go quiet.” Both Wolf Rock and Longships winked from a distance. Every time the light faded, she had the clearest view of the sky above.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “What is it?”
“It’s called the Milky Way.” He might not be able to give her a car, but he could give her the stars. “It’s our galaxy. And there are constellations too. Look, over there is the Plough. Cassiopeia just below. Next month you’ll be able to see Orion. Just look for the three bright stars in the south sky near the horizon.” He spread his hands wide like an offering. “Now it’s all yours.”
“How do you know about things like this?” she asked softly.
“My grandfather,” he said, resting a hand on her stomach. His fingertip trailed absently along the lace edge of her blouse where her coat had fallen open. “He taught himself to read because he said clever folk didn’t get taken advantage of.” He frowned. “Sliced off half of his hand when a wave struck his boat one day. Not too clever, was it?”
Despite her trying to hold them, her giggles erupted. “Sorry,” she said, calming herself. “Do you read a lot too?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He paused. “For a fisherman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a fisherman,” she said.
“Maybe not, but it’s hardly my dream to catch fish forever.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have any dreams,” she said, nudging his arm. “You’re not a liar, are you?”
“Everybody has dreams, Elizabeth. I just meant that only certain people’s dreams get the chance to come true.” As he turned, their noses were only inches apart. “But I’m starting to believe that maybe I’m luckier than I thought I was.”
He didn’t feel uncomfortable like he had in the past, like when he was with Francine in his bedroom and wanted her to leave. God, he hadn’t known what to do afterward. This time it felt easy. Her silence didn’t fill him with fear, and he felt no rush to fill it.
“So, what is your dream?” she asked after a while.
Shyness kept him from speaking. “You first.”
“My dream? You know it already. I want to paint. I want people to hang what I create in their homes, let it be a part of their lives.” The night air was cold, yet she sucked it in, remembering how much her father thought it a folly. “It’s not that easy, though. My father doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
“He also thinks you should get married to James.”
A certain resignation lingered in his voice, the same she had felt since the engagement was arranged. “Yeah,” she said, wondering. But she didn’t want to think or talk about James. “Now you go.”
Shadows from her eyelashes stretched across her cheek as he moved to look at her from above, long and curled and beautiful. It was possible to imagine her old in that moment, the lines of shadow as wrinkles. Any kind of life would be good enough for him, dreams fulfilled or not, if that was the face waiting for him at the other end of it.
Placing a large flat pebble on her tummy, followed by a second so that it was perfectly balanced on top, he began. “I want to build,” he told her, placing a third. “Modern buildings, nothing like what we’ve got here in Porthsennen. I want to be an architect.”
“So why don’t you do it?”
He shook his head and removed the stones from her body. “Can’t do it here, can I? I’d have to leave Porthsennen. That’s not easy for me.” She realized he was lost in the thoughts of a dream that seemed unattainable. How easily she understood. “Maybe you can hold one of your exhibitions in a building that I design.”
The idea of that future seemed comforting to Elizabeth. That version of their lives, away from Porthsennen, together and pursuing what they loved; it felt right in a way that nothing ever had before. Even the simple things, like cleaning and cooking dinner for when he returned home from work, felt like a treat to savor; doing the same for James felt like a sentence for a crime she wasn’t sure she had committed. Looking at Tom, she wondered if she was on the cusp of committing it.
“Why is this so easy?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Being with you. Talking to you.” The wind struck her as she edged forward, their faces realigned. “Why do you make me feel like anything is possible?”