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 theisland 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.
Chapter 34
Joanna poured herself a cup of coffee and dialed her grandfather’s number. He answered after the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Grandad.”
“Hey, sweetheart.” His deep voice brimmed with affection. “It’s nice to hear your voice. How are you doing?”
“Good as gold,” she replied. “You won’t believe what I’ve been doing.”
“Do tell.”
She carried her coffee mug to the kitchen table and sat down among toppling piles of magazines and open books. “I’ve been researching Sable Island.”
For a moment he said nothing, and she worried that she’d overstepped an unspoken boundary.
“Is that okay?” she asked.
He remained quiet until Joanna mentally winced from the silence.
At long last, he responded. “That curious mind of yours ... Why am I not surprised?”
She sighed with relief, then chuckled into the phone. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help it. Everything you told me about the horses was so fascinating. I’ve become a little obsessed, to be honest.”
“Obsessed?” He paused. “How?”
She pulled one of the books toward her. “Well ... at first, I was mostly interested in the horses, but then I stumbled across a book about the history of the island. It covered the Humane Establishment from its beginning to its end in the 1950s. There’s a whole section about John Clarkson, because he was the last superintendent, and they mention his daughter, Emma.”
Silence dropped into the connection between them. When her grandad finally spoke, his voice was guarded. “You don’t say.”
Still amazed by what she’d learned, Joanna charged forward. “Grandad, are you aware that your shipwreck was the last one on record before the lifesaving station was shut down? And that the details of the wreck and the rescue are in a book calledWrecks of Sable Island? I’m sure you’re in other reference books as well.”
He pondered that for a few seconds, then asked hesitantly, “Does it say anything about me and Emma? Personally, I mean?”
Joanna paused as she pictured her grandfather alone in the house that he’d shared with his wife for more than fifty years. She imagined him pacing next to the telephone at the mention of the woman he’d once loved and lost.
Joanna turned a page in the book. “No, nothing at all. There’s no mention of any connection between the two of you. It only says that you were nursed back to health on the island.”
“Well, that’s accurate.” A half a minute must have passed before he spoke again. “Does it say anything about what happened to Emma in the years after she left the island?”
There it was at last—the curiosity that continued to live and breathe in him. All along, Joanna had suspected it never died.
“No.”
She waited patiently for him to react to her flat response. Seconds ticked by conspicuously.
