“No,” he says simply.

We head back downstairs. The foyer is now empty of travel bags and trunks. In the sitting room we retake our places, my new husband and I—Martin in an armchair and me across from him on the sofa closest to the fireplace.

“Watching you with Kat I would’ve guessed you’ve been a mother before,” he says, in an almost complimentary tone. It pierces me nonetheless.

“I helped my mam mind neighborhood children, like I said earlier.”

We are quiet for a moment.

“Kat has outgrown her clothes,” I tell him.

“We’ll buy her some new things tomorrow.” He glances at the worn shirtwaist and skirt I’m wearing. “I take it you need new clothes, too.”

“I don’t need much. Just a dress or two.”

A few more seconds of silence.

“We’ve a lot to take care of tomorrow. We should turn in.” He reaches for the gas key at the side of the fireplace and turns off the flame. The coziness of the room fades a bit.

We ascend the stairs. On the second floor, the door is open to the bedroom where my bags are; I can see them by the bedstead. Everything in the room that is visible from where I stand on the landing is cast in a peach radiance from the gas fire that has been turned on to chase away the chill.

I turn to Martin.

“Good night,” he says, without any hint at all in his voice that he is displeased with my one condition to marrying him. He’d wanted a façade of a marriage, and that was fine with me. I know what that word means: façade. It’s in my da’s word book. It’s how you describe something that appears to be one thing from a distance but is something else when you look closely. An illusion is what Martin said he wanted and I’d replied I would see to it that he had it, which is why I asked if we might keep separate beds until we developed at least a small degree of affection one for the other. He had—surprisingly—agreed.

I wish Martin a good night, too. And then I walk to the bedroom next to Kat’s, and he to the one across from it.

He doesn’t look back at me, not once.

5

Sleep comes to me in fits and starts my first night as Mrs. Hocking. I awaken every five minutes, it seems. At some point during the night I think I hear Martin moving about and perhaps even the click of the front door latch, but I don’t rise to investigate. I don’t want him thinking I’ve already changed my mind regarding which room I want to sleep in. I haven’t. Martin is stunning and the thought of him taking me to his bed makes my insides ache, but I won’t be giving myself over to a man—body and soul—until I truly know him. I won’t be making the same mistake twice.

Dawn’s light is spilling onto the floor through a thin opening between window blind and glass when my eyes flutter open at daybreak. San Francisco is not as cold in March as other places I have lived, but there is a distinct chill in the room that reminds me of Donaghadee, and I half expect to catch a whiff of a peat fire and Mam’s hot soda bread wafting up from downstairs.