“She’s healthy?”
“Aye, the ewe and lamb look fine.” He moves to the other side of the barn, retrieves a handful of cut grass, and places it beside the mother, running his hand along her neck, before walking to my side.
“I brought this for you.” I hold out the mug of tea. “Might be cold by now.”
“I’ll drink it all the same.” He takes the cup and leans against the door of the barn. There is relief in his eyes, but I find a hint of sadness in his posture. In the drowsy slope of his eyes.
And then I remember.
He lost his own wife and children during a moment just like this.
But instead of new life drawing in its first breath, his wife took her last, and the day ended with a grave dug at the shore. The grave is still there, at the far edge of the island, just beyond the thicket of silvery-white birch trees, visible from the house. A place I have avoided. I feel like I should say something, offer some comfort or sympathy, but strangely, I don’t know what those words would be, or if he’d even want to hear them from me.
So I clear my throat and look back at the house. “I think I’ll head back. It’s getting cold.”
He nods. “Aye. I’ll be staying a bit longer yet. Grateful for the tea.”
I walk to the house alone, and when I step inside, I look back through the window to where his silhouette is framed in the barn’s doorway, shoulders bent, sipping the cup of cold tea.
The bedroom is filled with reminders of the wife he lost.
A small, round metal box on the bedside table. I touch the lid, carefully lifting it. Inside, two tiny pearl earrings, a simple gold band—a wedding ring? A candle on the bedside table rests atop a hardbound book. I slide it out, reading the cover:The Complete Poems and Songs of Robert Burns. A Scottish poet, if I remember right.
Was this her nightly reading? Would they lie in bed, side by side, his hands touching her while she read to him until he drifted asleep? Her voice carried into his dreams.
I close the book, a spike of envy thorning me in the gut. I miss this kind of intimacy… I miss James. It’s just a daydream, it might not be true at all, but it nags at me. I sit at the edge of the bed, the early morning sun making soft patterns across the quilt. My eyes scan the room: a blanket folded on the wood chair by the door, a painting of a meadow above the chest of drawers—blue wildflowers slightly bent in the wind. Did she paint it? Or maybe it was a gift, a wedding present, and heplaced the nail in the wall while she guided him, telling him to tilt it this way and that until it was straight. Maybe they laughed, newlyweds who found joy in the smallest of acts; maybe they kissed, made love on this bed, maybe they were happy.
I blow out the tightness in my lungs. Why can’t I be happy?
I’ve always kept some part of myself locked up—even with James. Held captive by the past. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, maybe I’m incapable of this kind of carefree, delirious, fever-filled love. A defect in my worthless, malnourished heart.
I touch my ring, twisting it around my finger, worrying over it.
Day twenty-three.
I walk the perimeter of the island. The afternoon is clear, crystalline and bright, and I look for any trace of land rising in the distance. But there is only the Atlantic and the sunlight and the hateful wind.
I cross my arms against it, looking back at the house, which stands at the highest point of the island. The walls are a salty white, shutters once a pale blue but now peeling away, windows pushed open to let in the mild afternoon air. Battered by years of relentless storms, the house endures. A fortitude, a grit that defies time. The stone chimney spits out ribbons of smoke from the kitchen, and a seagull spears through the blue sky, dipping low, then vanishes out into the glittering daylight.
We can’t be too far from land if a bird is sailing along the island’s shoreline. But I also don’t know the patterns of birds. Or how far they travel.
Days ago, I watched a fly buzz along a living room window, then I saw a black butterfly with white bands across its wings in the garden, but when I asked Clay if the insects made it across the sea to the island, if the mainland might not be too far away, he only shrugged. “Maybe. Insects can lie dormant for months, nae telling what’s brought them here.”
I close my eyes, then open them again.
Too many days have passed, and I can no longer convince myself that any of this is a dream. That I might wake in my hotel room and shake off the absurdity of the nightmare.
I walk up the stone-lined path to the garden, wearing a pair of leather boots that Clay set out for me—boots that were surely his wife’s, but apparently hold less meaning than the rain boots I foolishly pulled on days ago.
Clay has tilled a plot of dark soil, and he’s walking the rows slowly, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder, his right hand dropping seeds into a narrow trench. He wakes earlier than usual now, to check on the lamb, and spends an hour in the barn each evening, ensuring that they’re settled and fed. He cares for that lamb as if it were the most precious thing on the island—and maybe it is.
I place my hands against the garden fence. “Can I help?”
His blue eyes lift, a twitch at his temple, like he’s unsure of the question. But he wipes at his forehead, then nods. I step into the garden, and he removes the satchel from his shoulder, then lifts it over my head. It’s heavier than I expected, but he’s so close I can feel his exhale against my cheek, the scent of mint on his hands. “Drop them in every few inches, like so.” He reaches into the bag, pulls out a handful of large seeds, then tosses one into the damp soil. I nod, understanding, and he takes my hand, placing the last few seeds into my palm.
“What are we planting?”
“Beans.”
