Christmas in Hawthorn Bay

“Ethan will take care of everything,” Nora said numbly as she took Maggie’s hand. She felt like the recording of a person, programmed to speak words she didn’t even understand, much less believe.

Maggie’s face was so white. Was that what happened when you lost too much blood? Nora wanted to ask Ethan, but she didn’t want Maggie to hear the answer.

She didn’t want to hear the answer, either.

Ethan had positioned himself between Maggie’s knees. He’d opened some of the water, and poured it onto a small towel. He must have been hurting her, because Maggie’s grip on Nora’s hand kept tightening, until she thought the bones might break.

“Ethan will fix it.” She realized she was speaking as much to Ethan as to Maggie, telling him that he had no choice, he had to make this right. “Ethan won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I don’t care about me,” Maggie said, shutting her eyes and squeezing her fingers again. “Just be sure the baby is all right, that’s all that matters.”

Nora nodded. “Yes. Of course the baby—both of you will be fine.”

“You’ve got to relax, Maggie.” Ethan shook his head. “I need you to relax so I can find out what’s going on.” He glanced at Nora, the consummate doctor now, all business and no emotion. “Talk to her,” he said.

About what? About the blood? About the cell phone that was no more useful than a lump of scrap metal? About the miles of ocean that stretched out all the way to the horizon?

Over by the boat, more gulls were arriving, screaming overhead and diving for crumbs, like vultures.

She swallowed, her mind casting about. “Did you ever tell Ethan why you call the baby Colin, Maggie? Did you ever tell him about Cornwall?”

Amazingly, she seemed to have hit on the right subject. Maggie seemed to be trying to smile. “We were happy in Cornwall,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Nora nodded. It had been a lovely summer—and it was, she thought, the only time she’d ever seen Maggie completely relax. It was the only time the underlying vulnerability had seemed to vanish.

“You tell him, Nora.” Maggie nudged her hand. “Tell Ethan about Colin.”

Ethan wasn’t listening, Nora knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk. It was a good memory, and it would at least distract Maggie for a minute or two.

“When we graduated last spring, my parents gave us a trip to England,” she began awkwardly. She smiled down at Maggie. “Four whole months abroad, just the two of us. We couldn’t believe our luck.”

Maggie shut her eyes. “And all thanks to Jack,” she said with a hint of her normal dry sarcasm.

Nora let that part go. Ethan didn’t need to hear about Jack Killian. But it was true—the trip had been partly to celebrate their high-school graduation, and partly, Nora’s parents hoped, to help Nora get over the broken heart handed her by Black Jack Killian.

“We liked London,” she went on. “But we really fell in love with Cornwall, didn’t we, Maggie?”

Maggie’s eyes were still shut, but she nodded, just a fraction of an inch, and she once again tried to smile. It had shocked Nora to see Maggie, whose punk sassiness seemed much better suited to the London club scene, bloom like an English rose among the brutal cliffs, stoic stone houses and secret, windswept gardens of Cornwall.

But from their first night in the West Country, which they’d spent in a tiny fishing village that echoed with the cries of cormorants and the strange, musical accents of the locals, Maggie had clearly been at home.

“We met Colin Trenwith in Cornwall,” Nora said. “I think it was love at first sight for Maggie.”

Finally, Ethan looked up. Nora knew he’d always thought Colin might be the name of the baby’s father.

She smiled. “Or at least we met his ghost,” she added. “Maggie found his tombstone. He was a pirate who died in the 1700s. I think she fell in love with that name, right from the start.”

Ethan blinked behind his glasses, then returned to his work.

Nora tried not to see what he was doing. Instead she pictured Maggie, kneeling in front of the tilted tombstone in that half-forgotten cemetery overlooking the Atlantic.

“Nora, listen,” she’d called out excitedly. “Colin Trenwith, 1756–1775. Once a Pirate, Twice a Father, Now at Rest with his Lord.” She’d run her fingers over the carving. “Isn’t that the most poetic epitaph you’ve ever heard?”

Maggie hadn’t been able to tear herself away. She’d begged Nora to linger another week in Cornwall, and then another. They’d changed their tickets, and, cloaked and hooded against the wind, they’d hiked every day to the graveyard.

While Nora read, Maggie used Colin’s stone as a backrest and invented romantic stories about the boy who had packed so much life into his nineteen short years.

It was there, in that cemetery, that Nora had realized her parents were right—a new perspective had been just what she needed. Jack Killian had hurt her, yes, but her heartache was neither as immense as the Atlantic beside these ancient tombstones, nor as permanent as the deaths recorded on them.

And it was there, in that cemetery, breaking off impulsively in the middle of a tragic tale, that Maggie had first confessed her secret.

She was pregnant.

She was going to name her son Colin.

And she was never going home to Hawthorn Bay again.

So far, she hadn’t. Though they’d left England, having run out of money, they hadn’t gone home. They’d taken a bus from New York’s airport to small-town Maine and found menial jobs here, so that Maggie could have her baby in secret. Nora had called her parents, to let them know they were all right, though for Maggie’s sake she couldn’t tell them exactly where they were.

Maggie hadn’t called her family at all.

“We have to get back to the mainland,” Ethan interrupted tersely. “Right away. We have to get her back on the boat.”

Maggie cried out and her body jackknifed, as if someone had stabbed her from the inside.

“No,” she said, her voice tortured. “No. Do it here. The baby’s coming, Ethan. It’s too late to go back.”

Nora balanced herself with one hand on the wet sand. “Is it true? Is the baby coming?”

He nodded. “She’s already seven centimeters.” He gazed down at Maggie. “You must have been having contractions all morning, you little fool.”

Maggie shifted her head on the beach towel, grimacing. “Just twinges. Braxton-Hicks, I thought.”

Nora knew what that meant. When she’d agreed to stay in Maine with Maggie until the baby was born, she’d agreed to be her labor coach. Braxton-Hicks. False labour. Not uncommon in the weeks prior to delivery.

Maggie looked at Nora, as if she needed absolution for the sin of such dangerous foolishness. “Honestly, I didn’t think— Everyone says it takes so long the first time—”

“Well, it’s not going to take long for you.” Ethan sounded tense. “We have to get you back on the boat. Even if the baby is born there, we have to do it.”

Nora twitched her brows together, silently asking the question. Why? Why did they have to take such a risk? Surely it was safer here, where they at least had solid ground under their feet. Why go?

For answer, Ethan simply held up his hand. It was covered in blood, from fingertip to wrist, like a red rubber glove.

Nora felt the beach tilt. She thought for a minute she might pass out. It wasn’t just the baby coming early, then. Maggie was in real trouble. She was losing too much blood.

Maggie must have seen Ethan’s hand, too, though they both thought her eyes had been closed. Her whole body clenched, and then once again she reached for Nora’s fingers.

“Nora. Listen to me. If anything happens, I want you to take the baby.”