“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 withan 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.
Chapter 18
“I’m Sergeant MacIntosh. Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“I don’t even know what just happened,” Emma replied, dazed and exasperated. “Why did you arrest my husband?”
