Providence Island

 Providence Island was a small island in New England. A farming and fishing town, no one really bothered to talk about it outside of Providence Island. In fact, in the town's history, there had really only been one event worth speaking of: a gruesome murder some decades before. George Alexander, or Bootstraps, as most people called him, was stoned to death in the Montgomery cornfield. As the story goes, Bootstraps was the local shoe salesman and lived by himself in a cottage a mile away from the cornfield. One night he was walking home from work and a group of young men, heady with boisterous youth—for people in that day and age thought youth allowed them all the strength in the world, the bastards—and even headier with gin, grabbed that man, that shadow in the night. They beat the man with sticks and cut off his hand with an ax and threw rocks at him until his blood ran into the soil and pink matter covered the plant stalks. That was the only notable thing to ever happen on Providence Island. If anyone on any one of the other islands knew anything about Providence Island, it was that a man was murdered there a long time ago.

If someone were looking to purchase a house on Providence Island, the residents would perhaps say that the people there were good, God-fearing folk. Everyone knew everyone, everyone attended church every week on Sunday mornings, some people went to church more often than that. They'd say the worst thing to happen on a given day was that a fisherman would have a problem bringing in that day's wages on their boat.

But no resident ever needed to say such a thing, because no one would ever consider purchasing a home on Providence Island. Who would want to go somewhere only reachable by boat?

So the family ties were strong for the people of Providence Island. Blood is, of course, thicker than water, but on this little island in New England, water is thick, too.

Daisy did not particularly enjoy living down the road from the Montgomery cornfield. It was difficult to pass by the place where a man was murdered every time she skateboarded or bicycled home from Ruth's house or school. But her parents were quick to remind her that no one else wanted to live in the area by the cornfield either, and this made their mortgage payments that much easier. In exchange for living where Bootstraps had his brains beaten out, Daisy and her family went on annual trips to Disneyland and Daisy got new perfumes, clothes, and skincare every month. When she was little and selfish as all hell, this was enough for her. But as she got older and understood that Bootstraps had been a real person who had been murdered not that long ago—after all, all but two of the men who had killed him were still alive. Daisy saw them at church and in the local pub and Daisy's dad worked with one of them. They were older men now, their hair either silver, white, or nonexistent, but they were still there.

Of course, when a child got a bit older and they started to learn more about mortality, they would wonder why none of those men were in prison. But eventually, they would join the community of adults and learn. It was God's will. God had a plan for these men. If they were not in prison, it was because God intended it. All of them had children and grandchildren. One of the men, the one they say threw the stone that finally killed Bootstraps, organized the annual Thanksgiving dinner for the residents of the island. Another one of them owned the island's fishing company. Surely, this was God's will.

One summer day when Daisy was fifteen, she found a shiny half-dollar coin on the sidewalk in town. Ruth was chattering about an old movie, and a glint of light caught Daisy's eye next to the gutter. She hopped off the curb and went to it. Ruth stopped talking and watched. Daisy reached down and picked up the coin. She grinned and showed it to Ruth, who smiled. As she skateboarded home later, she saluted the spot of the cornfield where Bootstraps had taken his last breaths, as she usually did. But then she slowed to a stop. The road was hot in the summer heat, and the heat blocked off all the sounds in the world beyond the distant sound of the ocean waves and the gulls screaming overhead. Daisy reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out the coin. John F. Kennedy's profile glared at her, and she turned it over in her hand. Daisy sighed and stepped off her skateboard.