Page 73 of Summer of Salt

The last days of summer settled into a quiet rhythm.

The island was hot and humid and somber.

I spent the days washing the sheets and pillowcases and towels of the inn, preparing for the end of the season, getting ready for fall. I spent my evenings with Prue—pushing ourselves out into nothingness on a tire swing or running full speed into the ocean or lying on the cool grass of dusk, flicking mosquitoes from our skin and letting our hair tangle up together.

I woke up every morning and went into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee.

Aggie laughed again. The inn became a place I recognized.

I let the birdheads apologize, one by one, a steady stream of humiliated people I had known my entire life.

I forgave everyone who asked me to.

I said to good-bye to them, one by one, these people who had dedicated their lives to a thing that had been so violently taken from them.

I watched them lay their hands on the top of Annabella’s grave.

I watched them pull the grave marker out of theearth—the one Peter had made—and fling it into the sea.

The rule of the cliffs did not apply to grave markers carved by rapists.

Our good-byes were short and perfunctory (Hep Shackman) or long and drawn out (Lucille Arden) depending on who was leaving.

Liesel Channing gave me a sweater she had knit out of truly hideous purple yarn. On the front was a rather sloppily rendered crest of the university I was slated to attend so soon that it took my breath away when I thought too much about it. She hugged me for a very long time and whispered in my ear, “I’ll be back next year. Annabella or no Annabella, this is my home too.”

Every morning I went into my sister’s empty, quiet room and checked on the eggs.

The nest, magically rendered and pulled from the flooded ground under a full moon, kept them warm and safe under the floorboards.

We took turns watching over them: Harrison, Prue, Vira, me. We stacked books and magazines on Mary’s bed and read stories and watched Annabella’s babies.

I thought it was too late for them.

Vira told me that they had a magic nest to help them along, and I should have a little hope.

When I missed my sister, I held her necklace in the palm of my hand. The broken clasp told an entirely different story now.

I wondered if I should have seen it earlier.

I listed all the reasons a girl might have to keep something like that a secret, even from her own sister.

I went through the motions of leaving.

I packed my things into three steamer trunks.

I got a letter in the mail with my future roommate’s name and address.

Hattie M. Hipperson.

I sent her a letter.

Excited to meet you.

Excited for school.

Excited.

(The wordexcitedfalls flatter and flatter the more times you write it.)