Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Ruth Montgomery lived in a two-story Victorian town house on Inglis Street. The front of the house was painted Wedgwood blue with red trim and a bright-red door. Colorful pink and white geraniums spilled from flower boxes at each of the front windows, upstairs and down.
Emma stepped out of the cab and waited on the sidewalk while Logan took care of the bags and paid the driver. The cab was just pulling away from the curb when the front door of the house opened, and Ruth appeared.
It had been four years since Emma had seen Ruth in the flesh, and she was overcome by a staggering wave of love, along with a shock of surprise at how Ruth had changed. Her hair had gone almost completely gray, and the laugh lines around her eyes were more pronounced. She’d aged, to be sure, but she still looked lovely to Emma. It was the warmth of her smile that kept her so devastatingly beautiful.
“There you are at last.” She trotted down the steps, grasped Emma’s hands, and held her at arm’s length to look her up and down from head to foot. “You’re all grown up. I can’t believe it. And absolutely glowing.”
Ruth pulled Emma into a tight embrace. Emma laughed openly, overjoyed to be in the arms of her old friend and beloved mother figure.
“It’s so good to see you,” Emma cried. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too, but you’re here now, and finally we can catch up on everything in person. I’ll put the kettle on. It’ll be so much better than letters.” Ruth turned to Logan. “And this must be your husband.” She held out her hand. “I’m Ruth. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Logan replied courteously with a handsome smile—looking like his old self as he shook Ruth’s hand. Emma exhaled with relief and pride. “Thank you for having us,” he added.
“I’m happy you’re here.” Ruth turned. “Now, come inside, both of you. I know I said I’d put the kettle on, but maybe we’ll have a sip of brandy to celebrate.”
Ruth led them up the steps to the front door, and Emma reached for Logan’s hand. As she squeezed it, she gave him an appreciative smile because she was pleased that he’d made a good first impression. The last thing she’d wanted was for Ruth to worry about the choice Emma had made in a husband. She wanted Ruth to be proud of the woman she had become.
That evening, in Ruth’s formal dining room, Emma and Logan gorged themselves on a hearty chicken casserole with warm buttered rolls and rich chocolate cake for dessert. Emma told the story of her father’s encounter with the angry seal, and Ruth spoke about the death of her husband and how, since becoming a widow, she’d returned to teaching young children at kindergarten.
Logan shared stories about his childhood growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan and his work as a veterinarian, and Emma was delighted to see him continuing to act like his old self. He was pleasant and good humored, and it was the best night she could remember since they’d made the decision to travel to the mainland for her delivery. For the first time in ages, she went to bed feeling good about her marriage, and she was pleased when her husband was receptive to her affections.
The following day, Emma wondered if it was just the brandy. Logan had begun sipping it the moment they’d arrived at Ruth’s house and had continued throughout the evening. He’d been affable all night long, but at breakfast the next morning, he retreated into his shell of silence and gloom.
At times, Emma was tempted to offer her husband more brandy to lift his spirits, but she was wise enough to know that liquor was not the solution to the problem—whatever it was. Most likely, over time, it would only make things worse.
On their fourth day in Halifax, the sun shone brightly from a blue sky, and the scent of spring filled the air. The snow had begun to melt, so Emma decided it would be a good day to drag her husband out of bed for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood.
As soon as they stepped onto the damp sidewalk, she looped her arm through his. “Thank you for coming out with me. They say walking is a good form of exercise for late pregnancy, and it can sometimes bring on the labor.”
Logan laid his hand over hers. “Should I be ready to carry you to the hospital?”
His tone was disappointingly lackluster, but Emma managed to laugh it off. “I hope that won’t be necessary. I’m as big as a barn. You’d put your back out.”
He offered no reply.
They made their way toward the end of the street, while shiny silver icicles dripped from the eaves on the houses and cars splashed through slushy puddles.
After a while, Emma spoke delicately, as she often did lately, with her husband. “Is everything all right with you?”
“Not really,” Logan flatly replied.
She gazed at him with surprise, because getting him to express his feelings of dissatisfaction or irritability—or whatever was dragging him down—was often like getting blood from a stone.
“Please, Logan ... tell me what’s wrong,” she pleaded with genuine love and compassion for whatever ailed him. “I only want to help.”
He scoffed, bitterly. “Of course you do—because you want a new guinea pig to replace the last one.”
The words shocked her and stole her breath. Emma halted on the sidewalk. “What are you talking about?”
Logan continued for a few tense seconds before he finally stopped and turned around. “I heard you and Ruth in the kitchen last night. I came down for a drink, and the two of you were sitting at the table gossiping, so I listened for a while.”
Emma’s heart began to race and throb. What she’d discussed with Ruth was the farthest thing from gossip. It was the most personal and intimate confession of her soul. But Logan had heard what she’d said? Oh, God. She remembered all too well the main points of their conversation. Emma had confided in Ruth about Logan’s recent feelings of depression, and she’d opened up about her relationship with Captain Harris and her terrible heartbreak after he’d left.
“You were eavesdropping,” she said, feeling violated.
Logan stared at her piercingly. “Don’t try and turn this on me. You know what you said.”
“I’m not sure that I—”
“Oh, stop it, Emma,” he barked. “All you did was complain about me, so obviously I’m a disappointment to you. But just tell me this.” A muscle flicked at his jaw. “Are you still in love with him?”
All the breath sailed out of Emma’s lungs. Logan might as well have hit her across the back with a two-by-four.
He looked up at the sky and scoffed. “I should have known. You were in such a hurry to get married. Is the baby even mine?”
Emma’s shock spun into anger, and it was her turn to speak with ire. “Of course it’s yours! I was a virgin when I met you. You know that! You were the one who always pushed things to the limit and told me how beautiful I was, and how badly you needed me. Those hands of yours—always coaxing and persuading! Your hands could have talked me into anything! But I believed you loved me, and that’s why I married you. So don’t make a ridiculous accusation like this, Logan, even if you’re not happy that we’re stuck with each other now—because it’s not my fault I got pregnant. It’s yours. You were the one who couldn’t wait.”
Logan strode toward her, so fast that she took a few steps back. “Stuck with each other. There it is. The truth at last! You never would have married me if you weren’t forced into it—because you’re still dreaming about that captain ... whatever his name is.”
“I’m not dreaming of him,” she insisted. “I’m over that.”
He bowed his head, rested his hands on his hips, and turned toward the street. “Tell me another one, Emma, because after what I heard last night, it’s obvious I was just a distraction last summer. A way for you to forget about him.”
“No.” She took hold of Logan’s arm. “I loved you. I still love you.”
A woman pushing a pram down the sidewalk crossed the street, obviously giving them a wide berth. Emma was mortified that they were causing a scene. She linked her arm through Logan’s and began walking again, slowly, willing herself to calm down.
“You and I had an incredible summer together,” she reminded him. “I loved working on the paper with you and ...”
“Maybe you were more interested in writing the paper than you were in me.” Logan quickened their pace, and, in her condition, Emma could barely keep up. “You only liked me because I gave you what you couldn’t get on the island—an educated man.”
She pulled him to a halt again. “That’s not true! There are plenty of educated men on the island.” She thought of Frank. He’d gone to college before he began his training as a wireless operator. “But you’re right,” Emma conceded. “I admired you because you were intelligent, and we shared the same interests. My father liked you for the same reasons. What’s wrong with that?”
“Don’t bring your father into this,” Logan said. “He’s half the reason you wanted to marry me—because you couldn’t bear to leave him on his own. How convenient that I arrived and provided you with an excuse to stay.”
Suddenly, Emma’s blood began to burn with fury in her veins, but she couldn’t think of how to respond because it was partly true. She’d been conflicted about abandoning her father, who had still been struggling with difficult physical challenges, not to mention his grief over his lost limb.
She forced herself to be honest. “I admit ... staying on the island felt easier in some ways. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to be your wife. Don’t you remember how in love we were on our wedding night? I thought all my past heartaches were over.” She wiped hot, stinging tears from her cheeks. “But you’ve become so distant lately. It’s like you don’t love me anymore.”
At a standoff on the sidewalk, she and Logan stared intensely at each other. Eventually, his shoulders relaxed. He dropped his gaze and offered his arm, and they resumed walking, but at a slower pace.
Cars sped by, too fast, swishing through slushy, dirty puddles. Water splashed onto the sidewalk, and Logan pulled Emma back a few steps to avoid the deluge.
When they reached an intersection, Emma tugged at Logan’s sleeve and forced him to stop. “Please. We’re about to have a child together. I just want us to be happy.”
He glanced up and down the street, avoiding her gaze. “I want that too.”
Regret, like a cold and terrible ground swell, washed over Emma. She never should have spoken to Ruth about Captain Harris. That had been terribly disloyal. Besides, it was in the past, and Emma had made her choice. She’d chosen Logan, the father of her child, and she didn’t want to lose him.
Emma stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her tearstained cheek against the scratchy wool of his winter coat. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a breath of relief when his hand cupped the back of her head.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Please forgive me. I love you, and I don’t want anyone but you.”
He hugged her and gave her time to collect herself before he stepped back. “Let’s go home. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“I don’t want to fight either.”
Logan took her face in his gloved hands and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
Relieved, Emma linked her arm through his and walked with him back to Ruth’s house in silence.
That night in bed, still distressed by her argument with Logan, Emma lay awake with her hands on her belly, staring up at the ceiling.
It was no wonder he was upset. She’d spilled out her heart to Ruth about how deeply she’d fallen in love with Captain Harris and how heartbroken she’d been for months after his departure.
Logan didn’t deserve to hear that. She should have been more careful, more focused on the present and what was ailing her husband. But there was no changing it now. She only wished Logan was more open to discussing it further and fixing whatever was wrong. If only he could allow her to assure him that she loved him and wanted their marriage to succeed.
But sadly, again, when they slipped into bed that night, he rolled over, faced the wall, and went straight to sleep. Emma felt completely shut out of his heart, his soul, and his mind.
It made her wonder if perhaps she was the one with the problem. Having grown up in a small, isolated community with only books and a few dozen square miles of sand and grass to explore, maybe she was too analytical. She hadn’t known many people in her life. Most came and went, remaining only briefly, providing a mere snapshot of who they were during that one specific year of their life.
And only a certain type of person agreed to spend a year in a place like Sable Island.
During her adolescence, Emma had read about Sigmund Freud and had become stimulated—intellectually—by the mysteries of the unconscious mind. She’d thrown all her fiery young passions into the study of psychology and human behavior, but it was all just words on a page. What did she really know about life and relationships and the real trauma that people endured in other places in the world? Maybe she knew far less about the human psyche than she believed.
Turning her head on the pillow, she looked at Logan, who was still facing the wall and snoring loudly.
He was her husband. She wanted desperately to understand him. At the same time, she didn’t want him to feel as if he were a research project.
In that moment, her baby kicked. Emma laid her hand on her belly, pressing here and there. It was obvious that the baby’s feet were low; it was not the head that was engaged toward the pelvis.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut and felt a burst of anxiety in all her nerve endings. Or perhaps terror was a better word.
Please, God. Help my baby turn in the coming days.
Emma didn’t want to die young like her mother. She wanted to live. There was so much of the world she had yet to experience. She wanted to know life beyond Sable Island, not death. She wanted to hold her baby in her arms, raise her child from infancy, and watch him or her grow through childhood and adolescence, long into adulthood. She wanted to know her grandchildren.
But again, she was dreaming and wanting ...
Today, Emma still didn’t know who she was supposed to be. She wanted so much out of life, but everything always felt so out of reach and so unfinished.
At dawn, Emma rolled to her side in bed to face Logan, who was still facing the wall and snoring. A deep cramp squeezed in her belly, and she hugged both arms around herself, waiting for the discomfort to pass. When it did, she settled down and tried to go back to sleep.
It wasn’t long before another cramp squeezed at her innards. Recognizing that this was quite likely a contraction in her womb, Emma strove to remain calm. She fingered the locket she wore around her neck, thought of her mother, and couldn’t fend off the dark, cold nightmare that twisted like a snake in her mind.
Not yet. I’m not ready.
A gush of water poured out of her—a clear message that she had no control over what was to come. There was no stopping it now. It was time to go to the hospital, where she would be forced to push her baby out.
What if it was a breech delivery? Would they cut her open? What if she didn’t survive?
Her mind screamed in terror at the unknown. Would Logan be a good father to their motherless child? Would he return to Sable Island? Or would her baby, all its life, never set foot there, never know its beauty?
Emma groaned as another contraction put pressure on her abdomen. Slowly, she swung her legs to the floor.
“Logan, wake up. It’s time.”
“What?” He sat up groggily.
Her heart was on fire, beating fast and uncontrollably. “I need to go to the hospital. Go and wake Ruth. Ask her to start the car.”
For a split second, he stared at Emma in a daze. Then he tossed the covers aside, leaped out of bed in his pajamas, and scrambled from the room.
Fourteen excruciating hours later, a doctor shouted at a nurse. Exhausted, Emma was barely conscious under the medications, but she was still aware of people flying into a panic around her bed, like the terns darting about, protecting their colonies on the dunes ...
Minutes later, she moaned feebly with a mixture of terror and despair as she was wheeled on her bed by a team of nurses and orderlies, through white hospital corridors, under the passing glare of florescent lights. A woman bent over her and spoke reassuringly. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’re in good hands.”
“Please ... save my baby,” Emma mumbled, gazing imploringly into the woman’s concerned eyes before a plastic oxygen mask was placed over her mouth and nose, and she surrendered to exhaustion.
Some time after that, she stood on North Beach, facing the wind and wild whitecaps on a stormy gray ocean. She listened to its thunderous roar and realized suddenly, with surprise, that she was a bird. She spread her wings, began to run, and took off to soar high above the frothy white surf as it crashed and rolled onto the beach. Gray seals frolicked in the sea below.
She flew higher and higher until the crescent-shaped island looked tiny beneath her, barely a sliver of existence. From such a height, the lush interior was a narrow green brushstroke, and the horses were little black dots.
Emma swooped down and flew westward to circle over the sunken Belvedere , half-buried in the sandbar. It broke her heart to watch the ship suffer under the cruel battering of the waves. When it became unbearable, she flew upward to the misty clouds, but felt a grave loneliness there.
Oh, how she longed for Sable Island—for that special fragrance of the marram grass, the wild roses and bayberries, and her horse, Willow. Her father. Her books. The faithful, unbroken roar of the sea ...
Longing desperately to hold her baby in her arms and take him back to her special island home, Emma flew, in a rapid descent, straight down from the clouds.