with masses of little flowers. Waste of time, the baby won’t care, he wanted to tell her. But he knew why she did it: She was impatient too, and this eased the waiting. The baby will only break your heart, he wanted to say, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She was as unwilling to listen as he was to see.
And back into the basket, wool this time: another bonnet, half knitted. He did some arithmetic—he learned enough from Rachel to perform that count—and calculated that the baby would be born in winter, so yes, they needed a warm hat. And warm, woolen stockings, their ends still hooked around needles. Tiny little stockings, to warm those precious little legs. Only partly made, like the baby.
He arranged them below the dress.
A baby. A half-made shadow baby.
This is what she wanted to tell him, although behind his willful stupidity, he already knew. He could have looked at a calendar and counted the days. He could have wondered why in the past month she had never needed a few nights alone. Or why she rested most afternoons now, when she never had in London. Or why he saw her eating at odd hours and sometimes not eating at all. He could have wondered any of those things, but he had not, because he had not wanted to know. He who wanted to know everything did not want to know this.
“I thought Charles for a boy,” she said, in a voice too thin to be hers. “Maybe Charlotte for a girl, or something else. If you agree.”
“So you are sure?”
“It is still early but the signs are there and—”
“Are you sure or are you not sure?” His voice sounded harsh to his own ears.
“I’m sure,” she said in half a voice. She swallowed and coughed and tried again. “I’m sure.”
This was his. It could be. All of it. This lovely woman, who made his heart swell and brought him peace. This baby. This house. This family. All of it—laid out for him on a silver platter. His to have, his to hold, his to love, his to lose.
All he had to do was take it. Turn around, take three steps, pull her into his arms, and say yes.
He didn’t move.
“You got what you wanted,” he said.
“I want a husband.” Her voice was harder than usual, and sharp and trembling. He turned to face her. He could be that husband. He could stay. He simply had to pull her into his arms and say yes. “A whole one. Not one who is always leaving me.”
But his feet didn’t move. His arms didn’t move. He opened his mouth to say, “I am your husband,” but what came out was, “I need to go to Birmingham.”
And he saw it then: He saw the moment he lost her.
Loving, warm, welcoming, steadfast Cassandra, who had taught him how to use his heart again, who had brought joy to his days and hope to his plans: She turned on him before his very eyes. Withdrew inside herself, pulled away.
She had felt him like lightning. He had felt her like a fire in winter.
And now her warm welcome was gone.
“Then go,” she said. “Go and stay gone. I’m not keeping you here.”
She pushed past him, gathered up the shadow baby, her movements rough and awkward as she shoved the fabric back into the basket. And when she straightened and looked at him, a stranger lay behind those changeable eyes.
“You’re right: You aren’t my husband. We just happen to be married. So if you’re going to leave, you may as well leave now. You’ve had one foot out the door since you arrived anyway.”
She was sending him away. Of course she was. She had never needed him; she had only wanted a child. Those plans—yes, the dutiful wife. What a hypocrite she was: accusing him of always leaving her, when she had been leaving him too. Once the baby came, she would have no time for him and whatever they had would have crumbled. She didn’t mean to be cruel, but she had never truly loved him. It was his own fault, for being so hard to love.
No matter. They had what they wanted. This is what they had agreed. Separate lives: him with his work in Birmingham, her with her baby. This had been nothing but a foolish interlude. Real life called. Five minutes in his factory, in the life he had forged from nothing, and he’d know himself again and