Chapter Nine #4
“What was?”
“Marry her. Take care of the house, work the land as well as my own up the ridge. Her mother passed on, an’ we made a go of it.”
In all the rumors I’ve heard over the years about Clay Lockhart and Saltwell Island, no one ever mentioned this part.
“It was a good marriage. We understood each other, mostly. We both knew our part, knew what needed to be done to keep things going—this house, the land, us. Marriage isn’t always…
” He exhales. “We respected each other, even if it wasnae the kind of love ye read about in books. An’ I thought that was enough.
” He looks away, pulls his mouth down, a rattle in his chest. “That night, when the labor started, I could tell something wasnae right. Too much blood. But we couldnae travel in the storm. After it was done—” He wipes at his eyes, looks at me.
“After it all happened, losing her, I knew it was punishment.”
“Punishment for what?”
“Not loving her like I should’ve. Not looking at her like she deserved.”
I shake my head, thinking of James. I was a woman who didn’t know her own heart, and he could see it. He could see the past following me wherever I went. He could see the island in my eyes.
“Fate wouldn’t punish you for that,” I say.
He makes a sound at the back of his throat.
“Until ye blew in from the sea”—he shifts his weight, turns to place his lips on mine—“I thought I’d live alone, in this house, for the rest of my days.
” I run my fingers up to his chin, along his mouth, and he kisses each one, slow.
“I didnae know being with someone could feel like this.” He looks lost to a memory, before he blinks and refocuses.
“I’d do anything to protect ye—” he tells me now, eyes shivering in the faint light. “To keep ye safe.”
I wonder if this is what haunts him, the guilt he feels from Alice’s death. As if he could have prevented it, if only he’d kept her safe. Kept death at bay.
“I know,” I answer, because I can see it in his eyes.
His chest rises, then stalls as he stares down at me, fingers coiling through my hair. “Maybe it’s always like this for ye… maybe this is how it was when ye were with James. But I’ve never known this feeling with a woman before.”
I reach up and kiss him again, breathing him in. “It was never like this with James.”
Two days later, the weather turns, the temperature so hot that sweat pricks my temples before I’ve even stepped outside. “Do you think we’re drifting south?” I ask, standing at the cliff’s edge, sea grass blowing against my ankles as we watch the waves churn and crash against the shore.
“Most likely.”
I run my hand along his arm, up to his bare shoulder, working the stiff muscles, then touch my lips to his upper arm, his collarbone, motions that have become habit.
An intimacy between us that feels both familiar and ancient, instinctive, like there will never be enough of him, never enough moments between us—like I will never tire of his body pressed to mine.
I turn my gaze back to the sea, watching, and for a fraction of a second, I think I see something out there.
A thin band against the horizon. Land rising up in the distance, but then it’s gone.
Only a trick of the wavy afternoon heat.
Clay swallows, and I lower my hand.
“Still watching for it, aren’t ye?”
The sun catches on my lashes, the wind stirring the few strands of hair that have come loose from the braid down my back.
“I see you, Ellie… in the early hours, watching the horizon, hoping to see a bit of land.” There is an edge of hurt in his voice, and I realize this is what I saw in him the other day when we were pulling seaweed from the shore—uncertainty hidden behind his eyes.
The sea air feels trapped in my throat, but I manage to shake my head.
“Ye check the boat too, from time to time. I know ye do.” His jaw flexes, eyes tired. “Ye make sure it’s not damaged after storms… ye tend to it like ye might need it someday.”
“We might need it someday,” I correct quickly. “It’s smart for us to have a boat, just in case.”
He keeps his eyes on the sea—while he builds walls inside himself, brick by brick. I see them going up. “Yer still thinking of leaving, Ellie. Yer only half here… an’ the other half is out there. Back on the mainland. Maybe even back with him.”
I touch his face and pull his gaze to me.
“I left James behind long before I came to the island. You know that. And I’m not thinking of leaving.
” But this is a lie: I have thought it. Not every day—most days I’m right here, with him, and there’s not a single cell in my body that longs for anything else.
But sometimes, usually early in the morning when the ocean is calm—Clay still asleep beside me, looking like a figment of my imagination—I can’t help but wonder.
Is there anything left of my old life? Any pieces that remain?
My rental house in the Queen Anne neighborhood, only a few blocks from a triangle-shaped park and a tiny bookstore with creaky floors and rain-fogged windows.
Dirty clothes in a hamper at the end of my bed, half-read novels on the nightstand, a chipped ceramic mug left in the sink, raincoat slung over the back of a chair by the door.
Unpaid bills piled in a bowl. A grocery list on the fridge.
The things that made up a life. Have they been boxed up, stacked neatly in a storage unit, or maybe tucked in a corner of James’s two-car garage, waiting for the day I return?
Has Nana stopped looking for me? Have I broken her heart by not coming back?
“I widnae blame ye for thinking about it,” he says, his voice like a shallow grave, and I drop my hands from his face.
“Ye need to be thinking about it, need to know what ye’ll do when we see land, because we will…
eventually.” The air darkens a little, a bank of clouds scudding across the sky, cloaking us in shadow.
“Will ye stay here… with me? Or will ye leave? It’s easy to stay now, with an ocean between us an’ yer old life.
But when we scrape up onto some stretch of mainland, homes built at the shore, a town even, what will ye do, Ellie? ”
The question is too direct, too terrifying to consider. “I don’t know.”
His lips release a long, labored exhale.
“Someday…” he says, softer now, his voice losing all its hardness.
“Ye’ll have to choose. An’ ye might only have a few moments to decide.
” He can’t look at me. “An’ if ye think some part of you might choose yer old life, then tell me now…
because when the day comes, there might not be much time to say goodbye. ”
Tears well in my eyes, hating the thought of this, hating the way he says it. Knowing the panic I would feel, seeing land again. “Clay,” I begin. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“But a part of ye wants yer old life too. I can see it.”
He sees what I thought I kept hidden, the wondering in my silence at night, the question that is still at the center of my thoughts. But I shake my head, wanting to touch him, to assure him that he’s wrong, but we both know the truth. There is some part of me that longs for the world I left behind.
But I also long for him.
Desperately. Painfully.
“Ye don’t get to have both,” he says now. “Yer old life and this one. So if this is only temporary, a way for ye to pass the time until we see land, until yer rescued, then dinnae let me believe this is something it’s not.”
“No,” I sputter.
Tears fall down my cheeks, crashing to the ground at my feet. My hands shake, and I try to move toward him, touch him, but he brushes my hand away. Not harshly, but with finality.
“Dammit, Ellie. Ye will have to make a decision, an’ ye should make it now. Not for me, not for the life ye think is right, or the one yer supposed to have… but for yourself. What do you want?” I don’t answer. “What the hell do ye want?”
I can’t give him an answer, not the one he wants to hear, and not the one he doesn’t, either. Because I have no idea what will happen when I’m forced to choose. Or how it will feel when I see my old life on the horizon.
A way back.
A choice to be made.
This life with him is the truest thing I’ve ever known. But the old life feels interrupted, and I’m afraid of what I might choose when we’re finally close enough to land to touch it. I’m worried it’ll be too tempting to resist. Worried I’ll do what he’s afraid of.
He leaves me on the cliff edge. “Whit’s fer ye’ll no go by ye,” I hear him mutter, and I know its meaning, because he’s said it before: What’s meant for you will happen.
I sink down to the ground, pressing my palms to my eyes, and I cry.
The air between us feels strained.
I want to go to him, promise him all the things he wants to hear, but I’m afraid I’ll tell him the truth: that he’s right, and I just might leave. So I avoid him.
Strangers once again.
He sleeps on the couch—just like when I first arrived—and I lie alone in bed.
I hate the feel of his untouched pillow, the cold, vacant space beside me.
Missing his wild scent. I’ve grown used to his body next to mine, the soft sound of his breathing, the way I’d curl my toes against his when the wind beat against his house.
He’d fold his arms over me, my back to his chest, the warmth of his skin keeping away the night’s chill.
Now, I stare at the ceiling, guilt twisting in my gut, trying to devise the answer to his question. What will I do when we see land?
I play through the scenarios in my mind—the one where I dive into the water and swim to shore without looking back. Without even a goodbye. And the one where I watch the mainland float by, without even a twitch, no hint of longing racing through my thoughts. Perfectly content to let it pass us by.
And both feel wrong somehow.
So we do our daily work in silence. Avoiding each other. And I pray that no land appears while there is a hole split wide between us.