Chapter 24
Chapter 24
March 1954
Sable Island during the winter was a good place to hide—and a very good place to hide a pregnancy. Most days, the residents remained indoors or scurried from one building to the next, ducking their heads in the frigid North Atlantic winds. On milder, rainy days, the dampness sent a stubborn chill into everyone’s bones that was not easy to expel. It nestled deep into the marrow and gave winter a bad name.
Contrarily for Emma, those months of hibernation provided a welcome element of disguise. A heavy wool coat could hide a multitude of sins—though not necessarily at home.
“Mommy, you’re getting fat!” Matthew chortled one evening in the great room as he nuzzled his face into her belly, where she lay on the sofa, reading a magazine.
Emma tensed, and her father slapped his hand on the armrest of his chair. “Matthew! Never say that to a lady, much less to your mother.”
Taken aback by the reprimand, Matthew sank to sit on the floor beside Emma. “Sorry, Grandad.”
Emma rubbed the top of his head. “It’s all right, sweetheart. You didn’t know. But Grandad’s right. That’s not a nice thing to say to someone.”
He spoke sulkily. “Can I go upstairs?”
“Yes, it’s time for bed anyway. Go brush your teeth, and I’ll be up in a minute to say good night.”
He dashed up the stairs.
Emma sat forward and tossed her magazine on the coffee table. “You didn’t need to be so harsh with him.”
“I don’t want him saying things like that,” her father staunchly replied.
“Are you trying to teach him manners? Or are you worried he’ll say something that might start rumors?”
“Both.”
It had been a long week, and Emma hadn’t slept well. She always seemed to wake up with lower back pain that persisted all day. It was difficult not to be irritable, and she huffed with displeasure. “At least you’re honest about it.”
“I might as well be,” he replied, equally irritable, “because people are going to find out eventually.” His eyes darkened, and he thumped his fist on the armrest. “I wish Oliver Harris would come back here so I could give him a piece of my mind. And it would be ugly, I can tell you that.”
“That’s something I’d like to see,” Emma replied. “In fact, I’d pay money for it.” She rested a hand on her bulging belly. “All jokes aside, Papa, we should talk about this, because you’re right. Everyone on the island will figure things out soon enough, and the gossip will be ...” She paused. “It’s a good thing we don’t have a local newspaper. I can see the headline now. ‘Sable Beauty Disgraced.’”
Her father spoke with cool authority. “Whatever happens, we’ll weather it.”
“But it’ll be confusing for Matthew,” she argued. “I don’t want the other children to say cruel things.”
“When the time comes, we’ll talk to him about that, and school him on how to defend you.”
Emma let out a weary sigh. “But I don’t want that to become our world. Not here.”
He nodded and ruminated for a moment. “Maybe we both need to consider other options.”
“Like what?”
He leaned forward. “I hope you’ll want to deliver in the hospital again, just to be safe.”
“Absolutely. And I’d like to take Matthew with me, to the mainland. If nothing else, it’ll be an adventure for him.”
“Ruth will be happy to have you come and stay with her. Every time she writes, she mentions it, and I thank God for her every day. Which is why I think you should consider reapplying to university this fall.”
The suggestion came at Emma like a bullet, and she nearly fell off the sofa. “Are you mad? I’m about to have a baby.”
“Yes,” he replied, “but Matthew could enroll in school in Halifax, and Ruth would love to help you take care of the baby. She’s the one who suggested that you consider part-time classes. All you’d need is a few hours a day, and that would give you something else to ...” He paused. “It would give you something new to focus on.”
“Besides my hostility?” Emma asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Or my self-pity? Or the thickness of my ankles?”
“All of the above,” he replied with gentle understanding. Then he sat back and spoke wistfully. “Sometimes I wonder where you’d be right now if I’d supported your dream in the first place, when you came to me years ago. Why didn’t I just encourage you in that direction?”
Emma shook her head. “It’s not your fault that I didn’t go to university like I’d planned. It’s the fault of that crazy seal, and maybe it was fate, because if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have Matthew.”
Her father sat quietly, pondering the past while the clock ticked steadily on the wall. Then he met Emma’s gaze. “You should do it. Apply again.”
She studied his expression. “Are you just trying to avoid a scandal here?”
“Maybe. But mostly I just want you to be happy.”
Fingering her mother’s locket and Oliver’s ring around her neck, Emma mulled it over. It had always been in her nature to look for clever ways over and through obstacles. But this pregnancy—and the emotions that surrounded it—had taken all the stuffing out of her. She’d lost her confidence and drive to push through shifting sands.
“It’s hard enough to raise a child on my own,” she said, hating that she sounded like a defeatist. “But then to add classroom attendance and homework on top of it ...”
Her father held up a hand. “Pipe down, kiddo. You’re barking up the wrong tree. I’ve had more than my share of challenges lately, but you were always there, pushing me to carry on. You got me back on my feet. So, if I could do it, so can you. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You can go to school part time if you need to, and it doesn’t matter how long it takes. Don’t let that stop you—because the months and years are going to go by anyway.” He gestured toward her belly. “You could have a degree by the time this child has finished kindergarten.”
Emma considered the next five years and ran her fingertips over the magazine on the coffee table, where a woman was modeling the latest spring fashions.
Oh, horsefeathers!
Emma couldn’t care less about new clothes, nor was she the least bit enthused by the best way to keep pillowcases smelling fresh. When she’d tossed the magazine aside earlier, she’d been overcome by boredom.
Yet something inside her continued to resist her father’s encouragement.
“I’ll think about it,” she finally said, supposing that if she embraced this fresh start and accepted it as a new dream, that would mean she’d finally given up on another.
She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for that. It would depend on whether Oliver arrived before the spring thaw.