The Cottage at Glass Beach Read Online Free

far as you need it to be.”
    T hat evening, as the girls played Go Fish before the fire, Nora walked down to the beach. It was after sunset, the day fading in the coolness of twilight. Malcolm was somewhere on the other side of that body of water, far south, out of sight, but not out of mind. A spiraled piece of shell lay at her feet, bone white, split open to its inner workings. She fingered the edge, worn smooth by the waves.
    The beach’s uneven surface made it difficult to find the proper footing, a goose-necked barnacle here, an angled rock there, a slick of kelp and seaweed, large pieces of driftwood tossed high during a storm, as if they weighed nothing at all. The tide pulled back from the shore with a mesmerizing rhythm, carrying rock and shell fragments as it went. It seemed as if she and the girls had been on the island for weeks, not hours, her life in Boston, her life with Malcolm, receding with the tide. And yet the problems had stowed away on the journey; they refused to be left behind. She sighed, trying to clear her mind, to no avail.
    The girls’ voices rang across the bluffs through the open window as they played another round of cards. Sound carried near the water, when the wind was still. “You cheated. Cheater! Cheater!” Annie cried.
    Nora pressed her fingers to her temples.
    Cheater. Cheater .
    She should go in. She should tell them to stop.
    But she stayed there a moment longer, drawing long breaths in tandem with the waves that crept closer, closer still. One tear after another ran down her cheeks and fell into the ocean, small and insignificant in that great body of water, yet a part of it too, salt-tinged and grieving, finding their way home.

Chapter Two
    M aire noticed the SUV with Massachusetts plates as she passed the cottage the next morning. At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. It was early, before dawn, a time of shifting shapes and shadows. She’d been up all night for the birth of Sheila O’Brien’s first child. A twenty-four-hour labor, exhausting for everyone, and yet the baby, a boy, was healthy—Bevan, seven pounds, five ounces, with one of the strongest sets of lungs she’d ever heard. Maire was getting on in years for this sort of thing, sixty that spring, but she couldn’t think about retiring. The islanders needed her, and she needed the work.
    Though Burke’s Island wasn’t exactly having a baby boom, a birth here and there kept her busy, not only with deliveries but with prenatal care. Most island women opted for home births, given the difficulty of traveling to the hospital on the mainland, and Maire was the person they turned to, as they had to her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother before her, generations of women at Cliff House, bringing new life into the world. With Joe and Jamie gone, she was the only one left at the point. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get used to it, this afterlife filled with interminable hours and silences. She’d been a good wife and mother in that house, and now, given the opportunity, she would be a good aunt too.
    Her heart quickened at the thought of what the presence of the SUV meant: her niece, Nora, had returned to the island. Maire was surprised and relieved. Nora must have received her letter. Polly had seen Patrick’s obituary in the Boston paper, and Maire had decided to try writing to Nora again. Previous attempts at communication had gone through Patrick, and, she supposed, had never reached their intended recipient. Years of birthday, Saint Patrick’s Day, and Christmas cards, a few bills tucked inside. Who knew what he’d done with them? She didn’t blame him. She knew that by writing, she revived memories he wanted to forget, and yet there was Nora to consider. There had always been Nora to consider. Nora, who deserved to know the truth, such as it was.
    No lights shone in the cottage at that early hour, and yet they would