They parted where the path forked toward the beach one way and back to the Millers' the other, Faith offered her hand to Nan and thanked her warmly. She hoped they'd meet again under more pleasant circumstances."Come over anytime. I love to have company. And I hear you like to cook. So do I. We'll go mushrooming someday. The Point is full of them."
“You go with Nan," Freeman advised, "and you won't need a silver coin to boil with them. She knows which ones can be et."
“Freeman! You know that coin business is just an old wives' tale. Now, we'd better get going.”
Benjamin gave her a kiss and Freeman said he wouldn't mind one too and one from Mrs. Fairchild for that matter. Nan pushed him toward the path. "Don't mind him. He just never growed up."
“That's all right," Faith said. "I'm flattered." And she was.
She walked as quickly as possible to Pix's house. She had decided that she ought to drive into the village and see Jill. Faith didn't know any of these people well, but for the short time she had been on Sanpere, she felt she had been caught up in their lives with a swiftness that surprised her. She knew Jill would be trying to get in touch with Eric, and she wasn't sure what she could say about finding the body, but maybe they'd want to ask her something. It also seemed impossible to pick up a magazine and sit on the lawn after all this. She wanted to be with people.
Pix wasn't back—which Faith had expected. It was over an hour's drive to the camp, and they'd stay awhile. The door was open and Faith went in to find some tape. If she left the note on the table, it was probable no one would find it until evening. Pix and Samantha would rush in, pee if they had to, and then rush out to attack the weeds, chop firewood, or cut alders—whatever beckoned most furiously.
She couldn't find tape, but there were Band-Aids in the medicine cabinet, and with one of these Faith attached the sad missive to the door. Benjamin was happily pulling Pix's yarn out of a basket next to the fireplace, and Faith managed to get to him just before he unraveled a few weeks' worth of an Irish fisherman's sweater for Danny.
Back at her own cottage she was struck by the unreality of it all. They had just gone for a picnic. Had they really found a body in the kelp? She knew it was unfortunately true, but it was like one of those "What's Wrong with This Picture?" puzzles. An incredible day—bright-blue skies, white puffy clouds, sailboats moving gracefully in the wind, the long stretch of gleaming sand, and the tidal pools filled with jewellike mysteries and Roger's dead body.
She grabbed Benjamin and headed for the car.
Tom had taken their own car to New Hampshire, since a car came with the house. It was an old wooden station wagon—a 1949 Plymouth Suburban in "mint condition," Tom had gloated as he stroked the side panels. While Faith had not arrived at the point where she felt the need to caress the car, she loved driving it. To her the romance of the Woody was a solid, dependable one, based on mutual trust and shared interests. The gears shifted smoothly and she sat up high, as if she were in a truck, with a clear view of the road. Today she didn't pause to appreciate the car, backed out quickly, and set off down the long dirt road to the macadam that circled the island and led to Sanpere Village—the long way if you turned left, the short way if right. Faith turned right.
She pulled up in front of Jill's shop. Benjamin had fallen asleep in his car seat, waking drowsily when the car stopped. The shop was closed, but Faith knew Jill lived in the apartment over it and decided to go around back and knock. Jill came almost immediately. Her eyes were swollen and she was still crying. She was tucking a shirt into her jeans and was obviously getting ready to go someplace.
“Oh, Faith, I'm so glad you came. I've been calling you since I heard. I just can't believe it. Roger was such a strong swimmer." She began to sob, and Faith stepped into the back of the store and put her arms around her—quite a feat, since she was carrying Benjamin.
“I don't know anything about these waters, Jill. It may have been some kind of undertow." She had no idea what an undertow was, but people usually said that in these situations, Faith recalled, and it was reassuring to blame Nature.
Jill wasn't really listening to Faith, which was understandable. She had stepped back and kept talking.
“I've got to go to Eric. There's no phone where he is, andanyway i don't want him to hear me news twin a stranger.
She turned to face Faith suddenly, fully taking in her presence for the first time. "Faith, tell me honestly, was the body in bad shape?"
“I can tell you the truth, and it may help Eric too. There were no marks or cuts of any kind. Benjamin saw him first and he thought a man was swimming, and it would have been easy to think that." Except for the expression on his face and the fact that he seemed to have no bones, Faith thought.
“That's a relief. And Eric will be happy to hear at least that. I don't know what he'll do. They've known each other so long and are closer to each other than to anyone else on earth. You couldn't be friends with one and not the other, not that that was likely in any case." She was moving around the back of the store, closing the windows and putting things into a large purse.
“What about Roger's family? Will the police notify them?" Faith asked, suddenly curious as usual.
“Roger has been estranged from his family for years. It was a source of great bitterness to him. He came from Iowa, and they never understood his way of life or approved it. I don't know what Eric will say, but I'm pretty sure Roger will stay right here, in the place he loved most." That started the tears again. "Faith, he was so wonderful to me—you can't imagine how many times I've cried on his shoulder, especially when I was starting the store and didn't know what I was doing. It's the weirdest thing. I keep thinking, `I've got to go see Roger, he'll comfort me'; then I remember.”
It suddenly occurred to Faith that taciturn Jill was talking and, what's more, as if they were old friends. She sat down in a chair by the cluttered desk. Benjamin was all but asleep and rapidly becoming a dead weight in her arms.
“Please tell Eric if there's anything I can do, let me know. Or if he wants to talk to me about finding the body, although there isn't much to tell. We walked up on the rocks at the end of the long beach at the Point, and Roger was lying in one of the pools.”
Which was a pretty calm way to describe finding a body, she thought. She wanted to take some of the horror out of it for Jill. There was enough in the event itself without the details. The details that were running through Faith's mind like a video—the water in and out of Roger's mouth, his fingers clutching the rockweed.
No, it certainly wasn't necessary to recount that.
Jill was ready. Faith noticed she paused long enough to put on some lipstick and run a comb through her hair.
“Are you all right to drive? Ben and I could come with you if you want?" Faith offered, suddenly concerned at the possibility of another accident.
“Thank you, Faith, but the worst is over now and I have to be strong for Eric. He's going to need all my help.”
And, Faith realized, that might not be such a bad thing for Jill.
They left the store, and Faith waved good-bye to Jill before lowering Ben into his car seat. It looked as though he would be having his nap in several locations today. She stopped at the post office, dashed in, and found a letter from Hope and a circular from True Value Hardware in her box. She dropped the junk mail in the trash and sat in the car to read what Hope had to say.
Her sister was writing to confirm that she and Quentin were definitely coming at the end of the month, and after that she chattered on about what they had been doing. Faith felt a swift pang of longing as she read about their weekend at the house of friends in Oyster Bay, the great meal they had had at Le Bernardin, and the terrific Armani suit Hope had found at Barney's. Faith looked through the windshield at the harbor in front of her with the quaint wooden houses sloping up from either side. There was such a thing as too much charm.