The tide was high and the ocean, as far as they could see, was roiling violently. It was the kind of sea that foundered ships. They sat on a bench, their hands buried into the pockets of their coats. Only a few days ago he and Alma had leapt into the same sea. The elements were ever changing, time rolled on, it would be winter soon and then, later, it would be warm again.

“I think I’m pregnant already,” Effie said.

He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.

“I’m pregnant,” she said. “I mean, I think so. I should’ve had my period last week.”

“Your period,” he repeated stupidly. He understood next to nothing about this. It involved blood, and was governed, like tides and werewolves, by the moon.

“I could be wrong,” she said. “It could be the change in climate, or my schedule. Or all the drinking. I don’t know. But I’m usually so regular.”

She looked at him, tentative, pulling a lock of hair behind her ear, and it began to dawn on him what she was saying. “Effie,” he said, sitting up straighter. He put his arm around her shoulder, and placed his hand on her stomach. “Do you really think so?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” she said. “I wanted to see the doctor first. But it’s been on my mind. It might be nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” he said. “I can feel it.” He kissed her head and drew her to him, and she let him. They were going to have a baby. She belonged to him. Nothing else mattered. Her shoulders began to tremble, and she put her hand over her mouth and cried.

After supper that evening, he asked if he could come to bed with her. Just to sleep beside her, nothing more. Her tone, when she replied, was not angry or resentful, only tired. “I just want to be alone tonight,” she said.

But sometime in the night, he woke to her weight on the bed. She got in under the rose-patterned duvet, and he opened his arms to her. She was in her slip. She laid her head on his chest, her bare leg over his thighs. He said nothing. Questioned nothing. He held her. Lifted her slip to feel her skin. Felt the expectation in her muscles. He tugged her underwear off her hips, and she helped him, and quietly, they made love.

“Tomorrow,” she whispered afterward. “Let’s go home.”

Yes, he said. And then: “I love you, Effie.”

“I know you do,” she said.