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“Yeah. But people who keep to themselves are doing it as self-protection, right?” Scarlet asked. “And I want him to know he doesn’t have to protect himself around here. We’re the Copperfields. We take care of each other and the artists who reside here.” She set her jaw.
Anna remained bubbly in the wake of learning Smith didn’t want to go to mundane Nantucket parties with strangers. He preferred to remain alone, only a few rooms away from hers, typing or writing notes or dreaming about his memoir. Something about this and his volatile moods intrigued Anna. Smith had begun to seem like a fictional character in an old-fashioned book. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get a handle on him. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever fully reveal himself. And maybe that was the magic of knowing (or not fully knowing) Smith.
That night, Anna and Scarlet joined the other Copperfields for dinner. Violet grabbed the seat on the other side of Anna and made sure to fill her plate with extra vegetables and babble in her ear about everything she’d gotten up to since they’d returned from getting their nails done. She was considering another purchase for the baby—a gadget Anna had never heard of.
“The baby industry just makes things up, don’t they?” Scarlet tried to joke from the other side of the table.
Violet glowered at her. “I just want to make sure my grandson has the best possible start.”
Nobody knew what to say to that. Eventually, Quentin changed the subject, even as Violet continued to pepper information into Anna’s ear. Anna’s heart felt the shape and texture of a small stone.
It was around the end of dinnertime that the cramps began. Anna’s forehead crinkled with worry, and she touched both sides of her pregnant stomach and filled her lungs. Midway through Violet’s monologue, she interrupted her. “I think I’d better get to bed. You know how important sleep is for the baby.”
Upstairs, Anna lay on the bed with her clothes on, focusing on her breathing. Slowly, the cramps dissipated, and the heaviness over her chest fell away. A part of her had thought the baby was on his way. A part of her had been ratcheted with fear.
Anna checked her phone. It had been two hours since she’d come into her bedroom for space, and in that time, Violet had texted her three articles and ten messages, none of which Anna was up to reading. Julia had written, too, saying: “I’m off to Charlie’s tonight. Someone has to plan that wedding, I guess. Ha!”
Perhaps because she was a masochist, Anna pulled up her final correspondence with Dean. In it, Dean had still been pretending he wasn’t surprising her on Orcas Island, that he wasn’t going to propose. She’d thought he was home, safe, in Seattle rather than waiting for her in her hotel room. “I miss you so much!” she’d written. “I wish you were here.” But the words seemed so light and frivolous now. Anna hadn’t known what missing Dean was really like.
With the cramps gone, Anna decided to undress. She forced herself to her feet and wandered to her closet, where she stopped short. Something light along the dark sand had caught her eye. Stepping closer to the window, so near that her nose nearly touched the glass, she peered out to watch a golden retriever whisk across the sand, his paws nearly touching the froth from the waves. Behind him, Smith slinked after him, his hands shoved in his pockets.
Anna suddenly felt that they were the two loneliest people in the world. It was a shame they couldn’t talk about it or that they insisted on being apart.
These were silly thoughts, maybe. But Anna had been around the block enough to know you had to follow your gut. Only minutes after Violet arrived in Nantucket, Anna had wanted to demand that she leave. Now, look at the state of things. She should have listened to her instincts.
Anna donned a coat, hat, mittens, and boots and tiptoed downstairs to the back porch. In her head, she practiced what she might say to Smith as a distraction from his anger and self-hatred. It couldn’t be too cheesy. Smith was too intelligent for something like that. And she liked the idea of him regarding her as a friend.
But as Anna pressed open the screen door between the porch and the beach, the hinges shrieked. Luka’s ears pointed skyward, and he bounced back toward the house, eager to sniff Anna. Anna was now totally outside, and the late-night chill wrapped around her like a snake. She rubbed Luka’s head, conscious that Smith’s eyes were upon her. Assessing her. Remembering her from the time she’d fallen right here two weeks ago. He probably hadn’t thought of her in a good light since.
“Hi,” Anna said as Smith approached.
Smith’s eyebrows were raised. He strode through the sand and snow, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his dark hair flowing behind his ears. His winter hat only covered the top tips of them. Greta would have called that “flirting with disaster.” She believed in being prepared for all weather, for any season.
Unlike other people, Smith’s eyes didn’t trace her pregnant belly or make her feel like nothing but a baby carrier. They remained locked on hers. “Hi.”
Anna swallowed the lump in her throat. Out of nowhere, she was reminded of the first time she’d ever gone out with Dean. She hadn’t known what to say. It had felt like her tongue was made of stone.
“It’s nice out here this time of night. Cold. But perfect for, I don’t know. For thinking, I guess,” Anna said, then cursed herself for speaking of the weather. How boring was she?
Smith turned to follow her gaze out across the inky water. Just then, the clouds separated to reveal a sliver of the glowing moon.
“I’ve been doing most of my writing at night,” Smith said. “After everyone in The Copperfield House is asleep.”
Anna was intrigued. “So this is the beginning of your workday?”
Smith raised his shoulders. “You could say that.”
Anna remembered Violet’s story, in which Smith had smashed his fist against his thigh over something as trivial as spilled pasta. Her eyes flitted over his thigh. She wondered if he’d bruised himself.
“And you?” Smith asked. “When do you do most of your writing?”
Anna’s eyes widened. Had she told him she was a writer? Had her mother? It both troubled and excited her to hear he knew things about her. And it terrified her to realize he might have read something as silly as her Christmas market write-up. She’d always felt destined to be a better writer than that. She’d been wrong.
“I like mornings and nights,” Anna said, her voice catching in her throat. “I’m a bit like my grandmother and a bit like my grandfather in that regard. In the afternoons, I like to daydream.” She laughed.
Smith gave her a very faint smile. It was the first Anna had ever seen him. It was a thrill.
“You do come from an incredible line of artists,” Smith offered, taking a small step toward her.
