Chapter 33
Chapter 33
England, 1995
“So, you never saw her again?” Joanna asked. “Ever? That must have been devastating.”
Without answering, her grandfather carried the dessert plates to the sink and scraped them clean.
Outside, the rain had stopped. The whole world had gone quiet and still, except for Joanna’s heart, which was pounding in her ears. She’d never seen such a look of sorrow in her grandfather’s eyes before, except when Nana died. But this was different. Years seemed to have fallen away from his face. He was a younger man again—but a sad one.
He returned to stand behind his chair and gripped the back of it.
“After all that,” he said, “when I was walking back to my boat, I saw a small herd of horses grazing on top of a low dune. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them. I stayed there for ... oh, I don’t know, maybe half an hour, just watching, slowly moving closer, but I couldn’t get close enough to touch them. Eventually, they broke into a gallop and headed inland, to the heath. My God, they were so beautiful ...”
He slowly blinked, as if he were continuing to live and breathe in that memory, in the exquisiteness of it all, the good and the bad—because it was life , part of the living, breathing world. His children. The war. The shipwrecks. His love for Emma. Even the loss of her. Emma lived only in his memory now—like one of those dreamlike horses he couldn’t quite reach, galloping away beyond the dune.
Joanna knew that despite the pain, it was all beautiful, because of where it had taken him—to this moment in this kitchen with his granddaughter, who loved and cherished him and owed him everything for her happiness.
“Oh, Grandad ...” Joanna’s eyes stung with tears until she wiped at both cheeks. “I love you. And I’m so sorry you never got to see her again. I can’t even imagine.”
Because she’d never loved anyone like that.
Her grandad seemed to wake from a dream and return to the present. “I love you too, sweetheart.”
Joanna stood up and hugged him. When she drew back, she still had questions. “So, when you came back to England, is that when you got back together with Nana? For good?”
“Yes,” he replied. “While I was gone, her relationship with that other man ended, which I took as another sign from above. She wanted us to try again, and I wanted to be a part of my children’s lives, so I moved back home. I’ve been living in this house ever since.”
“So, you did it for your children?” Joanna asked, needing clarity while she thought of her grandfather’s shattered heart.
“At first,” he replied. “But over time, like I said, I began to see the glass as half-full, and you know the rest.”
Yes, Joanna knew how her grandfather had always respected Nana as a mother and a homemaker. Clearly, he’d forgiven her for her infidelity, because he was not without transgressions of his own.
“And here we all are,” he said lightly, “still trotting along, on ever-shifting sands.”
A sense of profound understanding washed over her. There were no guarantees in this world. Happiness was never constant or unbroken. Sometimes it fell away, or was ripped away, and it was beyond the range of vision.
But it was still out there, perhaps just over the next rise.
“Thank goodness for second chances,” she said, and couldn’t help but smile at her grandfather. What a treasure he’d been in her life. How grateful she was for his love—especially now, knowing that he could have chosen another path to an entirely different destination.
The following week, Joanna visited the stables regularly to check on Boots, the foal she’d helped deliver, as well as his mother, Ruby. Both were doing well, so a daily checkup was unnecessary, but Joanna went regardless, on her own time, usually at sunset, after she finished work at the clinic.
Each day, she stayed a bit longer than the day before, and spent time in the stalls running a brush over Ruby’s thick coat, bringing her fresh water, or interacting with Boots. Often, Joanna simply sat on a stool in the corner of the stall with her elbows on her knees, watching Boots sleep. After a nap, he would rise on unsteady legs, and his mother would nicker gently and nudge him with her nose.
In those moments, as Joanna witnessed the love between mother and child, she found herself enraptured and fully grasping her grandfather’s choice to remain with his children. Parenthood was a pure, soulful, and biological love with no comparison. She saw it in horses, and in her family, and she hoped to experience it for herself one day.
She also understood why her grandfather had taught her to ride and care for horses at such a young age. He’d come to appreciate their beauty during his incredible experiences on Sable Island, and perhaps it was his way of returning to that special magic. To feel it in his heart and soul again. In the process, he’d passed that love and connection on to her.
What, she wondered, had become of the wild herds that once lived on the island? Had they survived the past half century? And did the island even exist today if it was nothing but a sand dune in the open Atlantic, constantly reshaped by the wind and storms in the ocean?
Did anyone still live there?
By the end of the week, Joanna couldn’t allow those questions to go unanswered. She needed to know more, so she decided it was time to do some research.