Kathleen O'Brien - Christmas in Hawthorn Bay

“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.”

Nora pulled back instinctively, as if the words had burned her. Her heart was beating triple time, and her flesh felt cold.

“Don’t talk like that, Megs,” she said. She forced a teasing note into her voice. “It’s absurd. I know you love melodrama, but this isn’t the time. You need to focus on your breathing.”

“Not yet.” Maggie’s gaze bore into hers. “If it’s absurd, we’ll all have a good laugh about it later. But just in case. I want you to promise me that you’ll take the baby.”

Ethan was wrapping the towels around her. He must have done something that hurt. Maggie cried out, and her legs stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Nora saw a bead of sweat make its way down his hairline and mingle with a smear of blood on his cheek.

“Promise me, Nora.”

“Okay,” Nora said as she began to shiver. “Okay, Maggie, I promise. Now please. Focus.”

“And you must never let my parents know. About Colin. They can’t have him. My father—”

Maggie bent over again, making a sound like a small animal.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Nora, you have to help me carry her.”

When had Ethan stood up? Nora felt confused. This was a nightmare, where things happened in confusing, nonsequential jerks. But she had her part to play in the nightmare, too, so she struggled to her feet, though she no could longer feel them or trust that they were rigid enough to carry her own weight, let alone a bleeding woman and an unborn baby.

Maggie was so light, though, frighteningly light, as if part of her had bled away into the beach. They tried not to jostle her, but once or twice she seemed to pass out, then come back to consciousness with a groan.

Ethan cradled her in his arms while Nora made a pallet out of blood-soaked beach towels on the floor of the cockpit. As they placed her on it, Maggie seemed to rally a little. With one hand that, though it shook, seemed surprisingly strong, she pulled off the chain that held the mysterious gold ring.

She held it out to Nora.

“For you,” she said. Her voice seemed slurred. “For Colin.”

Nora took it, and her first tear fell.

Colin Trenwith.

Once a pirate, twice a father, now at rest with his Lord.

While Ethan towed the boat out to deeper water, Nora chanted the epitaph silently, over and over, like a prayer.

And then, with the words still circling through her mind, like a slender chain wrapping its fractured pieces together, Nora watched Ethan climb into the little boat, and the three of them set sail for home.

Eleven years later

MOTHERHOOD, NORA CARSON decided as she retreated to the kitchen, leaving her eleven-year-old son pouting in the living room, was not for the faint of heart.

Nora had three jobs—mayor of Hawthorn Bay, co-owner of Heron Hill Preserves and mom to Colin Trenwith Carson.