“So, since we’re sharing,” he said as I was testing out the cherry picker. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What really brought you to Lòn Haven?”
“The job, of course.”
“You can’t tell me you came all this way to paint this god-forsaken lighthouse. Especially during a school term.”
I was taken aback. “Well, I did . . .”
“OK.”
“Did you think I had an ulterior motive?”
“No, no,” he said, bending to clean his trowel. He cleared his throat. “I just figured you were running from something, that’s all.”
I tried to tell myself that he was joking, but his words had somehow peeled back the layer I’d worked so hard to create, digging at the truth beneath it. Out here, I’d almost succeeded in pushing away the reasons I’d dragged my daughters from their beds in the middle of the night and driven nonstop to the Highlands of Scotland.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to . . .”
“Something wrong?”
I didn’t finish my sentence. I pushed open the door of the lighthouse and ran out into the rain.
LUNA, 2021
I
“Morning,” a voice says from the doorway of their room in the B&B. Ethan, followed by the smell of coffee. He peeks around the door of the bathroom. “Brought you breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
Luna washes her hands and gives a long yawn as she heads back into the bedroom. Ethan sets his haul on the bedside table: a croissant, a decaf coffee, and a tub of porridge with a small pot of honey and a plastic spoon.
“How’d you sleep?” he asks.
She shrugs, her mouth full of hot porridge. She rarely sleeps well when she’s pregnant.
He sits down next to her. She can tell he’s been churning the Clover situation over in his mind. “She does look like your sister,” he says with resignation. “The girl in the hospital.”
In her mind’s eye she sees him awake at dawn, scrolling through the Facebook page she set up for Clover. A page he’s seen a hundred times, but which he needs to check now to figure out what the deal is with this kid that Luna claims to be her sister.
“Look, I don’t want this to come between us,” he says anxiously, moving closer. He rests his hand carefully, slowly, on hers. “If you say she’s Clover, then . . . fine, I believe you. OK?”
She can tell he’s lying, but it’s out of kindness, or maybe an effort to worm his way back into her good graces. This is his compromise—a willingness to go along with her, even though he doesn’t understand. There is a long silence between them, and she knows he’s waiting for a response. When she looks at his hand on hers she feels her heart stirring. His warm, broad hands have always made her feel safe, comforted. And seen.
So why did she say no? Why does she still shudder at the thought of marrying him, being bound to him, despite knowing she still loves him?
They head to the hospital to see Clover. It feels like a dream, winding through the hospital corridors to find her sister. And then the moment Luna sees her again, sitting upright in the bed. Gianni the giraffe tucked in beside her and color returned to her cheeks. Still a child.
Luna feels a rush of emotion at the sight of her. Stunning familiarity, and yet disappointment. She had hoped, stupidly, to find a woman there instead of a little girl.
“Hi, Luna,” Clover says brightly.
“Hello,” Luna replies, glancing self-consciously at Ethan.