Still, as 1905 becomes 1906, it is the first turn of a year since Da died that I am not unhappy with the New Year’s prospects. I am grateful to have Kat to raise and love, and this fine house to live in, and I’m even content with my companion of a spouse. Martin has been hard to figure out, but he’s a gentleman who provides adequately and who has never laid a hard hand on me. And he lets me mother Kat however I want to. I’m certain now that what I thought from the very beginning is true. Martin has decided he is finished with love. Perhaps even finished with love for his daughter, as Mrs. Lewis first suggested. He is done with loving anyone. This is his one major flaw, that he let what happened crush his willingness to love other people again. I don’t know what guides his heart when it comes to his kindness toward his cousin Belinda. Perhaps it is duty or guilt. But it can’t be love.

What a pathetic creature he is, I tell myself when I toast the first day of the New Year alone. Martin is away on business even though it is a holiday and surely no one will want him to come calling. I pity him. I do. And I pity my sweet Kat, who will grow up without the love of a father if Martin lets his grief keep him to his ways. I shall love her doubly the rest of my life to make up for it.

I spend January and February learning to fully embrace this truth that Martin has no emotional attachment to Kat and me, and perhaps never will. As March rolls in with its hints of spring, I know I must resolve to be content without any promise of Martin ever changing. I begin to remind myself every day of all that I have: Kat, this house, food to eat, nice clothes, a safe and warm bed, books to read, a garden to keep, a fine kitchen to bake and cook in, a view of the sea within walking distance, warm fires in the hearth, porcelain teacups, fountain pens full of ink, and a spouse who does not beat me.

All of this is enough, I tell myself, over and over. When I compare what I used to have to what I have now, surely it is.

As our first wedding anniversary arrives with barely a moment of recognition on Martin’s part, I vow to wake up every morning—for the rest of my days—telling myself that what I have is enough. When Mam writes to me on the occasion of my first anniversary and asks how I am faring, I write back that I am as happy as I’ve ever been, because I am. We do not speak of the past. What is the point of it now?

March slides into April. Martin is away more than usual but I don’t care. Kat and I fill the days on our own, and I am pleased to see that she is now speaking whispered sentences to me—whole ones—off and on all day long. It’s as if she, too, has come to some kind of agreement with the hand she has been dealt and has reckoned me as an acceptable consolation for her other losses. She says things like “I don’t want eggs” and “I like the blue carousel horse” and “I need new books.” Martin is more phantom than anything else, and yet the house is calm and peaceful and warm.