Chapters (27)
I lean on Hugh’s leather chaise longue and finally take in the disarray surrounding me, pile by pile. He’s unplugged absolutely everything, turned each piece of electronic equipment over. The books he’s stacked by the desk look like Lute histories, family books, county rolls, the kinds of things you store for safekeeping because it’s part of the job but never bother looking at again.
The contents of the box, however, have the look of things that should be seen, treasured, but have been hidden instead. There’s a photo of a woman I recognize as Hugh’s mother. She’s turned away and smiling, pointing to something we can’t see, her blond hair weightless in the sea wind, glowing in the backlight. Why would he hide this? There are hardly any framed pictures of her or his father around the house, just those moldering oil paintings of distant ancestors. There are greeting cards in here too, but those feel too personal to look at too closely, written messages, none of them from or to me. I slide my fingers deep into the box and pull out another photograph at random: three small boys in primary school uniforms. One is smaller and darker-skinned than the other two, grinning widely. I flip it over and see a little penciled-in description: “Hugh, Matty, Andy starting Rec.”
Rec will mean Reception, the first year of school. Hugh, Matty. Who is Andy? He must have left Lute. What a shame.
A ledger lies open on the desk. I put the picture away inside the box and lean over the book, expecting, I don’t know, the estate’s accounts written out, even though I know Hugh does all our accounting online. Maybe he’s using it because the internet’s down. Who knows.
But it’s a list of last names. Familiar names. Lute Island families.
There are small red dots beside some of them. Black Xs next to others.
Rivers is an X. Tavish is a dot. Tinker, dot. Tompkins, X.
Treadway, dot.
A dot.
I flip a page back. Clare has an X.
Emma sprints into the room. I jolt back from the desk, blocking the book with my back, though there’s nothing offensive written there and, even if there were, hello, Emma can’t read. She sure can pull, though.
“Want this!” She starts to heave the lines out of the modem. I just manage to reach her in time. We leave the room in a duet of wails and promises of just-remembered biscuits! From the mainland!
It’s only once she and Charlie are in the kitchen eating, tantrum forgotten, that I realize I’ve gone clammy, sprinkled with sweat beads, just like Hugh.
We’re a dot.
A red dot.