Osprey Island

Gavin, who was standing beside Squee, spoke: “I checked their room, their house.” He gestured toward the Squires’ cabin with his chin. “They weren’t there. Just Squee.”

Nancy stared at Gavin. “Squee!” she cried. “Where are your parents?!”

Squee shrugged absently, unconcerned. That his mom and dad might be inside hadn’t crossed his mind.

“No one’s in the laundry in the goddamn middle of the night!” Bud hollered again, and what Squee was realizing was how sad his mom was going to be when she saw what had happened to her laundry shack.

It was the scream of the fire engines that woke Lance from his whiskey sleep on the porch of the Lodge, jolted him awake and sent him running up the hill toward the lights, the people, the scene, his own scream rising as he ran, as though he knew—already knew—that his life was over.

RODDY JACOBS LEFT HIS PLACE behind Eden’s house and jumped into his truck at two in the morning to follow the sirens down Sand Beach Road to find out what the hell was going on. Firefighters were stretching hose lines toward the shack when Roddy drove up. A primary search into the laundry shack had been attempted and aborted soon thereafter. It was such a close space, engulfed in flames—impossible to get in, let alone see anything.

Squee saw Roddy’s truck and dashed for him as he stepped to the ground, yelling as he ran: “Have you seen my mom? My mom! Do you know where she is?” The initial resolve that there was certainly no one inside the laundry shack had given way to fearful speculation when Lorna Squire could not be found. The one hope they all held but did not say was that maybe Lorna was just drunk somewhere, passed out and too blitzed for even the sirens to wake her. They may have hoped it would turn out that Lorna was off fucking someone’s brains out, or curled asleep against some man’s tattooed chest on the other side of the island. They hoped the thing they’d be dealing with the next day would be scandal. They hoped they’d be keeping Lance from tearing the guy’s throat out, keeping Squee entertained while Lance and Lorna fought and screamed and cried until they hurt each other so badly that they had to make up and make love and forgive each other everything, again.

It was nearly three when Roddy went back to his truck to set out to find Lorna. It seemed a bad idea for Squee to go with him—where would they find her? what would her son have to witness?—but it was beginning to seem a bad idea for Squee to stay at the fire scene, where Lance was being physically restrained by two guys from the volunteer squad after he’d tried to rush the burning shack, screaming for Lorna, who he now feared might truly be trapped inside. In the end it was Squee who made the decision when he grabbed on to Roddy’s hand and wouldn’t let go, which was when Suzy—still clutching Mia to her, though the girl was really just too big to be carried—allied herself with the search party and climbed into Roddy’s truck as well.

They drove through the darkness, Mia slumped asleep on Suzy, Squee awake throughout, his eyes wide but trained ahead, as though he could see nothing beyond the windshield. Roddy and Suzy panned the road, their eyes open as if propped. Air blew into the rolled-down truck windows as they drove. All across the island lights were on, people seated at kitchen tables, framed in their picture windows, talking on the phone, peering out as though the laundry shack fire might spread, as though Lorna might come stumbling out of their woods, past their woodsheds, like some stricken heroine, and they’d give her hot coffee and wrap her in an afghan before getting on the phone to pass along the word that she was fine.

It was almost light when Roddy drove the truck back to the Lodge. The fire was mostly out. The ambulance was there, but its sirens were quiet, flashers off. People no longer stood on the periphery of the scene, but sat on porches or in tight circles on the ground. Some girls hugged each other, crying softly. Most sat stoic, stunned. Lance had been taken away, sedated. He was at Merle’s now, his mother tending to him. Doc Zobeck had given something to Nancy Chizek too, for her nerves, and she was sleeping it off at the Chizek house up the hill.

Sheriff Harty approached Roddy’s truck. Roddy and Squee climbed out slowly, as if to forestall what was about to happen. Mia was still asleep against Suzy. Squee had Roddy’s hand, was pressed as close to the side of Roddy’s leg as he could get, eyes big and glassy and cold. Sheriff Harty nodded solemnly to Roddy, then squatted down to Squee’s level.

“Squee,” the sheriff said, and then he paused, not knowing how to proceed. He took a breath, tried again.

Squee spoke first, his voice controlled. “My mom was in there,” he said.