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  “N ... no, Josh, I won’t.”

  She left the hinged doors wide and turned, wiping tears from her eyes. When she’d crossed to the far side of the room beyond Josh’s range of vision, Rye remained where he was, studying the boy. From the bedroom came the sound of Dan’s sonorous breathing, his repetitive soft snore the only sound in the dusky room. Rye looked at Laura’s back, then tiredly crossed to stand behind her, studying the intricate coil of hair at the back of her neck, the tight stricture of her black mourning dress across her slumping shoulders. From behind, he covered her upper arms, chafing them gently, watching the tender hollow at the back of her neck as she dropped her face into her hands and wept softly.

  “Aw, Laura-love,” he uttered in a shaken whisper, pulling her back against his chest, feeling her shoulders shaking. She stifled her sobs into her palms, and he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. He let her weep, feeling so much like weeping himself, but swallowing thickly, closing his eyes and rubbing her arms once again.

  “Oh R ... Rye, I feel so guilty, and I’m even more ashamed because I’ve been mourning as much for us as for Zachary.”

  He spun her around and crushed her against him. Her arms clung to his back as his head dropped down to her shoulder and they rocked together, solacing each other.

  Josh heard his mother’s sobs and slipped his feet over the. edge of his alcove bed to stand beside it uncertainly, one hand still under the blankets while he watched the wide back of the man curving to hold her. He saw his mother’s arms come up around Rye’s neck, then the big man rocked her, the way she sometimes rocked Josh when he felt bad and cried. Josh studied them silently, perplexed, wondering whether or not he should be mad at Rye for hitting Papa like he had. It seemed like Mama would be mad at Rye ... but she wasn’t. Instead, she was hugging him and had buried her face in his neck just as Josh had buried his face against her when Laura carried him home tonight. Again he heard his mother’s muffled sobs, and while the two rocked from side to side, the boy caught a glimpse of Rye’s wide hand holding the back of his mother’s head tight against him. He watched a moment longer, remembering how Rye had said his mother, too, would need cheering up. Then, silently, Josh lifted a knee to climb back into his bed again, to listen and wonder and decide that mamas, too, liked to be hugged.

  Laura wept bitterly, allowing the full flood of grief to escape as it hadn’t during the past three days.

  “Laura ... Laura...” Rye said against her hair.

  “Hold me, Rye, oh hold me. Oh my darling, what you must have suffered through these last three days.”

  “Shh ... hush, love,” he intoned softly.

  But she went on. “My heart broke for you when I saw you facing Dan at the end of the wharf, and ... and when I saw you hold him in your arms and comfort him. And again along the beach while we were searching. Oh, Rye, I wanted to rush to you and hold you and tell you I loved you for what you were doing for him. He ... he needed you so badly then. I sometimes think that fate keeps throwing the three of us together, knowing we all need each other.”

  “Damn fate, then. I’ve had all of it I can stand!” His voice shook as he held her near, running a hand along her back.

  “Rye, I’m so sorry about Josh tonight. But he’ll get over it and stop blaming you.”

  Rye backed away abruptly, gripping the sides of her head. “It’s not them I care about. It’s not them I need. It’s you!” He gave her head one emphatic shake and their eyes delved deeply into each other’s. Then he took her roughly against him again, breathing in the scent of her hair and skin, his voice a murmur of despair at her ear. “Why did this have t’ happen now? Why now?”

  “Maybe we’ve been made to pay for our sins.”

  “We did not sin! We are victims of circumstance, just like the others are. Yet we’re the ones made t’ suffer, t’ stay apart, when it’s none of our doing. We belong together, Laura, so much more than you and Dan do.”

  Her tears flowed afresh. “I know. But ... but I can’t leave him now, don’t you see? How can I leave him at the worst time of his life, when he supported me through the worst time of mine? What would people say?”

  “I don’t give a damn what they’ll say. I want y’ back, and Josh along with y’.”

  “You know that’s not possible, not now ... not for a while.”

  Again he backed away. “How long?” His blue eyes were beginning to show anger.

  “Until a decent period of mourning has passed.”

  “The mourning be damned! Zachary Morgan is dead, but must we pretend we died with him? We’re alive, and we’ve wasted five years already.”

  “Please, Rye, please understand. I want to be with you. I ... I love you so.”

  Suddenly Rye grew still. He studied her face in the dim light from the candle across the room. “But y’ love him, too, don’t y'?"

  Her eyes dropped to Rye’s chest, and when after a long silence she neither looked up nor answered, he moved his hands to span her throat, pressing his thumbs up against the underside of her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze.

  “Y’ love him, too,” he reiterated painfully.

  “We both do, Rye, don’t we?”

  “Is that what it is?” He searched her brown eyes with their spiky, wet lashes while from the bedroom came the steady sound of Dan’s snoring.

  “Yes, that’s why it hurts both of us so much to see him this way.”

  “Does he drink this much often?”

  “More and more often lately, it seems. He knows how I feel about you, and he ... he drinks to forget it.”

  “And so either way his turnin’ to alcohol will bind y’ t’ him with guilt. If y’ stay, he drinks because he knows y’ want t’ leave. And if y’ leave, he drinks because y’ did not stay.”

  “Oh, Rye, you sound so bitter. He’s a far weaker man than you. Can’t you take pity on him?”

  “Don’t ask me t’ pity him, Laura. It’s enough that I love him, God help my soul, but I will not pity him for usin’ his weakness t’ hold y’.”

  “It’s not just that, Rye. This island is so small. What would people say if I walked away from him now? You saw the looks we got from Ruth today. ”

  “Ruth!” Rye exclaimed in an exasperated whisper. “Ruth’d do well t’ go out and spread her legs under a man so she’d know what hell you’re goin’ through!”

  “Rye, please, you must not—”

  He gripped her jaw and kissed her mouth with a battering assault of his own until he became aware of her working to free herself from the pressure of his thumbs. Then he hugged her to him, immediately repentant.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, Laura. It’s just that I can’t bear t’ walk out of here and think of y’ in that bed beside him when it should be you and me sharin’ it as we used to.”

  “Six months,” she said. “Can you bear it for six months?”

  “Six months?” The words fell cold from his lips. “Y’ may as well ask me t’ bear it for six years. It would be as easy.”

  “It’ll be no easier for me, Rye, you have to know that.”

  His thumbs brushed her cheeks, softly now, lovingly. “Tell me, is it possible you could be carryin’ my baby now? Because I won’t let y’ stay with him if there’s any chance of it whatsoever.”

  “No. It’s the wrong time of month. ’ ’

  His haunted eyes roved her face. “Will y’ let him make love to y’?”

  She pulled away and turned her back on him. “Rye, why do you torture—”

  “Why?” He spun her around by an arm. His eyes were blazing. “Y’ do love him or, by God, you, too, would be tortured by the thought!”

  She clutched his forearms. “I pity him. I’ve betrayed him, and I owe him something for that.”

  “And while y’re payin’ y’r debt, what if y’ become pregnant with his child? What will y’ do then? Plead for more time while y’ decide which of the two fathers y’ll grant y’r favors to next time?”

>   She struck at him then, but he backed away just before her hand hit its mark.

  Chagrined, she reached to touch his chest. “Oh, Rye, I’m sorry. Don’t you see, we’re angry at what we’re forced to do, not at each other? We strike out this way because we can’t strike out at the true cause of our trouble.”

  “The true cause of our trouble is y’r obstinance, and y’ can end it with a single word—yes! Yet y’ choose not to.”

  He stalked toward the door.

  “Rye, where are you going?”

  He turned, lowering his voice when he caught sight of the alcove bed in the shadows behind her. “I’m leaving y’ to your drunken husband, who is not worthy of y’ yet somehow manages to keep y’ loyal even while he snores in that besotted state. Six months y’ ask for? All right, I’ll give y’ six months. But during that time, keep out of my sight, woman, or I’ll see t’ it y’ betray y’r husband again, and I won’t be fussy about where or when or who knows about it. The whole island can watch for all I care, and Ruth Morgan and her ilk can take lessons!”

  Chapter 14

  DAN MORGAN AWAKENED the following morning to the sight of Laura lying beside him, still in her whalebone corsets. He groaned, remembering, and rolled to the side of the bed, where he sat clutching his head. He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, then straightened gingerly, holding his stomach while he unfolded one muscle at a time. As he eased to his feet, the power of Rye Dalton’s fist made itself felt in every muscle of his torso.

  At Dan’s soft groan, Laura awakened, bracing up on an elbow to ask sleepily, “Dan, are you all right?”

  He was ashamed to face his wife after the public insinuations he’d made yesterday. Glancing over his shoulder, Dan’s shame redoubled at the realization that he hadn’t even remained sober enough to help her out of her stays, but instead had left her to sleep in them like a freshly wrapped mummy.

  He sank to the edge of the bed, again clutching the sides of his head and staring at the floor between his bare feet. “Laura, I’m sorry.”

  She touched his shoulder. “Dan, this drinking has got to stop. It won’t solve anything.”

  “I know,” he mumbled forlornly. “I know.”

  The back of his hair was mussed and flattened. She touched it reassuringly. “Promise me you’ll come home for supper tonight.”

  He dropped his head farther forward and rubbed the back of it, brushing her touch away. Then his shoulders lifted as he sighed deeply. “I promise.”

  He got to his feet slowly, stretching his ribs and breathing carefully, then clumped out of the room to begin getting ready for work. They spoke little, but when he was ready to leave for the countinghouse, wearing the black armband of mourning on his left sleeve, Laura stepped up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t forget ... you promised.”

  But all day long as Dan worked over his ledgers, the figures on the pages seemed to twine themselves into the shapes of Rye and Laura, and when he left work at the end of the day, Dan knew he could not go home without fortification.

  So he turned back toward Water Street and entered the Blue Anchor Pub. The place was adorned with quarter boards bearing the names of old vessels, the most prominent from a long-gone ship called The Blue Lady. Whaling paraphernalia hung from the walls and from the open beams of the ceiling: harpoons, flensing knives, macrame, and scrimshaw. But best of all, kegs of beer and ale rested on their cradles at the rear of the room. Behind the kegs hung the personal tankards of the clientele who frequented the place, but since there was none with Dan’s name, the alekeeper produced one of his own, offering his condolences by way of a free round of “flip”—a powerful mixture of apple cider and rum. By the time Dan left for home, it was dark and long past the supper hour.

  Laura looked up when Dan entered the keeping room. It took little more than a glance to know what had detained him. His movements were slow and deliberate as he hung up his beaver hat, then turned to stare at the table, where a single plate waited.

  “I’m sorry, Laura.” He slurred the words, weaving slightly, but making no move toward the trestle.

  Laura stood behind a ladderback chair, clutching its top rung. “Dan, I was so worried.”

  “Were you?” Silence fell heavily while he studied her with bleary eyes. “Were you?” he repeated, more quietly.

  “Of course. You promised me this morning—”

  He waved a hand as if shooing away a fly, tucked two fingers into his watch pocket, gazed at the ceiling, and swayed silently.

  “Dan, you have to eat something.”

  He gestured vaguely toward the table. “Don’t bother with supper for me. I’ll just—” His words trailed away listlessly, and he sighed. His chin dropped to his chest as if he’d fallen asleep on his feet.

  Dear God, what have I done to him? Laura asked herself.

  But the days that followed were to answer her tortured question only too plainly, for Dan Morgan was a wretched and torn man. And though he had promised to end his intemperance, his own personal tankard soon came to hang on the wall pegs behind the barrels at the Blue Anchor. Before long, his wife, waiting in the candlelit house on Crooked Record Lane, set aside her whalebone corsets and returned to the unbound freedom of only a chemise, for too many nights there was no one to help with her laces.

  Summer drew to a close, and Laura filled her days with countless preparations for winter. The wild beach plums came ripe, and Laura took Josh with her to gather the fruit in baleen—whalebone—baskets, haul them home, and make mincemeat and preserves. But as she hurried back from her day on the moors, it was with a heartful of memories of Rye and to face an empty supper table, a lonely house, for Dan continued his late nights at the Blue Anchor.

  Josh begged to go picking grapes next, and though Laura knew they hung in royal purple splendor in the best arbor on the island, she was reluctant to go there again and face more poignant memories. But the grapes were a ready source of provender for the making of jam, juice, and the dried, sugared sweetmeats called comfits, Josh’s favorites, so at last Laura went. The sight of the arbor brought back a renewed surge of longing for Rye, but these thoughts were immediately followed by the now-familiar guilt that always came in their wake, especially that particular night, when Dan again appeared at supper and stayed home in the evening, lavishing time on Josh. Laura’s spirits buoyed as Dan remained punctual and sober for several days. She put thoughts of Rye from her mind and strove to make their home the happy place it had once been.

  But then one morning when Dan reached into the chifforobe for a fresh shirt, something fell to the floor—Laura’s corset. He' leaned to pick it up and held it in hands that were always slightly shaky these days. He stared disconsolately as he rubbed a thumb absently on a whalebone, then closed his eyes for a moment, wondering what was to become of his marriage. When he opened them, he saw part of a stay projecting from its cotton sheath. Haltingly, he reached to touch its smooth, rounded end, only to realize it was not just any whalebone but a busk. With growing dread he slipped it up until, word by word, the carving was revealed.

  He stood a long time, head and shoulders drooping, as he read and reread the scrimshawed poem beneath his thumb. After some minutes he swallowed hard, then reeled on his feet as if Rye Dalton’s fist had again leveled him. He pictured himself helping Laura cinch up the strings that had pressed Rye’s words of love against her skin, and Dan suffered afresh the rending truth: Laura had never stopped loving Rye. Rye had always been and would always be her first choice.

  “Dan, your breakfast is ready,” Laura announced from behind him.

  He dropped the corset, shut the chifforobe door, and spun around.

  “Dan, what’s wrong?” she said. He looked stricken and slightly ill. She glanced down to see what he held, but in his hands was only a clean shirt, and as he shrugged it on, he insisted nothing was amiss.

  But after that, it was later than ever when Dan returned home at night.


  September arrived. Dame school would soon open in the parlors across the island, thus several mothers planned a last squantum on the beach for a group of island children. Though it would be another year yet before Josh started school, he was included and went off exuberantly with Jimmy.

  When the picnicking and games were over, the two boys went off by themselves. On their knees, they dug frantically after sandcrabs, which could bury themselves faster than any boy could dig them up. They laughed and sent sand flying behind them, knowing it was useless, but enjoying the pursuit for itself. Finally, Jimmy gave up, dropped back onto his haunches, and said, “I heard somethin’ at your grampa’s funeral that I bet you don’t know.”

  “What?” Josh went on digging.

  “I ain’t supposed to tell you, ’cause when Mama found me standin’ there listening to them ladies, she made me promise not to, and then she scooted me out so I couldn’t hear no more.”

  Josh’s interest was immediately diverted and he turned to his friend, bright with curiosity. “Yeah? What’d she say?” Jimmy made a pretense of sifting sand through his fingers in search of small shells. “I wasn’t gonna tell you, but then ...” He squinted up at the younger boy, suddenly unsure of the wisdom of divulging the secret. But finally he went on. “Well, I got to thinkin’, and if it’s true what they said, well, you and me, we’re cousints.”

  “Cousints?” Josh’s eyes were round with surprise. “You mean like me and all of Aunt Jane’s kids?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You heard your mama say that?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. She was talking to my Aunt Elspeth and they said your real pa ain’t... well, the one you got, but that other man, Rye Dalton.”

  Josh was silent for a moment, then said disbelievingly, “They din’t neither.”

  “They did too! They said Rye Dalton was your real pa, and if he is, then you and me are cousints, ’cause—”

  “He ain’t my pa!” Josh was on his feet now. “He can’t be or my mama would know.”

  “He is too!”

  “You liar!”