Gat puts his head in his hands. We stand there, both leaning against the wall in the dark. “Okay. Here’s part of it,” he finally whispers. “You’ve never met my mom. You’ve never been to my apartment.”
That’s true. I’ve never seen Gat anywhere but Beechwood.
“You feel like you know me, Cady, but you only know the me who comes here,” he says. “It’s—it’s just not the whole picture. You don’t know my bedroom with the window onto the airshaft, my mom’s curry, the guys from school, the way we celebrate holidays. You only know the me on this island, where everyone’s rich except me and the staff. Where everyone’s white except me, Ginny, and Paulo.”
“Who are Ginny and Paulo?”
Gat hits his fist into his palm. “Ginny is the housekeeper. Paulo is the gardener. You don’t know their names and they’ve worked here summer after summer. That’s part of my point.”
My face heats with shame. “I’m sorry.”
“But do you even want to see the whole picture?” Gat asks. “Could you even understand it?”
“You won’t know unless you try me,” I say. “I haven’t heard from you in forever.”
“You know what I am to your grandfather? What I’ve always been?”
“What?”
“Heathcliff. In Wuthering Heights. Have you read it?”
I shake my head.
“Heathcliff is a gypsy boy taken in and raised by this pristine family, the Earnshaws. Heathcliff falls in love with the girl, Catherine. She loves him, too—but she also thinks he’s dirt, because of his background. And the rest of the family agrees.”
“That’s not how I feel.”
“There’s nothing Heathcliff can ever do to make these Earnshaws think he’s good enough. And he tries. He goes away, educates himself, becomes a gentleman. Still, they think he’s an animal.”
“And?”
“Then, because the book is a tragedy, Heathcliff becomes what they think of him, you know? He becomes a brute. The evil in him comes out.”
“I heard it was a romance.”
Gat shakes his head. “Those people are awful to each other.”
“You’re saying Granddad thinks you’re Heathcliff?”
“I promise you, he does,” says Gat. “A brute beneath a pleasant surface, betraying his kindness in letting me come to his sheltered island every year—I’ve betrayed him by seducing his Catherine, his Cadence. And my penance is to become the monster he always saw in me.”
I am silent.
Gat is silent.
I reach out and touch him. Just the feel of his forearm beneath the thin cotton of his shirt makes me ache to kiss him again.
“You know what’s terrifying?” Gat says, not looking at me. “What’s terrifying is he’s turned out to be right.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“Oh yes, he has.”
“Gat, wait.”
But he has gone into his room and shut the door.
I am alone in the dark hallway.
40
Once upon a time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. The girls grew up as lovely as the day was long. They made grand marriages, too, but the arrival of the first grandchild brought disappointment. The youngest princess produced a daughter so very, very tiny that her mother took to keeping her in a pocket, where the girl went unnoticed. Eventually, normal-sized grandchildren arrived, and the king and queen forgot the existence of the tiny princess almost completely.
When the too-small princess grew older, she passed most of her days and nights hardly ever leaving her tiny bed. There was very little reason for her to get up, so solitary was she.
One day, she ventured to the palace library and was delighted to find what good company books could be. She began going there often. One morning, as she read, a mouse appeared on the table. He stood upright and wore a small velvet jacket. His whiskers were clean and his fur was brown. “You read just as I do,” he said, “walking back and forth across the pages.” He stepped forward and made a low bow.
The mouse charmed the tiny princess with stories of his adventures. He told her of trolls who steal people’s feet and gods who abandon the poor. He asked questions about the universe and searched continually for answers. He thought wounds needed attention. In turn, the princess told the mouse fairy tales, drew him pixilated portraits, and made him little crayon drawings. She laughed and argued with him. She felt awake for the first time in her life.
It was not long before they loved each other dearly.
When she presented her suitor to her family, however, the princess met with difficulty. “He is only a mouse!” cried the king in disdain, while the queen screamed and ran from the throne room in fear. Indeed, the entire kingdom, from royalty to servants, viewed the mouse suitor with suspicion and discomfort. “He is unnatural,” people said of him. “An animal masquerading as a person.”
The tiny princess did not hesitate. She and the mouse left the palace and traveled far, far away. In a foreign land they were married, made a home for themselves, filled it with books and chocolate, and lived happily ever after.
If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.
41
A giant wields a rusty saw. He gloats and hums as he works, slicing through my forehead and into the mind behind it.
I have less than four weeks to find out the truth.
Granddad calls me Mirren.
The twins are stealing sleeping pills and diamond earrings.
Mummy argued with the aunts over the Boston house.
Bess hates Cuddledown.
Carrie roams the island at night.
Will has bad dreams.
Gat is Heathcliff.
Gat thinks I do not know him.
And maybe he is right.
I take pills. Drink water. The room is dark.
Mummy stands in the doorway, watching me. I do not speak to her.
I am in bed for two days. Every now and then the sharp pain wanes to an ache. Then, if I am alone, I sit up and write on the cluster of notes above my bed. Questions more than answers.
The morning I feel better, Granddad comes over to Windemere early. He’s wearing white linen pants and a blue sport jacket. I am in shorts and a T-shirt, throwing balls for the dogs in the yard. Mummy is already up at New Clairmont.
“I’m heading to Edgartown,” Granddad says, scratching Bosh’s ears. “You want to come? If you don’t mind an old man’s company.”
“I don’t know,” I joke. “I’m so busy with these spit-covered tennis balls. Could be all day.”
“I’ll take you to the bookstore, Cady. Buy you presents like I used to.”
“How about fudge?”
Granddad laughs. “Sure, fudge.”
“Did Mummy put you up to this?”
“No.” He scratches his tufty white hair. “But Bess doesn’t want me driving the motorboat alone. She says I could get disoriented.”
“I’m not allowed to drive the motorboat, either.”
“I know,” he says, holding up the keys. “But Bess and Penny aren’t boss here. I am.”
We decide to eat breakfast in town. We want to get the boat away from the Beechwood dock before the aunts catch us.
Edgartown is a nautical, sweetie-pie village on Martha’s Vineyard. It takes twenty minutes to get there. It’s all white picket fences and white wooden homes with flowery yards. Shops sell tourist stuff, ice cream, pricey clothes, antique jewelry. Boats leave from the harbor for fishing trips and scenic cruises.
Granddad seems like his old self. He’s tossing money around. Treats me to espresso and croissants at a little bakery with stools by a window, then tries to buy me books at the Edgartown bookshop. When I refuse the gift, he shakes his head at my giveaway project but doesn’t lecture. Instead he asks for my help picking out presents for the littles and a floral design book for Ginny, the housekeeper. We place a big order at Murdick’s Fudge: chocolate, chocolate walnut, peanut-butter, and penuche.
Browsing in one of the art galleries, we run into Granddad’s lawyer, a narrow, graying fellow named Richard Thatcher. “So this is Cadence the first,” says Thatcher, shaking my hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“He does the estate,” says Granddad, by way of explanation.
“First grandchild,” says Thatcher. “There’s never anything to match that feeling.”