When Grace was a girl, she had always found solace in the ocean. Her childhood home was a walk away from Dublin's rocky shore, and when she was anxious or sad she would run down her cobblestone street until she reached the end, hop the wall into the grass that tickled her ankles, and then down the rickety and weathered wooden stairs that led to the sand. She would carefully set her shoes on the bottom step, and no matter how cold it was, let the foamy surf wash over her toes, letting her troubles wash back out with the waves.
Something about the sheer size of the ocean and the way its sound enveloped all around it made her feel that her problems were small. She could breathe better by the sea, with the air pungent and clean.
Many thing in Grace's life had changed since those days, but she was grateful to find that her feelings about the sea hadn't.
Her blonde hair was wrapped in a scarf, but tendrils escaped and whipped in the wind as she stood, her bare feet cooled by the Atlantic. Though the water in June was the warmest it would ever be, it still caused her to flinch the first time it covered her toes. She looked down, wondering vaguely how long it would be until she could no longer see them - until her belly expanded and there was no further denying the truth of her condition.
She hadn't bothered telling Clive. It would only salt the wound of her leaving, and she felt it too cruel to someone who'd been good to her. It wasn't his fault.
What did it say about her, about Grace Burgess, that the two men who'd loved her most had fallen in love with her under false pretenses? Tommy had fallen in love with a pretty barmaid, Clive with a rich Irish girl living in New York.
These were the ugly thoughts that taunted her when she was alone. But here, by the sea, she remembered. I've seen you, and you've seen me. She believed that. Even if he hadn't known the entire truth then, it didn't matter. He'd seen her. Tommy had seen her. And even after everything, he still loved her. She pressed her hand to her still flat stomach, knowing that the being inside of her was the product of love. Nothing else mattered.
His warm hands enclosed hers, his arms around her shoulders. She snuggled into him, letting him absorb the breeze. "You're going to get your fine leather shoes wet," she teased, turning to look at him and finding herself unable to resist the temptation of kissing his cold cheek.
"Not all of us have feet as lovely as yours," he murmured in her ear, making her laugh. "I'll buy new shoes."
"I thought you were going to wait on the steps," she said, though she had no intention of allowing him to return. He said nothing, but tightened his hold on her and nuzzled his face into her neck. They stood listening to the ocean, absorbing each other's body heat, allowing the peace to wash over them.
Grace imagined herself as a little girl again, standing in this same spot, wondering where life would take her. She couldn't have predicted this. Years before she never would have known she wanted it. It wasn't the kind of life her mother would have been proud of, and as a child that would have destroyed her, but today those doubts were cast out with the waves. She had never brought Clive here, to the place where she'd grown up. He was much too cosmopolitan for it. But when Tommy had asked her where she wanted to go until the storm was over, this was the only place she could think of. Her mother and father were gone, had been for years, but Dublin was still home - more than New York, more than Birmingham.
They holed up at an inn just blocks away from Grace's childhood home, doing nothing but talking, filling in the spaces of the past two years while they drank tea in bed under a ragged quilt. Once they had exhausted the topic of their time apart, they delved further into the past. Being in Ireland made it hard for Grace not to reminisce. Tommy listened patiently while she rambled on about her childhood, which was so vastly different than his. Growing up an only child, losing her mother at a young age, and being so often left to her own devices while her father was keeping the streets of Dublin safe. I wonder what he would say, she whispered, wax pooling underneath the single candle that lit their room. I wonder what he would think about what I've become.
Are you happy? Tommy asked, his voice strained with a vulnerability she so rarely saw in him.
I'm happy, she said, taking his hand, smiling softly to ease his worry.
Then, if he's as good a father as you've told me, he would be proud.
Back in the present, she was starting to believe that. Her father had raised her to be independent - had required it of her. The years she'd spent trying to create a life in his image had brought nothing but disappointment - perhaps this was what he would have wanted for her all along. She smiled at the thought of her father giving his blessing for her to marry a gangster like Tommy. For a moment, she thought she could hear his laughter.
"I love you, Grace," Tommy rumbled, his lips brushing her ear.
"I love you, Thomas," she replied.
In the face of that truth, everything else was small.