“Alice.”

“Please leave me alone.” She felt his hand on her arm and she snatched it away and held it up to her chest, as if she had been burned. “Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t leave.”

She felt, embarrassingly, as if she might sob. Her face crumpled and she covered it with her hand.

“Alice. Please. Hear me out.” He swallowed, compressed his mouth, as if it were hard to speak. “Don’t leave. If you had any idea . . . any idea how much I want you here, Alice, that most nights I lie awake half crazy with it . . .” His voice came in low, uncharacteristic bursts. “I love you. Have done since the first day I laid eyes on you. When you’re not around me it feels like I’m just wasting time. When you’re here it’s like . . . the whole world is colored just that little bit brighter. I want to feel your skin against mine. I want to see your smile and hear that laugh of yours when you forget yourself and just let it burst straight out of you . . . I want to make you happy . . . I want to wake up every morning beside you and—and—” he screwed up his face briefly, as if he had gone too far “—and you’re married. And I’m trying real hard to be a good man. So until I can work a way around that, I can’t. I just can’t lay a finger on you. Not how I want to.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a shaky exhalation. “All I can give you, Alice, is . . . words.”

A whirlwind had entered the room and turned the whole thing upside down. Now it settled around Alice, tiny dust motes glittering as they fell.

A few years passed. She waited until she could be sure her voice had returned to normal. “Words.”

He nodded.

She considered this, wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She held her hand briefly to her chest, waiting for the beating to subside a little, and when he saw it he winced, as if he had caused her pain.

“I suppose I could stay a while longer,” she said.

“Coffee,” he said, after a moment, and handed it to her. He took care that his fingers didn’t brush hers.

“Thank you.”

They exchanged a brief look. She let out a long breath, and then, without saying anything more, they stood side by side and began restacking the books.

* * *

• • •

It had stopped raining. Mr. and Mrs. Brady picked up their daughter in Mr. Brady’s large Ford, and accepted without protest the additional passengers, three small girls who would be houseguests at least until morning. Mr. Brady listened to the tale of the children, and the rope and Mrs. Brady’s car, and while he said nothing, digesting the loss of the vehicle, his wife swept in and hugged her daughter tightly and uncharacteristically silently for some minutes before releasing her, her eyes brimming. They opened the car doors in silence and began the short drive home, while Beth began to walk the waterlogged upper trail back to her house, her hand raised in good-bye until the car disappeared from view.

* * *

• • •

Margery woke to feel Sven’s warm hand entwined in hers. She tightened her fingers on it reflexively before creeping consciousness told her all the reasons why she might not. She was half buried under blankets and quilts, the weight of them almost too much, pinning her down. Now she moved each toe speculatively, reassured by the obedience with which her body responded.

She opened her eyes, blinking, and took in the dark, the oil lamp beside the bed. Sven’s gaze flickered toward her and they locked eyes, just as her thoughts coalesced into something that made sense. Her voice, when it emerged, was hoarse.

“How long have I been out?”

“A little over six hours.”

She absorbed this.

“Sophia and William all right?”

“They’re downstairs. Sophia’s fixing some food.”

“The girls?”

“All safely in. Looks like Baileyville lost four houses, and that settlement just below Hoffman was all destroyed, though I’m guessing it could be more by dawn. River’s still up but it stopped raining an hour or two back so we got to hope that that’s the worst of it.”

As he spoke, her body recalled the force of the river against her, the swirling forces that dragged at her, and she shivered involuntarily.

“Charley?”

“All good. I rubbed him down and rewarded him for his bravery with a bucket of carrots and apples. He tried to kick me for it.”

She raised a small smile. “Never knew a mule like him, Sven. I asked so much of him.”

“Word is you helped a lot of people.”

“Anyone would have done it.”

“But they didn’t.”

She lay still, bone-tired, acceding to the pressure of the bedcovers, the soporific warmth. Her hand, deep under the covers, slid across to the swelling of her stomach and, after a minute, she felt the answering flutter that made something in her ease.

“So,” he said. “Were you going to tell me?”

She looked up at him then, at his kind, serious face.

“Had to get you undressed to get you into bed. Finally worked out why you’ve been pushing me away all these weeks.”

“I’m sorry, Sven. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t think what to do.” She blinked back unexpected tears. “Guess I was afraid. Never wanted babies, you know that. Never been the kind cut out to be a mother.” She sniffed. “Couldn’t even protect my own dog, could I?”

“Marge—”

She wiped at her eyes. “Guess I thought if I ignored it, what with my age and all, it might . . .” she shrugged “. . . go away . . .” He winced then, a man who couldn’t bear to see a farmer drown a kitten. “. . . but . . .”

“But?”

She said nothing for a moment. Then her voice lowered to a whisper: “I can feel her. Telling me things. And I realized it out there on the water. It ain’t really a question. She’s here already. Wants to be here.”

“She?”

“I know it.”

He smiled, shook his head. Her hand was still smeared with black and he let his thumb slide over it. Then he rubbed the back of his head. “So we’re going to do this.”

“I guess.”

They sat for a while in the half-dark, each accommodating the prospect of a new and unexpected future. Downstairs she could hear the low murmur of voices, the clatter of pans and plates.

“Sven.”

He turned back to her.