The Stars Are Fire(41)

“Apparently not.”

“Your husband must have been torn.”

“Yes, he was.” But was he? Maybe not.

How might her life have been different if she hadn’t married Gene? Would she be a secretary now? An unmarried daughter, living with her mother? Might she have met someone who truly loved her?

“What are you thinking?” he asks. “You look pensive.”

Should she tell him? “I was wondering what my life might have been like had I not met Gene when I did, but then I quickly realized I wouldn’t have my children as they are, and that was the end of that.”

He is silent.

“Do you imagine alternate lives for yourself?” she asks.

“No, not really. I can’t see having another life. I wouldn’t want one.”

“You’ve worked too hard.”

“Something like that.”

She watches him return to his reading. Do the words swim on the page for him? She lights a second cigarette. If she keeps this up, she’ll become a chain-smoker. A year ago, Grace discovered, during a hectic morning, that she’d left a cigarette burning on the edge of the bathroom sink while another was going in an ashtray in the kitchen, and the realization shook her. She vowed to be more careful. Again, she looks over at Aidan and discovers he is again staring at her.

She smiles, and he looks away.

She crosses her legs, aware of a silky rustle. She puts out her cigarette. She ought to go up.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” he asks.

“Pretty much the same as today. I thought I’d start looking for work, but they say the storm we’re expecting will be a bad one. I don’t want to leave my mother with the kids alone.”

“I’ll be here,” he says.

“Thank you, but I think I’ll start looking on Monday. Fresh start.”

He rolls his sleeves, and she can see from the dial on his watch that it’s well after nine. She would stay until one in the morning if he asked her to. He does want her to stay, she can feel it.

But after another minute, Aidan says, “I suppose I’ll take my book to bed now.”

“Good night then,” she says.

He stands and is careful not to brush against her.

She feels bereft even before he has left the room.


Grace lies on her four-poster, the children asleep in the room with her. She stares at the ceiling and feels heat rise and then drain from her face. She wants to put her mouth to Aidan’s skin. She wants him to run his fingers through her hair. That’s all. Does there have to be more? There must, because she wouldn’t feel like this. She understands that the act might be wrong, but the desire for it is not.


In the morning, Grace bundles the children into their winter woolens, and together she and Claire walk down the gravel lane. Grace shows Tom, in her arms, the ocean. She wonders if he remembers it from the night of the fire, if he will always carry with him a vestigial love for or fear of the sea. What will the hideous night do to Claire? Or did the fact that their mother held them tight through the natural horrors give them a protective coating that will serve them well?

The snow crust has grown soft, which makes walking easier. Grace reminds Claire to look both ways before they cross the coast road, even though there hasn’t been a vehicle on it for half an hour. On the other side, they struggle over low prickly bushes, cut grass, and mounds of snow-covered sand. Claire loses a boot, which Grace finds and puts over Claire’s wet sock. Because the tide is low, the beach gravel and the sea’s leavings are plentiful. When she was a girl, Grace used to search for sea glass among the pebbles. She shows Claire what to look for and notes as she does that there are hundreds of emeralds strewn among the debris. When she bends to look, she discovers they are small bits of emerald sea glass, each the size of a stone in a ring. There are no other colors that day, no other shapes. It’s not a configuration she’s ever seen before. What caused this unique and even offering?

“Claire,” she says, “see these little bits? They’re sea jewels. Very valuable. Let’s look for them and put them in this handkerchief, and when we go back, we’ll make jewelry.”

Claire’s eyes widen. She has seen the strings of jewelry hanging from her mother’s dressing table. Grace sets Tom on a tuft of sand right next to them, and as she searches for emeralds herself, she keeps a close eye on Claire. But her daughter seems to have intuited that jewels are not to be eaten. She can’t pick the emeralds up with her mittens so drops the knitted items where she stands and grasps as many bits of color as she can find. When she hands the treasures to her mother to put into the handkerchief, there are just as many pebbles as pieces of sea glass. Tom has a shell that occupies him. Grace stands to stretch her legs and glances up at the house on the hill, which she has never seen from this vantage point. She catches Aidan, hands in his pockets, looking at her and the children. She waves. She kneels next to her daughter.

When they have collected all the gems that will fit into the handkerchief, Claire’s fingers are red with cold. Grace ties up the bundle and puts it into her pocket. “Let’s get your mittens on and go up and make some jewelry. We’ll ask Grammy how to do it.”

Tom, who has poured a shell full of beach over his face, has sand stuck to his nostrils and tongue. Grace hefts him into her arms and glances up again at the turret window. Aidan isn’t there.