, not we,” Whaley corrected. “It was me. I’m the one. I done it.”
Whaley took Liz’s hand in both hers and squeezed. She said, “Woodrow asked me to look after her, I went down there that night I looked through the window I seen she was okay I came on back up the hill to the house I made Maggie come with me up to the church I wouldn’t let Maggie go after her because what it was, it wasn’t the water took her it was the wind.”
“I never told Woodrow what I done but that morning he left the island I went down there to apologize to him about saying he was too old to change. He was already