Chapter 7 - The Sudden TempestThe Atlantic was never entirely gentle. In early March, a sudden late-season gale bore down on Cape Haven, bringing thirty-foot tides and sixty-knot winds that rattled the windowpanes like dry bones.
Water began creeping over the marsh road, isolating the southern spit where Martha’s house sat. Caleb had arrived at dusk in his rusted four-wheel-drive truck, hauling sandbags and emergency lanterns.
"The power grid just blew outside Marshallberg," Caleb said, hauling two five-gallon jugs of fresh water onto the back porch. "We're on our own for at least twenty-four hours. How are you feeling, Amelia?"
Amy was leaning against the kitchen counter, one hand pressed hard against the small of her back. Her breathing had grown shallow over the last two hours. A dull, rhythmic ache had begun to pulse through her pelvis—not Braxton Hicks, but the deep, grounding onset of true labor.
"I think," Amy said, keeping her voice steady despite the beads of sweat forming on her hairline, "that this baby doesn't care about weather forecasts."
Martha immediately took charge, her weathered voice cutting through the howl of the wind outside. "Caleb, get the cast-iron pots on the propane stove. Boil water. Bring the clean flannel sheets from the top trunk. Amelia, into the bedroom. Slow breaths, girl. The women of this coast have been having babies through hurricanes for three hundred years. You are not the first, and you won't be the last."
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As the darkness fell and the wind shrieked against the clapboards, Amy lay on the iron bed, surrounded by the warm, flickering yellow light of kerosene lanterns. The pain was unlike anything she had ever conceptualized—an ancient, tearing tide that stripped away every layer of pride, fear, and past history.
Every time a contraction seized her, she didn't think of Julian’s anger or Eleanor’s judgment. She thought of the open sea. She thought of the sunrise over the bakery’s ovens. She anchored herself in the life she had chosen with her own two hands.
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