Chapter 3: The Northern Shore
The train ride to Portland was five hours of slate-gray rain drumming against double-paned glass.
Elena sat with her forehead pressed against the cool window, watching the brick tenements of Connecticut dissolve into the rocky, pine-covered ridges of southern Maine. Every time the carriage swayed, a faint flutter in her stomach reminded her that she was no longer traveling alone. She bought a paper cup of ginger tea from the dining car and sipped it slowly, counting her breaths to keep the morning sickness from taking hold.
Nora met her at the small coastal depot in a rusted 2008 Subaru Outback that smelled of cedar shavings, damp dog, and lavender soap.
At sixty, Nora possessed the lean, weathered grace of a woman who had worked thirty years in museum conservation. She did not offer theatrical hugs or demanding inquiries. She took the leather duffel bag, placed a wool blanket across Elena’s lap, and turned the heater up to high.
"The woodstove is burning, Ellie," Nora said, guiding the car through the winding coastal switchbacks toward Blue Hill. "I picked up three dozen farm eggs and a gallon of raw milk from the Miller place. You look like a ghost that forgot how to sleep."
"I left him, Nora," Elena said, her voice thin as parchment.
"I gathered," Nora replied, her eyes steady on the winding road. "A man who lets a woman arrive in Maine with only an overnight bag in October is either dead or a fool. And Dante Moretti never struck me as dead."
"He was with someone else in our living room."
May you like
Nora’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel, but her profile remained calm, weathered by the ancient stoicism of women who had watched generations of men lose themselves to sea and drink.
"Then he is the fool," Nora said softly. "And you have work to do. Eat first. Rest second. The world will still be broken tomorrow morning, but you’ll have the marrow to face it."
