Chapter 16

The moon was full that night and the sky was scattered with a thousand shining stars as Carolyn strolled along the beach. She was wrapped in her favourite shawl, which the captain had given to her and she was fiddling with the wedding ring on her finger.

In the twenty or so minutes she'd been on the beach, she had removed it and then placed it back on her finger and repeated the process at least a dozen times. If she was honest with herself, Carolyn knew that she wore Bobby's ring out of habit, and to avoid unwanted questions when the people in town learned she'd discarded it. It wasn't worn out of love or devotion to her late husband, she knew it, Martha knew it, she had a feeling that her own parents suspected it and even the captain knew it, though he didn't press the matter.

Once again, she removed the ring and held it in the palm of her hand and then gazed out at the open ocean. Like the sky, the sea was calm and perfectly serene.

She closed her fist around the ring and drew her arm back, intending the throw the ring into the sea when a disembodied voice spoke, startling her.

"A balmy night for a stroll, isn't it?" Daniel appeared standing beside her. "There's an arctic wind about the Bay tonight. And you hardly appear dressed for it," he added.

"Hmmm," she hummed. "I know. I didn't really notice. But now you mention it, it is rather cold," she replied with a sigh. "I didn't plan on being out here for so long," she replied, pulling her arm back in the cross her arms around herself.

"And yet, here you are," the captain said. He gave her an exasperated expression before he began undoing the buttons on his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It was carefully laced, as though she were made of fragile glass, and once again, Carolyn could swear she could feel his touch through the layers of fabric.

"Thank you," she said quietly, trying not to dwell on what she assumed was her wishful thinking or overactive imagination.

Tugging lightly at his ear, he gave her a silent nod and she bit her lip at his embarrassment. Bluster and pride came easy to him, and while he could be the most affectionate man she'd ever met, simple things like offering her his jacket were still a source of consternation for him.

"I have little use for it against the cold, sickness is a…" he began to explain.

"A mortal affliction, I know," Carolyn nodded, fondly.

"Then you should heed those words. You are subject to mortal afflictions."

"I think there's still a few of those afflictions that you're subject to as well," she retorted. After all, illness wasn't the only thing humans were prone to. Emotions were perfectly human and he had emotions aplenty. Anyone with eyes could see that. She certainly could when he looked at her as he was looking at her now.

"Bilge," he said, looking away.

"If you say so," she smirked.

"I do say so," he replied.

"Alright."

"Aside from catching your death or cold, what are you doing out here? Star gazing, were you? Or fishing, perhaps?" he drawled.

"Not exactly," Carolyn replied and showed him the old wedding ring in her hand.

"I doubt you'll catch any fish with that," he said after a moment.

"No," she quietly scoffed. "I don't think so, either. But they're welcome to it. I don't need it anymore."

"Hmmm," he hummed. "Any particular reason why?"

"Fishing for compliments?" she mocked.

"Not at all," Daniel bristled and placed his hands on his hips, defensively. "I was merely wondering why now, of all times, you should decide the toss the blasted thing away," he said. "You've worn it every day since you arrived," he noted.

"Yes," Carolyn shrugged. "But I don't want to anymore," she told him. "I haven't for a while. I don't want to be Bobby's wife and he clearly didn't want me to be his wife either. He wouldn't have been sleeping with every other women in town if he did. It suited him; coming home to a wife and kids but taking none of the responsibility. I did everything he wanted me to. Everything I was supposed to do, I did it. And he still lied to me. He made a fool of me to the entire town…"

"Now, belay that, he did no such thing. The wastrel made a fool of himself, not of you," Daniel told her.

"We'd have divorced anyway if he hadn't…gotten into his accident, so…I don't even really know why I kept it for so long," she said. "Habit, maybe," she added, quietly.

"Perhaps you should return it to his parents," the captain suggested, turning to look out at the sea and watch the shallow waves hitting the shore. "They seemed to be a good sort," he added.

"They are…even if they still won't believe what their son did to me," she replied, clutching at the ring.

"They care a great deal for you and the children," he continued in an almost emotionless tone of voice.

"Yes, they do," she nodded. "But it's my wedding ring. Not theirs. And I realise how selfish that sounds. But if I want to toss it into the sea, then I will."

"It strikes me as rather odd that such a spineless cad of a man could marry such a headstrong woman," he mused aloud after a moment of silence.

"I wasn't when I married him," she said, quietly. "You likely would have said I was the perfect nineteenth century woman. Quiet. Obedient. He seemed to…prefer me that way so I suppose and I just…" she shrugged.

"Bilge. A woman with spirit is much more attractive than a demure wallflower."

"I'll remind you of that next time we argue," she chuckled.

"I shall deny it utterly," he insisted and she shook her head, trying to stifle her laughter at his predictable response.

"No doubt," she said.

"So," he began. "What do you intend to do with that?" he asked, gesturing to the ring in her hand.

Carolyn said nothing, eyeing the ring, its weight was metaphorical rather than literal, but she felt a lot lighter without it adorning her hand. She bit her lip a little and then, once again, she closed her hand around it, drew her arm back and threw it as far as she possibly could out into the sea.

It fell with a quiet, almost indistinguishable splash into the waves and vanished from sight. After a brief moment of guilt, Carolyn smiled triumphantly and breathed out a deep sigh.

"Does that answer your question?" she smiled at him.

"Rather emphatically, yes," he raised an eyebrow. "You seem to be rather pleased with yourself," he remarked.

"I am," Carolyn smiled. "I've been wanting to do that for a long time now."

"And how will you explain its absence?"

"Does it matter?"

"Not to me. But people are naturally inquisitive…"

"You mean nosy," she said with a twitch of her lip.

"Quite."

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what I'll tell them. That I've moved on, maybe. That it's none of their business," she shrugged. "I'll worry about that when it happens."

"I would suggest that you concern yourself with the weather, at present, and remove yourself from this Arctic wind," the captain said.

"Good idea," Carolyn said with one last glance at the sea before she turned to him and walked by his side back to the house.