Chapter 6 - The Salt Marsh BloomSpring came early to the Carolina coast. The gray spartina grass turned a vibrant, luminous emerald, and white egrets gathered in the shallows like paper lanterns.
Amy’s belly was now full and heavy. She was eight months along, her body moving with the slow, deliberate grace of impending motherhood. Her face had filled out, touched with color from the afternoon walks she took along the marsh boardwalk.
In the bakery kitchen, Caleb had built a wooden stool with a padded cushion so Amy could sit while scoring the baguettes. An unspoken bond had formed between them—not of romance, but of two survivors who recognized the quiet labor of rebuilding a shattered life. Caleb never asked about the man who wasn't there. Instead, he made sure there was always fresh milk in the small refrigerator upstairs and that the firewood by Martha’s back door was split into sizes Amy could easily lift.
"You have a visitor coming today," Martha said one morning as Amy was hanging washed linens on the backyard clothesline. The wind whipped the white cotton sheets like sails.
Amy paused, a wooden clothespin in her hand, her heart skipping a beat. "Who?"
"Not that kind," Martha said gently, noticing the terror that flickered across Amy's eyes. "A young girl from down the inlet. Clara. Her mama walked out on her three years back, and she’s had trouble reading. Caleb said you had books in your room."
Amy exhaled, the tension draining from her shoulders. "Of course. Send her up after three."
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That afternoon, sitting on the porch steps with nine-year-old Clara, helping her sound out the words of an old poetry anthology, Amy felt a profound shift within her chest. In New York, charity had meant writing six-figure checks at black-tie galas while dressed in gowns that cost more than a fisherman’s boat. It was performative, sterilized, and cold. Here, holding a child’s finger as it traced the letters of a worn page, she understood what purpose truly was.
She was not just hiding; she was planting roots.
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