I see. I am the woman between. I shall be the one who holds her secret and passes it on.

3 February

It is a glum, drear morning. I can barely hold up this pen, I feel so ill. Often of late, I look up from what I do and find Sue’s attentive gaze on me as though I were the portal through to what she would enter, but does not know which part to push against. And lately, I look back direct at her, so see the trace of my own face cross in hers, like the shadow of a swallow flying down the lawn.

5 February

Tonight, the sky muddies upon closing. The fierce, bright clouds underlit by the dwindling light in the west have suddenly collapsed, the one into the other.

I think I can hear my heart once more start her patter. I have taken his two letters and smoothed them flat beside me. Here is no ordinary love story, I think. No ordinary lover. I can turn to him, now, a little—and begin to hope again. There are days I think to see beyond my sorrow, my soul racing out into that clouded aspect, singing above the waving tops of the trees: Let me live out this glory!

Let me love. Let me love and let me be able to write it down. All of it. Let me write.

Grange House

10 February

Ludlow,

All is cleared.

I will be your history. I will be your place.

Nell

15 February

I have no letter from Ludlow Thomas.

A winter sky this morning, clear and cut, and cold as my heart. The frozen waves round-stitch the shore in binding loops of water, curling their icy arms about the rock.

17 February

No letter. A ghastly countenance of sky. George brings wild summer into this frosted room, the balsam logs in his arms holding the sharp, glad calls of wood swallows and the shade of the deep trees, though my brother does not smile.

I have sent him another letter, saying “Come.”

18 February

Gray fog all about—as if the spirits breathe upon the glass of the afternoon. I was ill again this morning. Glad to have her lord returned, Susannah plays the lady of the house, organizing us all into the ordinary patterns that replicate a life, a family—no.

How am I to tell my sister?

27 February

The black water of the harbor. He is to come. Perhaps I will sail away with him after all.

5 March

Tomorrow.

6 March

I did not like to smile too greatly, but when I heard his voice in the hallway, I did lift my head up like a wren upon her bough. He entered and at first could not see where I sat, back here against the window, and so, thinking the room empty, he softly pulled shut the door behind him. I sprang from off the seat and was halfway to the door after him, when, lo, it swung open once more and George appeared.