Mary Ann has been looking everywhere for Gilligan. She's been through the house four times, down to the barn twice, even digging through the hay loft, down to the stream, and to the tire swing under the giant tree. She even looked in the tree.
The night before, Gilligan was so excited about the prospect of eventually having two, maybe three children and a dog that he sat up straight, hair sticking up in twenty different directions, and asked Mary Ann if she was sure. As if she would lie to him about something like that. She nodded and he leapt up and proceeded to jump up and down on the bed as if he were four years old himself. He landed on his knees and pulled Mary Ann into his arms and kissed her deeper and more meaningfully than he'd ever kissed her before. Mary Ann was too stunned to do anything and when he finally let her go to resume his jumping on the bed she flopped backward, weak and breathless. Mary Ann half laughed and half shushed him as he kept jumping, throwing out names faster than she was able to determine if they were intended for humans or canines. If this was his reaction now, Mary Ann couldn't even imagine what he'd do when they were married and pregnant with a dog shedding all over the house. Gilligan landed on his knees again and gathered Mary Ann into his arms until she was kneeling in front of him, her fingers gripping his t-shirt near his ribs. He took her cheeks in his hands, knocking more glitter from her hair, and looked intensely into her eyes. We're gonna have the best life ever, he whispered and Mary Ann wholeheartedly believed him.
Today, however, Gilligan is nowhere to be found. It's almost like he's avoiding her.
As she passes The Big Table for the fifth time on her way into the house, Mary Ann sees a shadow move beneath it. The sheets are up around the table, held taught on top and in the grass with rocks and buckets and dirty old boots. That morning, Joey immediately declared this newest fort his spaceship and wedged a little American flag in between two of the boards on top of the table. He kidnapped Jenny and told her she was his alien prisoner. After a while she got bored and wandered away. While Joey was looking for someone else to capture, Bobby appeared and planted the Jolly Roger in the table, proclaiming that this was a ship and he was sailing the seven seas just like Blackbeard and Christopher Columbus and Gilligan. Joey told him that was dumb and they argued and stomped into the house to summon a verdict from their grandmother, who told them to be nice and go do something else.
Mary Ann stands in the deserted backyard and peers at the sheets, their edges ruffling gently in the breeze. It's too quiet. Everyone is suspiciously missing and she knows something's going on. She plants her hands on her hips. "Gilligan?"
There's no response, but she hears rustling in the grass behind the sheet.
Mary Ann sighs loudly. "Oh, well, I guess I'll never find him." She waits a few moments, the appropriate amount of time it'd take for her to reach the house, before kneeling down in the grass. She gently parts the sheets and giggles. "Gilligan, what are you doing?"
Mary Ann crawls under the table, the sunlight that had poured into the hide-out extinguishing as she carefully pulls the sheet back into place behind her. She sits across from him and peers around the space. Sunlight filters in between the boards, drawing sharp yellow lines in the grass. The shadows play across Gilligan's face, a shaft of light cutting straight down his nose. The grass grows thicker and softer here, only cut in the colder months after the table is moved for the winter. There are no toys and half-eaten lunches under the table today, just a few bunches of wildflowers. "What are you doing under here?"
"Waiting for you."
"Why didn't you just come find me?"
Gilligan looks at her as if this is the most ludicrous suggestion he's ever heard. "Because that would ruin it."
"Ruin what?"
Gilligan looks around the makeshift sheet fort, at once a prehistoric cave and steamship cabin and shuttle capsule. He smiles appreciatively and Mary Ann wonders if he helped the boys with this newest construction project. "What is it to you?" he asks.
Mary Ann looks around again. She begins to notice details that she overlooked when she first crawled beneath the table. The sides are constructed from green and white gingham sheets. The sun shines through them and bathes the entire underside of the table in a warm emerald glow, enclosing them in a lush cocoon not unlike the island's leafiest clearings. Dust particles and pollen shimmer in the half-light like pixie dust.
Little construction paper butterflies are hanging from the underside of the table. Dozens of them, reds, purples, blues, and oranges. Mary Ann gasps with realization and Gilligan grins. She reaches up and cradles one of the delicate creatures in her palm. They're all different sizes, asymmetrical and rough-edged, cut by many little helping hands with children's safety scissors. Some of the more impressive insects are decorated with designs, hearts, and carefully chosen words. They're adorned with gold glitter, some more subtly than others, giant globs weighing down the wings of a few of the rougher butterflies. The sunlight hits the glitter and it sparkles and shimmers.
Mary Ann turns back to Gilligan, disbelief caressing her features. "It's the banyan tree," she whispers. "The one with the branches that hang all the way to the ground," she continues, clarifying unnecessarily, and he nods. "The living cave."
Mary Ann reaches up tentatively to touch one of the more elaborate butterflies. It's beautifully shaped and a dazzling bright red. It's bigger than the others and is hanging lower, more prominently. Annie spent a solid half hour on it. It even has tiny antennae. The other bigger, low hanging butterfly is even more graceful than the first and is also red, but with white speckles.
"The caterpillars always built their cocoons in it," Mary Ann continues. "The butterflies all came out at the same time ... when the missile was coming. It was amazing. We waited for them after that, but they never did it again."
"That's because it was a miracle."
Mary Ann suddenly turns to Gilligan, her look of amazement melting. "Gilligan, I know you miss the island, but –."
Gilligan is grinning and shaking his head. "That's not why we did this. The banyan tree was a special place, but this place is special too." Gilligan lifts his arms and presses his palms reverently against the underside of the table. "It doesn't matter what it is. It can be anything, but it's also everything. A pirate ship, a castle, the Lone Wolf's cave, the banyan tree cave. Or a table big enough for a whole family – with room to grow."
Gilligan shifts to one side and digs in his back pocket for something. He pulls Mary Ann's hand toward him and holds his hand over hers. He opens his fist and something drops into her palm. "I made this for you four years ago. But I wanted to talk to your dad about it first. And Uncle George. And the guys." He smiles sheepishly. "And the kids."
Gilligan moves his hands and Mary Ann stares down into her palm. The four pearls Gilligan found after the gold mine debacle – the only pearls ever found in the massive oyster bed on the island – sit in her hand, shining in the beams of sunlight. They're attached to one another, fused with a permanent variation of the tree sap glue. The pearls are secured to a loop of strong twine and it's immediately clear what it is.
It's a ring.
Mary Ann stares into her palm in shock. She can't see clearly any more, staring through the ring, through her hand, through the ground into a swirling mass of nothingness. She assumed this day would come sooner or later, especially after last night, but she was not expecting it to be today. And she had definitely not expected him to have been carrying this gorgeous homemade ring around for four years.
Gilligan squirms uncomfortably in the silence. "I think we should get married," he clarifies finally. "You know, especially if we're gonna have two to three kids and a dog."
The longer Mary Ann stays quiet the more worried he becomes. There are no other scenarios in his head besides her throwing her arms around him and kissing him and then staying there forever.
"The Skipper wants to do the wedding," he says, beginning to babble. "We can find some water here somewhere." He looks around under the table, as if he can see beyond it and beyond the flat dry fields to a lake that he hopes exists. "You know, more water than that stream. But Bobby wants to see the ocean and Grace wants to come to Hawaii anyway, so maybe we should go there. I don't care where it is, as long as everybody's there."
Gilligan pauses and peers at Mary Ann from under the brim of his hat. She's smiling slightly now, which he's taking as a good sign. Then she starts laughing, short laughs of disbelief and shock, and she looks up at him. She's crying and Gilligan would be worried, but she's also grinning at him and nodding.
Gilligan nods back. "Yeah?"
Mary Ann nods harder.
Gilligan picks up the ring and turns her hand over. It slips perfectly onto her finger. "I can't promise that I won't fall off the raft," he says. "But I won't jump this time."
Mary Ann laughs and finally throws her arms around his neck.
"Ew!" a little voice shrieks from above.
"Ew! They're kissing!" Bobby yells.
Shadows move and the beams of light flicker and there's a loud clomping on top of the table as Bobby jumps down and runs to the house. "Grandma!" Gilligan and Mary Ann squint up through the cracks. Emma grins down at them from on top of the table.
Mary Ann turns to peer at Gilligan. "I can't believe you made me wait four extra years!" Mary Ann punches him in the shoulder and Gilligan yelps.
"Ow! Mary Ann! We can be like Aunt Martha and Uncle George without the punching, you know."
Mary Ann links her arms tightly around his neck again. "I'm sorry," she whispers and stares intently into his eyes. "We're gonna have the best life ever," she repeats back to him and he grins.
A low rumbling is becoming audible in the distance. It gets increasingly louder until the sheets are ripped away and kids surge under the table and into their laps, shrieking and yelling and hugging them.
Martha leans in the kitchen doorway, watching the commotion in the yard. Everyone is screaming. A tangle of arms and legs is visible beneath the table. Jack and Tommy sit on top of the table, banging their fists on the boards, whooping and hollering and generally being cavemen about the whole thing.
George appears in the doorway and wraps his arms around his wife from behind. He rests his chin on the top of her head and peers into the yard. "Looks like he'll be coming back."
Martha smiles. "Yeah."
"Good." George kisses the top of her head.
"Grace is next."
George exhales grandly and she feels it ruffle her hair. He sounds exhausted already. He tightens his arms around her. "Let's just enjoy this for now."
# # # #
A package from Hawaii arrives shortly thereafter. It's filled with leis and plane tickets and coconuts and wedding invitations and sailor hats. Boys and girls alike wear the hats with their jeans and their cowboy boots, brims down, just like Gilligan taught them.
William Gilligan touched down in Winfield, Kansas like an F5 tornado. But instead of leaving devastation and destruction and millions of dollars in damages in his wake, he left laughter and only mild destruction and maybe twenty dollars in damages in his wake.
Because the kitchen window was not his fault.
Thanks for sticking with this, you guys! Original characters have always been the bane of my writing existence (one of the reasons why I love FF), but it's something every writer should be able to do and I'm really proud of all of my original characters here. I hope you were able to embrace them as I have.
I didn't realize it would be this long when I started it. Actually, I didn't realize it'd end with a proposal when I started it. o.O Which might be why I'm not 100% about it, but I've learned my lesson about planning ahead. Yikes. I had some funny ideas about what might happen if everyone descending on Hawaii for the wedding (Gilligans, Summerses, Mulligans, the other castaways, of course), but who knows.
In any event, George and Martha totally need their own show. :D
