“Sure,” Anna said, not meaning it. “I’d love that. I’ll... We’ll talk. When everything settles down.”
“Okay,” Laura said.
She had an overwhelming revelation—Anna realized that things would settle down again. That everything would go back to the way it was, just with a hole where Jacob used to be.
This event, no matter how shocking, difficult and intense, had not changed her life.
She was still the same woman in the same marriage. The same woman, trapped because whatever she felt in her heart, she had restricted herself so tightly she couldn’t quite find a way to make the moves that needed to be made.
It was only at the Lighthouse Inn, where she had been a girl, where she had run wild and barefoot through the lawn, that she was able to find that spark in herself still.
She looked toward the Captain’s House, and something new sparked inside her. Not habit. Not familiarity.
Determination.
She was not ill. She didn’t have an excuse. The only person who was keeping her trapped was herself.
And she thought it might be time to make a move.
3
It is stunning to think that what was home only months ago is on the verge of becoming the front lines today.
—FROM A LETTER DATED JANUARY 5, 1943, WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, WHO, ALONG WITH SEVENTY OTHER MEN, HAD BEEN STATIONED AT CAPE HOPE LIGHTHOUSE AFTER THE ATTACK ON FORT STEVENS
EMMA
“Emma.” The older woman reached out and squeezed Emma’s shoulder, tears glistening in her blue eyes.
Emma couldn’t even remember her name—which was a common enough occurrence. Everyone knew her because she was Pastor Thomas’s niece. But today it felt overwhelming. The amount of people she didn’t know, offering sympathy and looking at her like they expected something from her...
She’d done her best to stand between her mom and all of this.
She was exhausted.
It had been a week since her father’s funeral, and her grandmother was adamant that they all get up and go to church together. She’d been to school, so it wasn’t like she hadn’t been out of the house.
But kids at school were way less likely to ask about her dad and how she was feeling.
People at church...
They all meant well. They asked because they cared, and Emma knew it.
But sometimes the sense of community was smothering.
It was part of why Emma felt so ready for change.
Her mom wanted her to work at the Lighthouse Inn again this summer, and Emma had been hoping to get a job somewhere else.
There were a lot of things that she wanted to do.
But she didn’t see the path to any of them right now.
She sat in the front row with her mother and her grandmother. The stage looked like it always did, with a large wooden cross at the back, lit from behind. She saw a lot of people she knew, some kids from school. But she didn’t see her aunt Anna anywhere.
Her aunt had been quiet and distant over the past week, but Emma hadn’t thought anything about it because she’d felt quiet and distant. They all had.
They sometimes missed church, but Anna never did. She’d said more than once that going to church was essentially her job. And Emma had never known Anna to...just not go.
The background music faded, and the conversation around them died down. People took their seats as her uncle Thomas came out onto the stage to make announcements.
He was the kind of man who always seemed at ease. He smiled, no matter what, and not in a way that felt fake. In a way that felt reassuring. Like he was listening, and like it wasn’t a burden.
He was tall, with dark hair and a lean build that made it seem like he was always in motion. He usually was in motion. Greeting everyone they passed on the street, helping put dinner on the table, helping with projects that needed to be done at Emma’s house.
But today he seemed off. And she couldn’t recall her uncle ever seeming off before.
She wondered if he was going to say something about her dad, and her stomach tightened up.
But there was something in the way he took that first labored breath before he began to speak that made her certain it wasn’t about her dad.
There was something wrong now. His pallor was chalky, his whole body tense.
He looked like he didn’t quite know where to begin.
And Thomas Martin always knew where to begin.
“I know there has been talk,” he said slowly. “You’ve always been there for me, as a family. You’ve been there as my family suffered a loss this past week, and I am thankful for that, too. But that isn’t the only change to take place.”
His throat sounded dry, which was a strange thing to notice, except when he swallowed it seemed forced. “I don’t take any great joy in announcing this here, but I truly believe, after much thought and much prayer, that this is the best thing to do. The truth is always the answer. And I would ask you to please not take anything that I say and spin bigger stories out of it. I will talk about this once, and only once. I caught my wife in the act of adultery.”
The ripple of shock that went through the crowd was audible.
Emma’s grandmother grabbed at her chest, as if something had stuck in her heart.
Emma’s mother’s hands curled into fists, scraping along the textured tan fabric of the pew.
Emma didn’t move.
No.
The word, the denial, was explosive inside her brain.
She’d just seen her aunt. She’d been there for them all through this time. She hadn’t been... There was no way.
“I’ve had my faults. No man is perfect. But I have been a faithful husband. And...” He swallowed again, with visible difficulty. “I don’t say this to condemn her or exonerate myself. But just to explain what is happening, and why the shape of our church family is changing. I don’t have any further details, except to say that we will be getting divorced. I apologize for the role that I played in this failure. There will be a guest speaker today. I will be back with you next week.”
He turned and walked backstage then, and voices rose up around them, the sound of the congregation talking, not even bothering to whisper. Why whisper? It wasn’t a secret.
Her family didn’t talk or whisper. They sat frozen.
It wiped everything out of Emma’s mind.
The woman who had done that didn’t sound like her aunt, and right now the man speaking from the pulpit didn’t seem like her uncle. Because how could he say that? How could he do this to them now? She turned to look at her mother, whose expression was bland, and completely unreadable. Her grandma was waxen.