In her last letter to me, she wrote of a family who had come to stay at the hotel, the Woodcocks from Brooklyn, New York. “Mr. Woodcock is in finance. His wife was an actress when they met—she’s been on Broadway! Little Charles Woodcock is four years old—a cherub, but has been unable to walk since birth. His legs seem small and shriveled, poor darling. And his sister, Martha, she’s seven, and oh she is such a delight! She has taken a great interest in the roses and wants to learn all their names. They have booked a room for an entire month with the hopes that bathing in the springs will help poor Charles. I just know it will! Don’t you agree, Ethel?” And I found myself nodding along.

* * *

I busied myself with planning the foliage festival: horse-drawn wagon rides, apple bobbing, a pie-eating contest, and a chicken pie supper. In the evening, there would be music at the bandstand and dancing. There would even be a Charleston contest!

I grew fuller.

I watched the calendar—my time of the month came and went in July, then again in August. When I was certain, I cooked Will his favorite supper: chicken and biscuits the way his mother used to make, with triple-layer chocolate cake for dessert. I lit candles. Flitted around the house like a silly bird trying to make everything perfect. When he arrived home, I greeted him with a glass of the special apple wine that Mr. Miller, who owns the orchard, makes each Christmas and led him to the table.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“We’re celebrating,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows as he sat down. “Celebrating what?”

“It’s a birthday, of a sort.”

“It’s six months till my birthday. And yours was in May.”

“A birthday yet to come,” I said, smiling.

His eyes grew wide, and he jumped up from the table so fast that he bumped the edge and his wine spilled. “Mother,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

“Yes! A little girl.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” He hugged me tighter. “Little Brunhilda,” he chuckled.

“We’ll paint the nursery pale yellow,” I said.

“Like a buttercup?”

“Too vivid. More like lemon chiffon.”

“I have an old cradle out in the barn, the one I slept in, if you can believe it. It could probably use a coat of paint, but it should still be in excellent shape.”

* * *

The day after I told Will, I wrote my sisters with the news. Then I paid a visit to Myrtle, practically skipping down the street to tell her. I felt so light and strange as I passed each familiar house. Like an actress playing a role. I said the words to myself as I walked: “I am Mrs. Monroe from Lanesborough, and I am going to have a baby.”

The whistle blew at the woolen mill.

I passed the turnoff to South Main Street, which led into the heart of town, to the church and town green, and Will’s office. Up here on Elm, it was just big houses, almost all of them painted white, each with a tidy garden in the front. Myrtle’s house had trellised roses out front and a wide porch with a rocking chair where her husband, Felix, liked to smoke his pipe each evening.

Myrtle invited me in, and we settled at her kitchen table over tea, using her good china cups.

“Are you well, dear?” she asked. “You look feverish.”

I told her my news. She sprang up from her chair and threw her arms around me. “I’m so happy for you!” To celebrate, she cut into the pound cake she’d been saving for dinner. “Does anyone else know?”

I shook my head. “I’ve written my sisters, but other than Will, you’re the only one I’ve told.”

“When is the baby due?”

“Will has calculated her due date—March fifth.”

“Her?”

“It’s a girl. I know it is! Will doesn’t believe me, but I’m sure of it.”

“There are some things a mother just knows.” Myrtle nodded. She sank back in her chair. “A spring baby, how perfect. Born just as the leaves start to turn green and the first flowers are poking up through the snow.”

Myrtle stirred sugar into her tea. I took a bite of pound cake so sweet it made my teeth ache.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked. Her eyes lit up and she leaned forward in her chair. “When we were at the hotel in Brandenburg, I went out to the springs one afternoon on my own. I made a wish.”

Myrtle set down her spoon. “A wish?”

I forced out a little laugh. “I know, it’s silly, isn’t it? But I did. I wished for a child.”

Myrtle made a little sound, as if to speak, but no words came.

“I felt so foolish. But now… now I wonder. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, right?”

Myrtle said nothing. She just sat there, frozen, as if she were unable to move. All the color had gone from her face. She was like a wax figure.

I picked at my dense, buttery cake.

I remembered Myrtle telling me about her trip to the springs with Felix. And what she’d said after: The water gives miracles, yes, but I think it takes, too.

At last, Myrtle smiled at me, said, “March fifth. That seems far off now, but it’ll be here in no time. Think of the baby clothes we can sew! Little dresses and nightgowns. I’ll crochet a blanket for her.” She picked up her teacup, and I saw her hand was trembling.

chapter eleven

June 18, 2019

I filled a travel mug with coffee and set out for the airport in my sister’s yellow Mustang. The driver’s seat held the indentation of her small, muscular frame. An empty Diet Coke bottle rolled around on the passenger side floor. A hair scrunchie was wrapped around the gearshift. Swimming goggles were hung over the rearview mirror. The car even smelled like Lexie: warm and floral, with a sharp tang of the tea tree oil soap she used. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I missed my sister so fiercely that the longing for her became a physical pain, a throbbing I felt in my whole body.

I remembered watching her swim out from the beach at Lake Wil-more, standing on the shore as she got farther and farther away until she was just a tiny dot. Then she’d turn around, swim back, and once she was out of the water, I’d hug her tightly. “Good swim,” I’d say like I was proud, when actually I’d just been terrified she wouldn’t come back.