Page 36 of Love Conquers All

Sylvie pulled herself up onto the bed so that her back was against the wall. Where was her book? She could bury herself in it, distract herself both from her hunger and from this woman’s prying eyes.

“Listen,” the woman said, digging through her bag, “I have a daughter, too. She’s maybe about your age. Fifteen? Sixteen? I don’t know where she is, and she doesn’t know where I am, and it’s gotta be the worst thing that’s ever happened to a human heart.” She touched her chest and then procured a bag of peanuts. “I want you to have these.”

Sylvie’s first thought was that the peanuts were in some way poisoned, that this woman was cruel and wanted to destroy Sylvie. But the look in the woman’s eyes spoke of true turmoil.

The woman threw the bag of peanuts onto Sylvie’s mattress and said, “I want you to promise me that you’ll take care of yourself. I want you to promise me you’ll call your mother the first chance you get. I don’t know why you had to leave home orwhy you’re in this godforsaken place by yourself. But I want you to remember that people love you.”

Sylvie turned onto her side, facing the wall, and cried as quietly as she could. The room smelled of soiled sheets and salt and sweat, and she ached for the familiar smells of lavender and salt and sand. She ached to hear Graham’s voice.

The following morning, Sylvie woke up to find that the woman across from her had packed up her things and moved on. There was a hollow ache in her stomach. The hostel had a free breakfast of toast and coffee, and Sylvie ate until she was stuffed and went for a long walk through the city, wondering what she should do next. Everywhere she looked, she saw people failing the world they’d been given. She saw litter. She saw people throwing plastic in the garbage without bothering to recycle. She saw big steamships and thought of oil spills. She took many breaks on benches to cry and considered calling Graham.

But she knew what Graham would say. He’d tell her that she could move in with him and his family. He’d tell her that they could escape James Bruckson’s wrath. Sylvie knew this wasn’t true. She knew that the minute she returned to Nantucket, James would lock her away, swallow the key, and prepare her for the trip to boarding school. There was something broken and sinister in her father, an evil energy that dripped out of him.

Sylvie had always been a smart girl, but she’d never been particularly keen on school. What did that mean for her future? She was supposed to have another year of high school left. She was supposed to apply for college soon. But what if she didn’t want any of that?

After a few days in Boston, she ran into the crew of environmental protesters that she and Graham knew, and they told her that Graham had been calling around, asking for her.

“You need to call him,” they said, their faces marred with worry.

“Did you graduate?” one of them asked.

“Do you need a place to live? I have a room going for two hundred a month,” another said.

But Sylvie didn’t know how she would make two hundred dollars a month, let alone enough to fully sustain herself. Plus, Boston was beginning to feel too close to Nantucket. Her father came here plenty on business. And Graham knew these people. What if he came up and dragged her home? What if he alerted her father?

Sylvie felt out of her mind with worry and hunger. Her peanut bag ran out on day three, and she did her best to sustain herself on toast, coffee, and water. At night, she had dreams of her mother, strange rainbow visions that found her mother on a Nantucket beach, calling Sylvie’s name.

Sylvie had been seven when her mother died. There had been an accident, she knew. But it occurred to her now, as she wandered the streets of sticky, humid Boston, that she wasn’t entirely sure what that accident was. Clearly, her father hadn’t told her because he wanted to protect her. But shouldn’t she have been informed by now? Wasn’t that pertinent information?

Wanting to get farther away, Sylvie took a five-dollar bus to Manhattan. There was another eighteen-bunk hostel near Grand Central Station, and she booked herself a bed and headed out to an anonymous-looking pay phone many blocks away to make the call. It was three in the afternoon, which meant her father was probably in the office of The House on Nantucket, doing paperwork or going over the numbers of the previous few weeks.

Had he already given up on her trying to call?

Had he sent the cops after her?

Had anyone seen her at the ferry, fleeing?

Sylvie dropped the quarter into the pay phone and listened as it rang and rang across the East Coast and into her father’sstudy. She could picture him hunkered over his desk. She could picture the little wrinkle between his furrowed caterpillar brows.

Mrs. Galloway answered. “Hello! This is The House on Nantucket. How may I assist you today?”

Sylvie’s voice was so thin that she hardly recognized herself. “Hi, Mrs. Galloway. It’s Sylvie.”

Mrs. Galloway sounded stricken. “Darling! Where have you been?”

Sylvie was momentarily relieved to realize that she hadn’t been completely forgotten. She’d only been gone eight days, but it felt like a lifetime.

“Can I talk to my dad, please?” Sylvie asked.

Mrs. Galloway took a deep breath. “You need to come home, Sylvie. Please. We’re worried sick about you.”

Sylvie bit her tongue to keep from sobbing. “Please, Mrs. Galloway. I need to speak with him.”

Sylvie listened as Mrs. Galloway took the phone from the front desk to the back office. As she stood on the side of a Manhattan street, planted between two massive buildings, sirens screamed behind her, and people dressed in suits darted from one place to another. Everyone had somewhere to go. Everyone except for her.

Finally, her father’s gruff voice came on the line. “Sylvie.”

Sylvie couldn’t believe how much her father’s voice affected her. It felt like a knife in the heart. Immediately, she began to wonder if he’d really been that bad all that time. Immediately, she missed him so desperately. She wanted to be a little girl again, to throw her arms around him, to sit by him on the sofa and listen to his big, deep voice as it vibrated through his body.

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