Page 3

2

Briar

Copper Pond Farm, August 1942

I t was my brother Tom’s twentieth birthday, and our dog, Scout, and I watched the party from up in the barn hayloft. Half of the island stood packed in there wishing Tom well; the other half stood down on the distant beach, cooking the lobsters, silhouetted by the raging bonfire. It was easy to count our blessings from up there. A bounty of lobsters and corn and Gram’s Portuguese bread. The most generous and loyal friends, many of them once Mum and Pop’s. And a farm that somehow provided for us no matter the season.

But it wasn’t all rosy, of course. Some days felt like we were all sailing the river Styx on our way to Hades; every day was something new to dread. Hitler’s Nazi storm terrorizing Europe. Gram’s illness. German U-boats downing American ships just off our shores. But none of us saw the big one coming. That we would kill one of our own. That surprised us all.

Scout sniffed the air as the lobster scent drifted up from the beach. Our guests gathered at the table—Gram’s church ladies, Tom’s work friends, farm neighbors; even Sharkey Athearn from the post office, who liked no one, came—and not just for the free supper. We were all there for the charm. Tom had it in buckets, and everyone wanted their little piece of it, me most of all. Since our parents died in a car crash in Boston when I was six, Tom had been the kindest stand-in father. And I wanted to give him his birthday gift.

To pass the time, I picked burrs from Scout’s coat and dropped them below onto my sister, Cadence, who stood flirting with the Mayhew twins. I’d managed to land a nice collection of them on the shoulders of her sweater without her realizing. Little did the twins know she’d never grant either of them a date, saving herself for some future perfect man to take her off the island to New York City. Cadence had gotten the largest proportion of beauty in the family genetic lottery, the famous MacNeil look from Gram’s family’s side—anthracite-black hair with natural curl and thick-lashed eyes so startlingly blue that folks often stopped and stared. I didn’t resent her for it. I was always more comfortable disappearing.

Cadence felt a burr land in her hair, pulled it out, then glared up at me in the loft and stomped off, probably to find her friend Bess and dance with her, causing the unattached men there to stare at them longingly. Just another fun night for Cadence.

I’d rigged an old record player to a speaker Gram brought from church, and a few people danced. Others gathered around the world’s longest wooden table, just plywood on sawhorses, which Gram covered with newspaper, the traditional lobster-night tablecloth. The chairs were my favorite part. Everyone knew to bring their own, and I loved seeing them drawn around the table, a striped canvas beach chair pulled up between a velvet-seated dining chair and a paint-splattered step stool, as varied as we islanders ourselves.

Our grandmother bent to light the candles in the jelly jars scattered along the table, her white hair blue in the candlelight. Gram was the backbone of that community. Happy to help those who needed it and ever vigilant for those too proud to ask. As long as she was doing for others, Ginny Smith didn’t feel so poor.

It was the perfect vantage point up there to count bald spots—asurprising number on women as well as men. And I’d spotted five silver flasks drawn from pockets to refresh Coca-Colas and ginger ales, a new record. Wartime was stressful.

I felt the loft shake as Tom climbed the ladder, bottle of beer in hand, and he settled next to me in the hay. “What are you doing up here? Counting stuff again?”

I leaned in to him, so close our shoulders touched. “Scout likes it up here.”

Tom sipped his beer. “You carry her up and it takes six people to get her down.”

I smiled, barely able to keep the secret—my surprise birthday gift for him. A night sail like we used to take. We’d shove off at midnight and camp on the beach over at Pasque. I’d already made the sandwiches.

He rubbed Scout’s ear. “You two coming down? I’m gonna say a few words.”

We were lucky the Fates had smiled on us and let Tom stay out of the war. He’d enlisted in the Army after Pearl Harbor, gone all through basic training, even Ranger School, and had been assigned a desk job in Washington. But he was granted an emergency leave to come home when Gram developed a heart condition no island doctor could treat. She’d already lost one son to the first war, and the Army granted her grandson an indefinite stay and all of us a sigh of relief.

“Since when have you said only a few words?” I asked.

Tom bit back a smile and tipped his head to one side. “Fair enough.”

I considered Tom as he watched the crowd below. He wasn’t what you’d call classically handsome. Individually, his features were nondescript, bland in an average American sort of way. But most every island girl agreed that when his supreme good nature filled in the blanks, it made him one of the best-looking boys there.

“Tyson says hi, but he has to leave,” Tom said, trying to sound nonchalant.

I watched as Tom’s friend Tyson Schmidt, the grandson of our next-door neighbor Conrad Schmidt, stepped out of the barn doors.

“Please stop trying to get me together with him,” I said. “It’s not going to happen, trust me.”

“Well, I asked him to have your back. Keep you out of trouble.”

“I don’t need his help.” We were quiet for a moment, watching the crowd. “I saw it again.”

Tom turned to me. “You have to stop, Bri.”

That morning, from up in my tree, I’d seen a German U-boat just off the coast of our farm and called it in to the island tip line.

“They didn’t believe me. But I know what I saw.”

“You’ve phoned in six times. I hate that they call you…you know.” He took a sip of his beer.

“Just say it, Tom. Briar the Liar. It’s not like I don’t know.”

He set his warm hand on mine. “I’m worried about you. Come down and join the living, Port.”

I loved that nickname. We’d sailed Pop’s old catboat together so often we called each other “Port” and “Starboard,” since I sat on the left side of the boat and Tom to the right. He’d taught me to sail when I was six, as soon as I could swim. It was the one thing I had that my sister Cadence didn’t.

“Please?” he asked. “Talk to some kids your own age. And I need you down there when I give my big speech.”

I tried to hold back my smile. There was only one thing it could be. “You’re announcing your engagement.”

I found Bess in the crowd below, helping Gram set a steaming platter of corn on the table. Tom had met his match with Bess Stanhope, who’d lived with us since becoming estranged from her wealthy Edgartown family. She was beautiful in that slightly masculine, patrician sort of way and could talk to anyone. And, best of all, she didn’t let him get away with much, which he actually liked, something no other woman had ever been able to do. She even taught him some French. “ Je t’aime plus que la vie elle-même, ” Bess would say, in her excellent boarding school French.

“ Je t’aime plus, ” Tom would reply, one of the many phrases Bess had taught him. Because he really did love her more.

Tom ran his fingers through his short hair. “I can’t ask her yet. I have to get over to Falmouth to buy the ring.” He sipped his beer. “Okay. Two more guesses.”

I was afraid to ask but dove in. “You’re going to take the desk job in Washington?” I held my breath, hoping that wasn’t the answer.

He hesitated. “Um, nope. Guess again.”

Relieved, I thought for a moment. “The Burbanks are ready to harvest.”

Tom had made a big bet on planting this new variety of potato and he was sure they would be much sought after, with the obsession with frozen French fries in America.

“Not for another two weeks at least. Did you and Cadence step up the watering?”

I nodded.

Tom sat back on his knees. “Well, that’s your three guesses. Now you have to come down and hear for yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“I hope so. Life’s short, Bri. We have to enjoy every minute.”

I stayed put and let Tom climb down the ladder. Scout and I watched him descend and go to the head of the table, as someone tinged a glass.

Tom shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and perused the crowd. “Thank you for coming tonight to celebrate my twenty years in this wonderful place. We may be on the front lines out here at sea, but there’s no one better to handle it than islanders. Yankee ingenuity’ll win this war. And speaking of the war, I have something I want to share with you all.” He paused. “I ship out tomorrow morning.”

The crowd buzzed with concern, and I sat up as if stung.

“I was lucky I got to spend some time with Gram, but now my outfit is being mobilized.” He pulled a tan beret from his pocket and put it on. “I just found out I’ve been assigned to the Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment.”

I covered my mouth with both hands. A Ranger. Of course Tom would choose one of the most dangerous parts of the Army. The premier light-infantry unit and special-operations command. The lightning bolt on the patch said it all. They went in first and struck without warning.

Tom pressed his palms together. “Sorry I didn’t tell you all, but there was no guarantee they’d take me. I’ll be deployed soon from Fort Moore, Georgia. But I have a favor to ask.” He paused and the crowd leaned in, the table candles lighting their faces. “Please take care of one another and my sisters, and my girlfriend, Bess, and our Gram. Keep supporting her farm stand, as if you need any more reason to eat Ginny Smith’s donuts.”

Laughter trickled through the crowd. “More glazed crullers!” someone called out.

Tom smiled. “And read any book my sister Cadence forces on you. She means well, I assure you, and you may as well just surrender once she locks in. I know we all have to ration our driving, but please give my sister Briar a ride to work if you see her walking on the street, since I won’t be here to drive her. Right, Briar?”

He looked up to the hayloft, and thirty pair of eyes turned toward me. I shrank back. Why did he always do that? There was something in their gazes that I couldn’t place as they lifted their faces to look. Like when the organist hit a wrong note in church and everyone turned. They didn’t have to say, Oh, the weird sister who wears the strange clothes. It was all over their faces.

“We all have limited days on this beautiful earth,” Tom continued, and the guests returned their gazes to him. “We need to work together. And no one’s better at that than islanders.”

Gram raised her glass. “Hear, hear!”

“While I’m gone, continue to live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. Thank you for one last night of lobster and your love, as I go off to fight for us to continue to do that as free people. And to the adventure of a lifetime. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift for my twentieth.”

He held up his glass and someone at the table softly sang, “ First to fight for the right, and to build the nation’s might, ” the Army fight song, and most stood and joined in. “ Proud of all we have done, fighting till the battle’s won, and the Army goes rolling along .”

I tried to stave off the dizzying feeling that the world was shifting on its axis. How could my brother be leaving the next morning? Tom and I would not be going night sailing anytime soon. I held Scout close, as the bottom of my world dropped out and I felt myself falling. On my way to Hades.