They shifted to another section and began unearthing scarves, half-finished sweaters that were on cables. There was even one that was entirely finished, just not cast off, still on the needles.
Lark touched the nearly finished sweater and chuckled. “I’ve never related to Gram more.”
“I feel lied to,” Hannah said. “She was always such a stickler to me.”
“She probably knew it was what you needed to hear. If you would have known that knitting would be a haphazard disaster of unfinished projects you would never have wanted to do it.”
Hannah looked surprised. “That is true. I really don’t like things being left undone.”
“Neither do I,” Lark said softly, touching a particularly beautiful, half-made pink cashmere sweater. “I seem to do it often enough, though.”
She hadn’t always. These things, arts and crafts, quilting and knitting...they’d done them all together once upon a time. Because no matter how different they all were, no matter how busy, they’d had time for Gram.
4
Perhaps if the walls weren’t such a dull color I would feel more at peace. It’s white and gray everywhere. The clouds, the walls, the sea. I’m turning gray along with it.
—FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, FEBRUARY 1, 1900
ANNA
Anna closed her eyes. Then opened them again. Tried to catch her breath.
She was lying in bed in the Lightkeeper’s Room, a room that was currently unoccupied at the Lighthouse Inn, under the sheets. Staring through the white fabric, the sunlight penetrating the thin veil.
She’d done this when she was a kid.
Tearing through the house, breaking one of her mother’s vases.
Hide under the covers.
Collect the ladybugs that ran rampant in the house rather than exterminating them as ordered...and spill the jar in a guest’s luggage.
Hide under the covers.
She wished that she was hiding from rampant ladybugs now.
She was hiding from her mother.
From her husband.
From the world.
Service would be over by now. And everyone would know. He’d warned her he was going to do it. That he’d have to announce that their marriage was over and why and Anna had been too sick and ashamed to argue, all the guilt she’d pushed away during that bright, glaring moment of freedom tumbling in on her like a stack of bricks.
She closed her eyes again, and she went back a week. To the night of Jacob’s funeral.
She’d been lying under the covers. In this room.
She just hadn’t been alone...
Anna waited to feel guilty. Lying there in the dark, with the curtains drawn closed and Michael breathing beside her. Slow and steady, dozing the way men did after they were satisfied.
She couldn’t sleep.
But not because of guilt or regret or any of the emotions she had expected to feel, in that small space of time when she’d still been thinking clearly enough to make a decision.
The breath between him leaning in, and their lips touching.
You’ll regret it.
I don’t care.
But her conscience—or whatever had whispered to her just before the kiss—had been wrong.
When her lips touched his it was like all the pieces of herself had finally come together. That woman, that shell, who had talked to everyone at the funeral with a smile pasted on her face, had shattered into a million pieces.
Her path had been leading up to this for a couple of months now, no matter how she’d pretended it hadn’t.
She’d told herself she was only being friendly with a guest. That it was okay her heart leaped whenever she saw his name on the registry for the week.
That when he said she was pretty it was only talking.
But then he’d called her sexy.
Had said rough things to her that shocked her, things that her husband certainly wouldn’t have ever said.
He’d pursued her.
Like she mattered. Like she was the center of his life.
The intensity of it was...
It made her heart ache even now.
And there had been some point when she had realized she’d crossed some invisible line and there was no going back, but by that point she’d been so far gone she hadn’t even cared.
And standing at Jacob’s funeral, so disconnected from herself, then spending the whole drive home with Thomas in silence, she’d known.
Michael was staying at the inn. And she was ready.
She couldn’t be sorry.
She felt free. Like she was breaking shackles. Her face burned with heat, her body filled with adrenaline.
She’d never been with another man. She married her husband at eighteen, and they’d both been virgins on their wedding night.
Sex was sacred. And sharing it with someone else was...
It was the biggest betrayal she could have committed.
But no one had ever told her that you could live with someone and feel alone. That you could share a bed with them and feel cold.
That you could go into marriage shiny and young and full of hope, and fourteen years later feel worn down to nothing.
Until Michael had checked into the Lighthouse Inn.
A traveling medical tech, he made rounds in Sunset Bay often, and he had begun to use her family’s property regularly.
He didn’t know her. Everyone in town knew her and, more importantly, knew Thomas.
There had been no one to confide in.
And that was how it had started. Because Michael had asked why she was sad, and he had been the only person to notice that she was. That no matter how wide she was smiling it didn’t reach her eyes.
But he had seen it. He knew.
No, she didn’t feel guilty.
And if he knew... Oh, if Thomas knew, he wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Not like when she had quietly told him she was lonely.
Not when she had asked him if he still thought she was beautiful and he’d said yes without even looking at her, asking why she had doubted it.
Not like when she’d said she missed him, and he looked at her like she was insane, because they lived together, and half the time they even worked together at the church, so how could she miss him?
On the nightstand, she saw her phone light up.
Michael stirred in the bed, his eyes opening, but he didn’t make a sound.
She didn’t answer the phone because she couldn’t bear to speak to anyone. But it was late, and if she was starting to get calls...