Kat is wearing a dress of pale blue that is too small for her, and in her arms is a black-haired doll whose porcelain face has a cracked cheek. The child’s tawny eyes, so like her father’s, seem bright and knowing, as though there is great knowledge behind them—impossible, I know, for a child of only five. Kat’s heart-shaped face is framed by straight hair the color of cinnamon. She stares up at me in neither annoyance nor curiosity nor delight.

“Let’s go, Kat.” Martin motions with his hand for Kat to come. The child moves to stand by her father, but her gaze stays on me.

“I baked you folks a little wedding cake,” Mrs. Lewis says. “Since you’re not honeymooning or anything.” She reaches behind her to a pedestal table and a small wicker basket covered with a paisley cloth.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lewis.” Martin takes the basket from her.

I’m touched. And a little taken aback. A wedding cake? For Martin and me? I don’t feel much like a bride. “Yes, thank you,” I manage. “That’s very kind.”

“You’re English.” Mrs. Lewis’s gaze is full of questions.

“Irish.”

“Oh.”

The woman seems loath to let me leave, as if there is something else she wants to ask me. Or tell me. But Martin is ushering Kat away from Mrs. Lewis’s door, and as he does so, he introduces his daughter to me.

“Kat, this is your new mother,” he says, nodding toward me as we turn for the front door.

Kat, whose gaze has stayed on me, blinks slowly.

“I’m so very happy to meet you, Kat.”

The child says nothing.

“Thank you again, Mrs. Lewis,” Martin calls over his shoulder. “Just add what I owe you to my final bill. Oh, and here are your keys.” He stretches out his arm and the woman takes a step forward.

Mrs. Lewis looks fondly down at Kat as she takes the key ring. “Good-bye, Katharine. Come back and visit me?”

The child says not a word as Martin reaches for the doorknob.

Mrs. Lewis turns her attention back to me. “Please do come back and bring the child for a visit,” she says, her gaze like steel. “Anytime.”

“Thank you again for the cake,” I reply, unnerved by the woman’s stare.

Mrs. Lewis only nods and watches us leave. She is still standing at the threshold of the open door as we turn to begin the hill’s descent.

Her image is lost in a swirl of fog as we walk away.

4

The carriage will take us as far as the Hyde Street cable-car stop a mile away, Martin explains. As we ride, Martin tells Kat that I’ve come a long way to be her mother and that he expects her to be a good girl for me. He doesn’t want to come home from any of his travels to the news that she hasn’t been on her best behavior.

“I’m sure we’ll get along fine,” I say reassuringly, very much wanting Kat not to be afraid of me. “There were dozens of tots where I lived back home in Ireland, Kat. I used to help my mam mind some of them for the mothers who worked with their husbands with the nets. I lived in a fishing village.”