The Storm and the Darkness (11 page)

Well this is a fine mess girl
, was Ana’s last real thought before things went bad. Her foot gained, then lost, traction on the rocks, her hand instinctively reaching for anything solid to regain her balance. Finding nothing but snow, her hands flailed, and her other foot lost grip. Suddenly she was sliding, then falling, and then everything went black.

Jon watched his brother come in, late, smiling. A girl, most likely, although Finn picked a poor night to be out playing around.

"You're home just in time," Jon said, as he settled Mr. Jenkins down in front of the fireplace. The dog heaved one shuddering sigh and then settled back into his normal, sleepy breathing. "Some of the roads are closing."

"I wasn't on the roads," Finn responded, flinging the snow off. Jon realized that he had seen Finn's truck in the driveway when he pulled in earlier. "But I could have told you they'd be closing them soon. My guess is they'll be closed for a while."

Finn sat down next to Jon, taking in the full heat of the fire. Their father had installed central heating years ago in the old house, but both boys always loved the natural warmth of a nice, crackling fire.
 

"You were next door," Jon said. It was not a question. He worried this might happen. He looked around to make sure Finn had not brought her home, and was relieved to see he was alone.

"Don't worry, your sanctuary is safe. She said she'd prefer not to come home with me." He added, as if purely to gauge a reaction, “She said you don't like her."

Jon grunted. "Don't like her? I don't know her."

"Don't want to, is more like it."

Finn took off his wet socks and tossed them in Jon’s direction. Jon smacked them away in annoyance. “You're right, why would I want to, when she's leaving soon?"

Finn looked around the room, then stated sarcastically, "I don't see anyone else here, Jon. Just you and me. No need for pretense."

Jon made a sound under his breath, then stood up, heading towards the kitchen for a glass of water. "When is she leaving, anyway?"

"She doesn't know. Maybe never."

"Or until her daddy decides to pull back the funds."

"You can be a hermit all you want Jon, but you don't have to be an asshole." Finn’s smile disappeared. He shoved his cold feet dangerously close to the fire. "She owns that house herself, and she’s here for her own reasons."

Jon finished drinking and, feeling unusually reckless, dropped his glass into the sink. The loud clink echoed. “Defending her now?" he taunted. "Must be serious." Teasing was better than being teased.

"You really need to blow off some steam,” Finn said in disgust and left the room, knocking the mocking smile off Jon's face and leaving him feeling like he'd gone too far. Teasing was also easier than being reminded of who he was. He was being unfair to his little brother...Finn might tease Jon, but he also protected him. Finn was the one who would make an excuse for Jon when he was feeling unsocial before an event. Finn was the one who bought the groceries, and made the phone calls that needed to be made, bailed Jon out of awkward conversations. People always called Jon the smart one, but Finn was smart too, usually in ways that mattered more.

Jon found Finn near the back door, slipping into a dry coat. He was starting on the boots and snowshoes, when he looked up and saw Jon standing there. "I could use some help with the tanks,” Finn said, as a peace offering. “If we shovel the dock and the ramp, we should be able to get them up here safely." Jon knew Finn was disappointed in himself, and he heard what Finn didn’t say: He should have done this earlier, instead of spending an evening with Ana. He should have kept Jeremiah a little longer and moved the goods before the snow hit. Jon saw no point in hammering his guilt.

Jon laced up his own boots, and bundled into his thick jacket, scarf, gloves, and finally his fur hat. Finn was already out the door with the snow shovel by the time he finished, and so, without needing conversation, Jon went around the side of the shed to get the snow thrower. This was work they had been doing together for years, and even with experience it was long and hard work. It could be midnight before they finished plowing and moving everything. But the town would be shut down tomorrow. The brothers would have all day to rest and recover, maybe longer. This might be the storm that shut the island down for most of the winter.

They shoveled in companionable silence. The snow was coming down so densely it muffled the sound, making talking pointless. Jon glanced to the East, toward Ana’s house. He wondered what had happened that evening between her and Finn. Finn was smiling big enough when he came home, yet she hadn’t agreed to join him.

Not because of him, you ass. Because of me.
Jon felt badly about that, but overpowering his guilt was relief that she had stayed in her own home. She might have been stuck with them for days. Maybe that's what Finn wanted.

He wondered sometimes if he was the reason Finn stayed on the island. Finn talked a lot about how he loved the sea, and his routine, and the simplicity of his life, but Finn had a spark in him too. Despite his efforts to convince himself, and the island, otherwise, Finn was more than just a fisherman. There was a burst of life in Finn, just as there was a darkness in Jon. He felt a twinge of guilt, recognizing his role in Finn’s decision to never cultivate that part of himself.
Finn is a man grown and old enough to decide his own future
, he told himself, unconvincingly.
If he wants to leave, he can leave.

Still, he wondered, if Finn was content with this life then why had he bothered going to college? There had to be at least a part of his brother that thought about a life away from the island, and the sea.  But Finn never talked about it, shutting down whenever Jon tried to approach the subject.

The only sign that Finn still held on to another dream was the piles of books that came in with Finn’s monthly shipment from the bookstore. His room was filled with heaps of them, some stacks running floor to ceiling. Jon thought about converting their parents’ old room into a library for Finn, but a part of him intuitively held back from acting on the idea. Private himself, Jon understood there were reasons Finn confined his interests, and the resulting columns of knowledge, to his room.

We all have ways of torturing ourselves I guess
, Jon admitted wryly. Thinking about these things only made the work seem harder, so Jon emptied his mind and focused on the task at hand.

It was about an hour later when he heard Finn scream: "JONNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!"

Despite the worsening storm outside and in his head, Alex managed to remain calm long enough to drive home. He had lived through enough winters on Summer Island to know that the snowfall coming down tonight was nothing to take lightly. But even the medication couldn’t keep his anxiousness at bay once he was safely within the walls of his own home.

A little odd...I’ll grant you that
. He couldn’t believe she had not done more to defend him. He, who had been her biggest advocate and only ally on the island since she came here. He who had rushed to her side at the drop of the hat.

Alex’s skin was on fire. It felt like he was burning from the inside out. Stumbling to the kitchen, he clumsily poured himself a glass of cold water, savoring the cool sharpness as it went down. His hand swiped for a chair and he slumped down in it, drinking his water slowly, trying to catch his breath.

It was Finn; it had to be. She said those things to impress him, or because she was embarrassed, or trying to fit in with him. There had been no mistaking the meaning in Finn’s words. Like the rest of the island, Finn didn’t appreciate all that Alex did to help people. Well, Alex didn’t much respect Finn’s motives, either.

Andrew St. Andrews had been a good man; unorthodox, but a good one, nonetheless. The good qualities seemed to have skipped his sons. Jon was reclusive and sometimes even rude to people for no apparent reason. And Finn? Well, he was a skirt chaser. There was no way around it. Alex did not like gossip, but he knew very well that Finn had charmed half the women on this island, and had not settled down with a single one of them. He was going to do the same thing to Ana; Alex was certain of it.

He was so angry at himself for leaving like that, when what he should have done was put an end to the nonsense before it went anywhere! And now, the storm was coming in heavy. He couldn't just drive back over there now, could he? Worse, he thought, it was possible the snow would act as a reason for Finn to stay with her, or for her to go over to Finn’s, to ride it out.

With a furious curse, he kicked the chair across from him and it landed with a clunk on the hard linoleum. He could not–would not–fail her the way he had failed those other women! In each case, there had been that one moment; that one moment of perfect clarity where he knew he would either save them or he wouldn’t. Alex felt that he was fast approaching that moment for Ana.

His mother’s voice was coming back to him now. “‘Lotta women will tell you their man beats them because it helps ‘em, keeps ‘em in line, but it ain’t true,” she had said to him several times, usually after a particularly rough row with his father. “The men do it ‘cause they’re
weak
...and
powerless
...and this is the only power they know. The only power they’ll ever know is the one they feel standing over a helpless woman who
cain’t fight back
.”

Alex couldn’t remember a time when his father had not sought to subdue his mother with his fists. And if not fists, sex. Many nights Alex had heard the sounds from their bedroom. His father’s disgusting grunts, mingled with his mother’s terrified screams.

While his father said nothing about it, his eyes would meet Alex’s as if daring him to say something, to challenge him.

“I hated you both,” Alex whispered. He went to put his glass in the sink but he missed, dropping the glass and shattering it all over the dirty, peeling linoleum. Ignoring the mess, he opened a wooden drawer near the fridge and pulled out a set of keys. He stormed down the hall toward a very special room that Alex seldom used anymore, but contained things more important to him than anything else in the house.
There is more meaning in this room than there is on this whole godforsaken island
, he thought.

He fumbled with the keys, dropping them twice before successfully unlocking the door. In his agitation, the door swung open too quickly, tumbling several things from his old wooden desk to the floor.
 

The room was nearly bare in furnishing. It held the old wooden desk, which was chipping and even listing to on side. A dirty cloth chair went with the desk, and a dented file cabinet, beside the desk, was so overflowing with paperwork that the doors no longer closed. It wasn’t the few pieces of tired, cheap heirlooms that made this room special to Alex, but what he had done with the walls.

The color of the room was light blue, but anyone coming into this room would never know that because there was not even an inch of bare wall to be found. It was covered in pictures and newspaper clippings, wall to wall, ceiling to floor...even the ceiling itself. There were several old poster boards and cork boards holding some of the cutouts, but many of them were taped or tacked to bare walls. In one corner, the clippings had been put up using drywall screws, when Alex had run out of traditional adhesives. Light shining through one section of newsprint served as the only sign that a window existed. It highlighted the dust swirling through the air.

Alex sunk silently into his creaky chair, and a sense of peace came over him. One that he only found when surrounded by these memories. His sense of purpose–of knowing what he was born for, what he was meant for–was back, unmarred by all the other emotions he had experienced earlier. Especially, his least favorite feeling: a loss of self-control. Looking from face to face, from one smile to the next, Alex knew he was back in the driver’s seat.

As his eyes scanned the room, he habitually started with the ones that meant the most. There was an entire wall dedicated just to these three:

Carla Edgewater, 17, and Lionel Shepherd, 18, fell to their deaths from Casco Bay Lighthouse in bizarre murder-suicide
. Next to the clipping, Alex had taken a color picture of Carla–a candid–with her beaming cheerleader smile and long mahogany hair.

Sandra Finnerty of Portland, 23, found at the base of Casco Bay Lighthouse following apparent suicide
. Alex’s picture of Sandra was taken at the Thirsty Wench on Androscoggin. She was holding up a beer and toasting to a celebration, but she wasn’t looking at the camera. Her mouth was open in a cheer, and her short blonde hair pulled into a ponytail.

Emily Caldwell, a beloved member of the Summer Island community and recent widow was found this weekend after an apparent suicide. Caldwell, 26, is survived by her parents, Richard and Susan Jarvis of Bangor.
In this picture, Emily was getting into a car outside of the Lutheran church. She was crying, because the photo was also taken at her husband’s funeral. Her eyes had caught the camera momentarily and there were two hollow orbs staring back, buried behind long, dark hair.

There were multiple articles and clippings about each of these women, alongside more of Alex’s private photos.

The other three walls and ceiling were covered in similar articles and pictures, but these were women who had perished tragically, from other parts of the country, and the pictures only the black and whites printed with the articles. Women from all over: From Oregon to Hawaii to Georgia.

The one thing all of these women had in common was simple: someone had failed them. Specifically, someone had failed to
save
them.

Not all women wanted to be saved. Not all women were grateful toward those who tried. His mother was one of those women.

“Why are you angry with me, Ma? He will never, ever hurt you again,” Alex had pleaded, while still holding the bloody axe; it was both heavy and yet impossible to let go of. A thousand thoughts swam and motivations drove him, but at the forefront had been the smile he imagined on his mother’s face when he came to release her from her prison.