There was no letter from Oliver.
In early February, the temperatures plummeted. Sable became a landscape of sparkling silver and a symphony of crackling ice as the frozen marram grass faced the harsh North Atlantic winds on the high dune.
No mail arrived for Emma in February either, and still, Oliver did not come.
The bitter cold days were spent indoors with Matthew, teaching him arithmetic and the science of the clouds and universe and assigning him household chores and good books to read. Emma did her best to hide her anguish from him, but each night, when she slipped into bed, she burrowed deeper into her old den of mistrust.
She began to believe that Oliver had changed his mind. Or perhaps he never had any intention of returning. Maybe she was the most gullible woman on the planet and he was a Casanova with a woman at every port.
Night after night it was the same—until on one occasion, Emma tossed the covers aside and sat up on the edge of her bed. Restless and alert while others in the house were sleeping, she chewed at her thumbnail.
What a fool she’d been in the rose garden. So easily seduced. Had she learned nothing from what happened with Logan?
Laying a hand over her long-suffering heart, she tried to settle her anxieties—which were always at their worst at night—and quietly rose to her feet. She tiptoed across the braided rug to where Matthew slept in his small bed soundly, beneath a heavy blue-and-white-checkered quilt. His face was like an angel’s—sweet, round, and peaceful. The sight of him spread a blanket of calm over her soul.
Thank God she had Matthew. If not for him, she might have stopped believing in the kind of love that lasts forever.
As for the child she carried in her womb, she knew she would love it too, just as much as she loved Matthew.
Emma tucked the quilt around him to keep him warm, then tiptoed back to her own bed. As she slid beneath the covers and stared up at the ceiling, she wondered if perhaps this had always been her fate: to enjoy the love of her children but to be denied the love of a man.
If this was the way it was meant to be, she decided that she could survive on her own. She’d been doing it for years, without Oliver or Logan, with only the love she shared with Matthew and her father. It had been enough—more than enough—and another child would only bring greater love into her world.
Emma considered that for a profound moment, then rolled to her side, rested her cheek on her hands on the pillow, and watched Matthew sleep. The love she felt for him was infinite like the cosmos and the constant, traveling waves on the ocean. The steady sound of his breathing finally lulled her into a peaceful slumber.
The following morning, Emma woke at dawn. Her bedroom windows were cloaked in ice. Sleet pelted the glass. Matthew still slept, so she rolled to her side and faced the wall, curled up in a fetal position, and tugged the covers over her ears to stay warm.
As she lay with her hand on her belly, she knew she couldn’t go on like this much longer, hiding her secret. Keeping it from her father was tearing her apart, and now she was beginning to show. Very soon, she would have no choice but to tell him the truth.
Or perhaps the time for truth and honesty had already come.
“Now you have me worried,” her father said from his chair in the great room that evening.
Emma had just settled Matthew into bed for the night. She’d come downstairs, taken a seat on the sofa, and told her father point blank that she had something important to discuss with him.
“I wish I could tell you not to worry,” she said, “but I don’t think you’re going to like this.”
He removed his glasses and set them on the open book on his lap. “Continue.”
With her earlier bravado long gone, she forced the words out. “I’ve been keeping something from you, Papa. Something that relates to Oliver Harris.”
He frowned. “What is it? Nothing bad, I hope. Is he all right?”
“I have no idea,” she replied, “because I haven’t heard a word from him since he left in September.”
Her father spoke with sympathy. “I understand how that must make you feel, but, sweetheart ...”
“How could he just disappear like that and not even write?” She covered her face with her hands.
Her father reached for his cane and rose from his chair. He limped around the coffee table and sat down beside her on the sofa, where he took her into his arms and rubbed her back. “You know what the mail is like here. Sometimes we get letters six months old. And Oliver is trying to arrange a divorce, which can’t be an easy thing, especially if his father-in-law wants to avoid a scandal. It might take time.”
Her father was right, but time was not on Emma’s side. She had very little of it to spare when her baby was growing bigger in her belly every day.
“But it’s been months,” she said. “We should have heard something by now.”
“Yes,” her father replied. “I’ve been wondering about it too, but we can’t lose hope. Oliver is a good man.” He wiped a tear from under her eye. “No matter what happens, just remember that you have Matthew and me and a home here, where you’re loved. It’s a good life, and it’s all yours.”
She wondered miserably if it might be time to wake up and face reality. “You think he’s not coming back?”
