Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Five days later, Emma was discharged from the hospital. According to the doctor, her labor had been long and grievous, alarming at times, but the cesarean section, to everyone’s great relief, had gone swimmingly.
“This one just wanted to stay a little longer with his mum,” he’d said as he handed the crying newborn to a nurse. He then congratulated Emma and later, in the hospital waiting room, pumped Logan’s hand vigorously.
“Would you like some soup?” Logan asked, resting his arm along the back of the sofa in Ruth’s living room, watching his son sleep soundly in Emma’s arms.
“I’d love some,” she whispered. “The hospital food was terrible, and I hardly ate a bite. Ruth’s cooking is so much better.”
Ruth walked into the room just then. “Did someone say I was a good cook? Not that I’m fishing for compliments, but I can’t deny it’s nice to have mouths to feed.”
Emma smiled at her, then looked down at little Matthew. “I’d like to get up and eat at the table, but I’m afraid I’ll wake him.”
Ruth moved closer to help. “Hand him to me, and I’ll lay him down in the bassinet. I’ll watch him so that you and Logan can have supper together.”
Emma carefully passed Matthew to Ruth. “Thank you. You’re an angel.”
Ruth bounced at the knees and carried him to the wicker basket on the floor beneath the window. As soon as he was settled, she carried the basket to the kitchen. “You both need to eat and get some rest when you can, because babies like to keep you up at night.”
“Duly noted,” Logan replied, with genuine appreciation for the advice, as he pulled Emma’s chair out for her.
She sat down with care because she was still sore in certain places. But oh, how grateful she was for Ruth’s kindness as she served hot chicken soup to each of them in heavy crockery bowls, then took a loaf of fresh bread out of the oven. Ruth cut a few thick slices and placed them on a small wooden platter, which she set on the table with a stick of salted butter.
Emma glanced down at Matthew, sleeping peacefully in the wicker bassinet at Ruth’s feet. Never had she felt more fulfilled. Motherhood was something entirely new: a wonder she’d never imagined. The depths of her love and the heights of her joy were completely unexpected and astonishing.
Perhaps this was it—her true calling. Perhaps this kind of love was all anyone could ever need.
Two days later, Logan walked into the bedroom where Emma was pacing about, patting Matthew gently on the back, trying to get him to burp. He was fussing, and she wanted to put him down for the night.
“I don’t know why we have to wait so long to get on the supply ship,” Logan grumbled. “No offense to Ruth, she’s been very kind, but I’m tired of being a guest here. I want to get back to Sable.”
“I want to go home too,” Emma replied, “but the Argyle only goes once a month, and we’re at the mercy of the weather.”
Logan sat down on the foot of the bed. “Can’t we just hire a private plane to take us? I’ve seen planes land on the beach before.”
“That would cost a fortune,” she replied, “and we don’t have that kind of money.”
Matthew let out a gurgled burp, and Emma exclaimed with delight. “Oh! What a good boy. That feels better, doesn’t it?” Smiling down at his sweet, pudgy face, she cradled him in her arms.
Logan flopped onto his back on the bed and squeezed great clumps of hair in his fists. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Recognizing that her husband was at his wit’s end, Emma moved to lay Matthew down in the bassinet. “I find it odd,” she said impatiently, “that a few months ago you used the word trapped to describe how you felt about living on Sable. But now you can’t stand to be in Halifax. I’m starting to worry that you won’t be happy anywhere.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he replied, scowling at the ceiling.
Emma tucked the blanket around Matthew and made sure he was settled. “Are you sure? Because you left Saskatchewan too, which was your home province. Or maybe it’s me you want to get away from. Or any sort of long-term commitment.” She turned and faced him.
Logan sat up and looked at her with combative eyes. “You’re always questioning my intentions, making mountains out of molehills. Maybe I don’t know why I want to move from one place to the next. Maybe I just like to go with the flow. Why does everything have to be so complicated with you? You never just take things at face value.”
Emma hadn’t slept much over the past few days because of night feedings, and she lacked her usual compassion for her husband’s moodiness. “What a lovely thought,” she said with obvious sarcasm, “to just go with the flow, take off whenever you want, on a whim. How nice to be a man.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”
Emma’s blood had already reached the boiling point in her veins. She stared at her husband for a few seconds, wanting fanatically to throw all her recent frustrations at him—and maybe throw a lamp as well. But she didn’t want to fight in front of the baby, so she took a few deep, slow breaths to calm herself.
The oxygen to her brain helped her remember that neither of them had slept much over the past few days. They were both short tempered.
Emma moved to the bed and sat down beside her husband. “I just want you to be happy.”
But the words felt hollow in her mouth. She was so tired and discouraged, and heaven help her, there were all sorts of other things she would have preferred to say to him. But none of them were very nice, and they would undoubtedly lead to more fighting, and she didn’t have the energy for that. Nor did she want to wake Matthew after she’d finally got him settled.
Logan looked at her with resentment. “You say that a lot.”
“Because it’s true,” she replied, both defensively and contemptuously. She was doing her best, and she was running out of patience.
“Is it?” Logan replied. “Because sometimes I think you just want me to be agreeable. You want me to want the same things you do at any given moment.”
“No.” She frowned. “I’ve always cared about your happiness, and I’ve tried constantly not to upset you. I don’t understand. Where is this coming from?”
He flopped down on the bed again. “Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just want to get back to Sable.”
“That’s what I want too.” It was the honest-to-God, absolute truth. “I just hope you won’t feel trapped like you did before and want to leave again after a few months.”
Emma suddenly found herself thinking about Captain Harris and his failed marriage in England because he couldn’t resist the lure of the sea and whatever lay beyond the horizon. Did all men have that same wanderlust? Or was Emma only attracted to the ones who craved adventure?
Maybe that’s what she wanted deep down as well. For years she’d been dreaming about leaving Sable and going off to university. And there were moments when she’d felt trapped because of her father’s needs, which had become substantial over the past year.
“Let’s just be patient, all right?” She took hold of Logan’s hand. “The supply ship leaves in two weeks. I’m sure the time until then will fly by.”
He tugged his hand from hers, stood up, and walked to the door. “I hope so.”
He shut the door too hard, and Matthew immediately began to cry. Confused and disillusioned, Emma rose irritably and crossed the room to settle her baby boy back down in the bassinet.
The following afternoon, Emma left the house and pushed Matthew to the Public Gardens in the pram. The park was not yet open for the summer season. The gates were locked, so she walked around the exterior of the wrought iron fence.
She knew the laps around the park were good exercise but felt as if she were going in circles to avoid returning to Ruth’s house, where the mood was bleak. It had been a difficult night, with frequent wakings, so Logan had decided to sleep late. But Emma was the one who had gotten up to feed Matthew, so it was hard to feel sorry for her sleep-deprived husband, poor thing.
As she rounded the northwest corner of the park for the third time, she chewed over their heated arguments lately, along with Logan’s perpetual discontent, and grew angrier by the second.
A police car sped by, splashing through puddles of melting snow, its siren wailing, so Emma bent over the pram’s canopy to check on Matthew. Despite the noise and chaos of the morning traffic, he slept soundly. Emma touched his soft cheek with the back of her finger, then straightened and gripped the pram handle. She gazed intently at the old graveyard across the street from the park and was reminded of the skull collection in the boathouse on Sable Island. She thought of all the shipwreck victims who had perished there, and all the dead horses that had quietly decomposed on the heath. Emma had grown up with an awareness of death, but she suddenly found herself truly and deeply contemplating the brevity of life. With this notion came an acute awareness of her own mortality.
She didn’t want to spend her life feeling angry or hateful. This was supposed to be a happy time. Why was her husband so miserable?
Another police car sped by on the street, heading in the same direction, and Matthew began to cry.
Emma felt a strange vibration in her chest, followed by a sudden sense of dread. She broke into a run and pushed the pram all the way back to Ruth’s house.
At first, she thought the two police cars had surrounded the neighbors’ house. She stopped on the street corner to catch her breath and examine the scene—flashing lights and bystanders on the sidewalk, a crowd gathering to watch some sort of drama unfold. A third paddy wagon sped past her and squealed to a halt in front of Ruth’s door. Ruth had left for work at the kindergarten early that morning, so it was only Logan at home.
Emma stood motionless, watching three uniformed officers get out of a car, climb Ruth’s front steps with weapons drawn, and pound on the door.
Keeping her distance in case of danger, Emma approached an older woman on the street. “What’s going on?”
“We’re not sure,” the woman replied. “They knocked on the door earlier, but no one answered, so it looks like they called for backup.”
“Do you know why?”
The woman shrugged.
Two officers approached them. “Step back, please. We need to clear the area.”
Emma couldn’t make her feet move. “What’s happening? That’s my aunt’s house. My husband’s in there.”
The taller officer’s gaze zeroed in on her. “You’re the wife? From Sable Island?”
“Yes.”
He guided her toward a police car parked at the corner and addressed another officer. “This is the woman from Sable.”
Emma began to shiver in the cold. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
There was a loud crash, and Emma jumped. She turned quickly and saw four policemen breaking through Ruth’s front door. They stormed inside and a short moment later escorted Logan out of the house with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Emma stood paralyzed. It was as if her body had run out of blood and her pulse stopped.
Still gripping the handle of the pram, she shouted, “Logan!”
He glanced in her general direction but said nothing as the officers shoved him roughly into the back seat of the paddy wagon.
Numb with shock, Emma watched the car drive off.