Island by Charles Abbott

Author:Charles Abbott [Abbott, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-202930-0
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1994-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

He agonized over how to sign it: Sincerely, Fred (too formal); With love, Fred (too presumptuous); Your friend, Fred (he was more than a friend—or had been—and might be less than one now); Fondly, Fred (ugh); Kindest regards, Fred (too cool); and finally he settled for just “Fred.”

The next morning he took it to the post office, collected several back copies of Time and some “boxholder” mail advertising a square dance and a fire-damaged-furniture sale. Chugging home, he wondered how those things got to him, since he didn’t have a box like all the other people, who got lots of mail and swarmed like bees at noon to twirl the little dials on the fronts of the boxes that lined one wall of the post office like cells in a honeycomb.

When he got home he saw his spare gasoline can standing where he had put it to remind him that it was empty. He should have turned around and gone back for a refill, but the effort was too great; he would do it next time.

He gave her a week to answer and then had to sit out another storm. The harder the wind blew, the lower its voice fell. It roared across the island in a deep baritone, shredding leaves and squirting water under his door. The rain came in horizontal sheets, clattering like gravel against his windows. It rained that way, choking blinding rain, all day and all through the night. Everything in the house got increasingly damp. The food-can labels on his kitchen shelf grew blisters. Green mold appeared on his gun case and on his one remaining pair of Whyte shoes. The next day it was still raining, and he began to worry about his dory, which was getting lower and lower in the water as it whipsawed on its mooring. This was by far the worst storm he had experienced. Finally he put on a slicker and his sou’wester hat and went down to the beach with a bucket. The wind was picking sand up from the beach and stinging his face with it. He started to pull the dory in, because it looked as if it was about to sink. But it grounded in about a foot of water and was immediately filled by the waves that were churning the cove. There it stuck. He waded out and pushed. He tried to shove the stern around closer to shore. He tried to bail, but water kept sloshing in as fast as he dipped it out. His sou’wester hat blew off and vanished. He ended by unscrewing the outboard motor and staggering ashore with it. He was soaked, exhausted, and so chilled that he boiled a kettle of water for a sponge-down bath and then tried to warm his living room with a fire. But the wood was wet, and the wind blew gusts of smoke down the chimney. He finally got into a damp bed, where his shivers gradually stopped, and he went to sleep.

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