The cottage stood empty when Valerie arrived the next morning. She knocked twice before pushing the door open.
"Catherine?"
Silence. The bed where Catherine had lain was stripped bare, the mattress exposed. On the table sat a single cup, still half full of cold tea.
"They took her to the hospital in Barrie yesterday evening," said a voice behind her.
She turned to find Bennett standing in the doorway, his dark hair damp with mist.
"Is she..."
"She died an hour before dawn." His voice was steady, matter of fact. "Oscar sent word."
The news should have surprised her, but it didn't. She had seen death's approach in Catherine's grey pallor.
"Where's Jimmy?"
"With his grandfather. They'll bury her tomorrow." Bennett stepped into the cabin. "I came to collect her books. Thought you might be here."
She watched him gather the slim volumes from the table beside the bed.
"She enjoyed the poetry," Valerie said, needing to fill the silence.
"Yes." He tucked the books into his canvas bag. "She told me once that words were the only things that couldn't be taken away from you. Even when everything else was gone."
Outside, a dog began barking somewhere in the distance.
"I should go," she said, though she made no move toward the door.
"Should you?"
"My mother will be wondering where I've gone."
"Will she?"
Valerie picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. "You say that as if you know something about her."
"I know something about mothers who worry." He was looking out the window now, at the grey water. "Mine was the same. Every small freedom was a crisis."
"Was?"
"She died four years ago. Father the year before that." He said it flatly, the way people said things they had said too many times. "Influenza."
"I'm sorry."
"So was I." He turned from the window. "I have a boat at the dock. Would you like to see the island?"
The change of subject was abrupt, almost rude. But Valerie found she didn't mind. There was something honest about refusing to dwell.
"I don't think I should."
"That's not what I asked."
She looked at him. The light from the window caught the grey in his eyes, made them look almost silver.
"Yes," she said. "I would."
They walked to the dock in silence. The mist clung to the water's surface, transforming familiar landmarks into mysterious shapes. Bennett's boat was a simple affair, weathered but well maintained.
He helped her into the stern with casual courtesy. His hand was warm against hers, steady and sure. When he released it she found herself missing the contact.
The rhythmic sound of the oars cutting through water was hypnotic. The shoreline receded behind them, taking with it the weight of other people's expectations. For the first time in her twenty nine years, Valerie found herself truly alone with a man who wasn't a doctor or a minister.
"There," he said, nodding toward a dark shape emerging from the mist. "Home."
Mistawis Island rose from the water with its shoreline fringed by tall pines. A small dock extended into the water, and beyond it she could see a cabin that looked nothing like the Ashton's shelter. This structure was solid, well built.
Bennett tied the boat and helped her onto the dock. The wood was slick with moisture, and she gripped his arm for balance longer than strictly necessary.
"Careful," he said, his breath warm against her ear. "It's treacherous when it's wet."
The path to the cabin wound between towering trees. Inside, books lined the walls, and a fire crackled in a stone fireplace. The furniture was plain but well made. A cup sat on the table beside an open book, as if he had just stepped away from reading. The cup had a chip in its rim.
"It's not what I expected," she said.
"What did you expect?"
She thought about it. "I don't know. Something more... ascetic? A hermit's cave, perhaps."
"Disappointed?"
"No." She walked to the bookshelves, running her finger along the spines. Tennyson. Wordsworth. Names she recognized and names she didn't. "This is better."
"Tea?"
"Please."
She settled into a chair while he moved about the kitchen. He moved well in the small space, she noticed. No wasted motion. When he brought her the cup, their fingers touched, and she nearly dropped it.
"Careful. It's hot."
"Yes." She was looking at the floorboards. There was a knot in one of them shaped like an eye. "Thank you."
The silence stretched out. Outside, she could hear birds, though she couldn't have named them. Bennett sat across from her, watching. Not staring, exactly. Just present.
"You must be terribly lonely here," she said finally, because the silence was becoming uncomfortable.
"Must I?" He set his cup down with a small click. "What's the difference between loneliness and solitude, do you think?"
"I don't know. I've never had much of either."
"Loneliness is wanting company and not finding it. Solitude is choosing your own company because it's preferable to the alternative."
"That sounds like something you've thought about."
"I've had time to think."
"Which is yours?"
He was quiet for a moment. A log shifted in the fireplace.
"Both," he said. "Depending on the day."
They talked for what felt like hours. Literature, philosophy, the changing world beyond their small corner of Ontario. Bennett listened to her opinions with careful attention, challenging her thoughts without dismissing them.
It was only when her stomach growled again that she realised how much time had passed.
"I should start dinner," she said. But the prospect seemed suddenly overwhelming. The day had been perfect, almost too perfect, and she found herself struggling with the familiar weight of her deception.
How much longer could she maintain this fiction?
"Valerie?"
She looked up to find him watching her with concern. "Are you all right? You seem distant."
"I'm fine," she said quickly. Too quickly. "Just tired from all that swimming."
But Bennett's eyes were too knowing. He stepped closer, close enough that she could see the flecks of darker grey in his irises.
"You don't have to pretend with me," he said softly. "Whatever it is you're carrying, you don't have to carry it alone."
The kindness in his voice nearly undid her. She wanted to tell him everything. But the words stuck in her throat.
"It's nothing," she said. "Just woolgathering."
Bennett studied her for a long moment. Instead of pressing, he simply nodded and moved toward the kitchen.
"Why don't you rest? I'll handle dinner tonight."
She found herself curled in the chair by the fireplace, watching him move about the kitchen. The familiar sounds of cooking created a domesticity so perfect it made her chest ache.
This was what happiness felt like, she realised. This quiet contentment.
"Bennett," she said suddenly.
"Yes?"
But when he turned to look at her, flour dusting his hands and a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, she found herself speechless.
"Thank you," she said instead. "For today. For the swimming lesson. For everything."
His expression softened. "No thanks necessary. I should be thanking you."
"For what?"
"For reminding me what it feels like to share simple pleasures with someone who appreciates them."
Later, after they had eaten, Valerie found herself watching Bennett. He was reading by the fire, his lips moving slightly. The book was Tennyson, she could see from the spine. There was ink on his fingers.
"You've been writing," she said.
He looked up. "What?"
"Your fingers. Ink."
He glanced at his hand as if seeing it for the first time. "Oh. Yes. I keep a sort of journal." He wiped his fingers on his trousers, leaving a faint smear.
"I used to keep one too. When I was younger."
"What happened?"
The memory still stung. "Mother found it. She read it aloud to Cousin Constance. Every word." Valerie could still hear their laughter, thin and superior. "I burned everything I'd written after that. Never started again."
Bennett set his book aside. "That's..."
"Don't say it's terrible. Everyone says that. It was years ago."
"I was going to say it explains something."
"Explains what?"
"The way you talk. Like you're always editing yourself. Cutting out the parts that might be held against you."
She had no answer for that. It was too accurate. Outside, something was moving in the underbrush, probably a raccoon. Bennett went to the window and stood looking out at the darkness for a long moment.
"What did you used to write about?" he asked, not turning around. "In your journal?"
"Foolish things. Daydreams. Places I wanted to see." She hesitated. "Stories about falling in love. The kind with happy endings."
"And now?"
"Now I know better."
He turned from the window. The firelight caught his face, making him look younger, or perhaps just less guarded.
"Do you?"
She didn't know how to answer that either.
She felt her pulse quicken.
"Bennett," she whispered, not sure what she meant to say but needing to say something.
But before she could continue, a branch scraped against the cabin's roof. The moment shattered, and Bennett turned back to his book.
"Getting windy out there," he observed.
They read in silence until Valerie's eyelids grew heavy. When she finally rose to go to bed, Bennett caught her hand. His palm was warm, slightly rough.
"Valerie."
"Yes?"
But whatever he meant to say, he didn't say it. He just held her hand for a moment longer than necessary, then let go.
"Goodnight," he said.
In her small bedroom, she lay awake. The mattress was unfamiliar, harder than she was used to. Through the thin walls, she could hear him moving about, the soft creak of floorboards. Later, when the sounds stopped, she found herself straining to hear his breathing.
She couldn't. The walls were too thick for that. She had imagined it somehow, the intimacy of it. The house was quiet except for the wind outside, moving through the pines.
She pressed her face into the pillow and thought about the unsent letter in her mother's house. The truth she couldn't tell him. The diagnosis that had set her free, and the lie that had brought her here.
Her chest ached, but her heart beat steady. She had checked it that morning, pressing two fingers to her wrist the way Dr. Trent had shown her. Strong and regular. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Outside, something called across the lake. An owl, maybe. Or a loon. She didn't know the difference.
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