Osprey Island

Brigid’s astonishment stopped her from replying. She just sat there blinking at this girl who was her roommate. “My god,” was all she could manage. “Oh my fucking god.”

Peg was riled, every ill feeling she’d ever entertained toward Brigid rising to the surface. “You pass your time licking up to this man and that without opening your eyes and seeing what’s in front of your bloody face! I don’t see how you can so much as sit and talk with the man when you’ve seen the way he treats his son—the way he treats bloody everyone!—acting as though it’s altogether just grand!”

Brigid shook her head back and forth, slowly, in utter disbelief. “Heaven forbid,” she said, “that a man who’s just lost his wife doesn’t act like a bloody saint every fucking minute of the day! God forbid you cut the man just the tiniest bit of slack when he’s been through the worst thing you’ll ever imagine!” She stood up, the words jamming in her throat. She held up her hands: there was nothing more she could even think to say to someone so ignorant.

“You must be blind!” Peg hissed, but Brigid waved her hands by her ears to say she’d hear no more.

“You’re bleedin’ unbelievable,” Brigid finally managed to say. She stared at Peg another moment as she tried to figure out what she might do with herself at that point. Then, suddenly, she snatched the covers from her bed and grabbed up her pillow with the other hand. “Absolutely unbelievable!” And she slammed out of the room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Peg cried. And then she heard the outside door slam at the end of the hall, and she was quiet, listening. All she could hear were the crickets.

Brigid hadn’t a clue where she was going except that she was going away from that self-righteous, arrogant, preachy little priss she’d been unlucky enough to get lodged with. It was dark out, and the first thing Brigid saw were the lights of the Squire cottage across the way. People were still out on the porch of the Lodge, but Brigid didn’t want to see any of them. She walked across the path and up the steps. Through the window she could see Lance sitting in his easy chair, a beer in hand. Squee was on the couch, his legs crossed under him, playing with an action figure of some sort. They were watching TV. Like any normal, regular, American family, Brigid thought—even a normal, regular American family who’ve recently lost one of their own!— peacefully watching the television in their own bloody living room! She hated Peg with all the ire in her. She knocked on the door, heard Lance call, “C’min,” and opened the door.

“Hi,” said Squee, looking up briefly from his play.

“Hey there,” Lance said, waving her inside.

“Could I knock about with you lot a bit this evening?” Brigid said bitterly. “My roommate’s a bloody mulchie wanker!”

Lance’s face broke into a wide, winning grin. “I don’t know what the fuck that means, but our casa is your casa.” With his old magnanimous flair Lance swept an arm broadly across the room. “Beer’s in the fridge.”

She got herself a can, and as she shuffled toward the couch to curl up beside Squee with her blanket and pillow, Brigid could honestly say that she felt welcome and grateful and at home for the first time since she’d arrived on Osprey Island. And as they watched mindless American blather, Brigid settled into an oblivion of comfort for which she was enormously thankful.

Eighteen

WWCD?

One July day in 1957, when Great Island should have been a scene ofactivity with young birds at the flying stage, I scanned the marsh through my telescope. I saw the usual number of adults about—but where were the young?The nesting season obviously had been a failure. The next year confirmed my suspicions. Although young ospreys ordinarily pip the shellin about 5 weeks, many adults sat on unhatched eggs for 60 to 70days. Other eggs mysteriously disappeared. One bird brought a rubber ball to the nest and faithfully sat on it for six weeks!

—ROGER TORY PETERSON, “The Endangered Osprey”