“You’ve left Tom, then,” she says.

The sentiment is so matter-of-fact, and I am caught so off guard by the directness of it that I almost laugh despite the dire nature of the whole situation.

“I have.”

“About time, I’d say.”

I gesture toward my stomach. “Though, perhaps not the best time with the baby coming.”

“I hate to tell you, but there’s no such thing as a ‘right time’ in life. Things happen when they need to happen. The rest sort of falls into place.” Her eyes narrow. “He knock you around?”

I nod, the familiar shame rushing back to me.

“Bastard. How much longer do you have?”

“A couple weeks.”

“You scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Of course you are. Nasty business what happens to women’s bodies. You’ll need a place to stay.”

I blink, my muddled, tired brain struggling to keep up with her swift topic changes. “Yes. I do.”

“You don’t have any luggage with you.” Her expression softens. “He didn’t let you take anything with you?”

Tears well at the kindness in her voice, at the worry, the pity. “I didn’t go back to the cottage. He’d gone out on a fishing trip, and the ferry was leaving. I was scared to go back. Afraid of what he’d do if I did.”

“So he doesn’t know you’ve left?”

“I don’t know. He’ll probably figure it out when I don’t return from my shift this evening. If he hasn’t already. That is, if he comes home tonight. Sometimes when he goes out on his fishing trips, he’s gone for days, weeks, at a time. I never know when he’ll be back.”

“Were there other women as well?”

“Probably. There certainly could have been, but by the end I didn’t care one way or another.”

“So you mean to get a divorce, then?”

“I suppose so. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”

“He knock you around while you were like this? Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“Have you had any pain? Any bleeding?”

“No. The baby is moving around. It seems to be fine. But there was this opportunity to leave, and I took it. It seems foolish now. If he comes after me, I—”

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Alice says. “You can’t stay here. When Tom realizes you’re gone he’s going to come for you. How long before he looks here?”

“I thought of that. I—I don’t have anywhere else to go. Nowhere he wouldn’t know to find me, at least. I have my tips, and Ruby gave me an advance on my wages, plus a little extra, to be honest, but it’s hardly enough to start over with.” I take a deep breath, trying to ease the panic ripping through me. “I can work if there’s a restaurant in town that needs help. I’m a good waitress. Or I could help out around here. I can clean the place, help serve the guests, I like working with people. I could—”

“There’s no need to worry about that now. The most important thing is keeping you and that baby safe. I have a friend who owns some fishing cottages. You’d be nearby if you needed something, but Tom won’t be able to find you. People here take care of their own. They’ll help watch my niece. No one is going to tell him anything.”

* * *

—

I’m barely awake when we leave the Sunrise Inn and drive to Alice’s friend’s cottage. She chatters along the way, keeping up a steady stream of talk about the area that I can hardly follow in my tired state.

The fishing cottage is perfect—one clean room with a bed adorned with crisp white sheets. Alice packed a basket of food from the inn’s dining service, threw some of her loose nightgowns together for me, as well as a few other essentials to tide me over.

“You must be exhausted,” Alice says when I sink down on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

I yawn. “I’d rather go to sleep if that’s all right.”

“Of course. I’ll be back to check on you in the morning.”

“Have you heard anything about the storm?” I ask her, my earlier conversation with John coming to mind again. I struggle to grasp what he said to me, but the words slip through my fingers like fine granules of sand. There’s too much rolling around inside me right now: the baby, my fear that Tom will come after us, the uncertainty of the future.

“It should miss us entirely,” Alice answers.

She leans down and presses her lips to my head in a move so reminiscent of my mother that a lump forms in my throat.

“There’s no need to worry. You’re safe now.”

It’s the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.

Fifteen

Mirta

In the end, our date on the boat is not meant to be. An afternoon thunderstorm hits as I return to the house from the beach, fat drops of rain falling on my head. I run the remaining several hundred yards to the house, arms and legs pumping, calves burning thanks to the uneven terrain beneath me. There’s a flash of a memory—of me racing my brother as a child at our beach house in Varadero, our cousin Magdalena trailing behind us. He always beat me, but I never stopped trying to best him until one day my mother declared it unseemly for a girl my age to engage in such behaviors, and our beach races stopped for good.

As I near the house, through the blur of the rain, I spy Anthony standing on the front porch.

My cheeks burn as I approach the house, my bedraggled appearance keeping us from equal footing once more. Despite his upbringing, there’s a sophistication to him—a worldliness—I doubt I could ever cultivate, and in this moment, my hair drenched, locks plastered to my skin, makeup likely mussed and running down my face, I have never felt decidedly less elegant.

Anthony doesn’t move until I’ve climbed the steps and stopped a few feet away from him, the overhang of the wraparound porch providing some protection against the elements. Wordlessly, he hands me a white towel folded beside him on the railing.

He doesn’t glance away as I dry myself off, his dark eyes following my ministrations, the lines and curves of my body. The whole thing is terribly intimate, and I am struck by the contradictions in the man I married. Last night, he eased me partway into marital communion and left me alone, but today, his bold gaze is a shock to my system like the rain on my skin.