"You said you'd be here for me, no matter what."

"I'm not going to help you make a mistake."

"It's not yours to judge."

"It's mine if I help you make it."

I stared at him steadily.

"Very well then, I'll do it without you," I said, walking to the door.

"Just a minute," he ordered, holding up his hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

"St. John's."

He snorted.

"You'd get to the end of the road and wouldn't know which way to turn. Listen to me, Kit a "

"No! I'm done listenin'," I say. "I've been listenin' to others all my life. And fightin'! Fightin' to hold onto what's mine. And thankin' everybody for lettin' me do so. Well, I'm tired of smilin' for your blessin's, all the time smilin', feelin' grateful but never proud. I want to live my own life, as I see fit. And I want Sid. You can help me if you wants. But I'm goin' after him."

Running his hands through his thinning tufts of hair, he yanked open the door and strolled outside to where the water was lapping at the shore.

"I'm not one of your faces," I snapped, the wind taking my words as I chased after him. "And whether Sid comes back or not, I won't ever be. I'm makin' my own decisions now, and you're not responsible for them."

"It's wrong."

"Not in my mind. And I won't be spendin' my days broodin' on a stoop, either," I said, "no matter how I come to think on things. There's other ways to pay penance, ways more deservin' of time."

The wind ruffled the shirt against his back. I stood still watching him. He shivered, his hands deep in his pockets. Finally, when I was shivering too, he turned.

"Might as well get some sleep," he said tiredly, brushing past me. "We can't go anywhere till morning."

I stepped inside the shack behind him and shut the door.

"What now?" he asked, as I stayed where I was, staring after him expectantly.

"I want you to fix it so's I can never have babies."

His brow rose in utter astonishment.

"Christ almighty," he swore, coming towards me and seizing me by the shoulders. "How the hell do you know about such things?"

"It's the only way I can be with Sid."

"I can't do that."

"You did it to Josie." His mouth dropped, and I hurried on. "Nan told me, but she never meant to. I swear she never said it to a livin' soul, except to mutter it out loud once, when she got mad at Josie for runnin' off." I paused. "I always remembered it, although I never knew what she meant. Till now. Till I started thinkin' on the same thing, myself."

He sat down heavily. And for the first time that I'd known him, he looked sorely shaken. "It don't seem fair that I'm askin' somethin' more from you," I whispered. "But it all seems to be sproutin' from the same seed, somehow. Well it weren't me that planted those seeds. And I'm not settlin' no more for what someone else thought up for me. God must've meant for you to help me, else he wouldn't have took Nan and put you in her place." I gave a small laugh. "He must've known she wouldn't been able to keep up with everything that's after happeneda"wouldn't been able to keep protectin'a my mother."

I stared off and Doctor Hodgins raised his hand and held onto mine. We looked at each other with a quiet that spoke beyond the secrets that we shared, and told of a long-lasting trust. And of an understanding and an acceptance of the way things were with me. And in a strange way, with him.

"I didn't do anything to Josie," he said finally. "Perhaps I could have intervened, but I felt it was God's wish that you be her only child. There's a pill he probably intended for you, a new method to control pregnancy. I'll get it for you."

"Is it for sure?"

"If you take it right."

"Sid won't trust that. I want what God did to my mother."

"You'll do as I say on this one," he almost roared, hauling a blanket off the bunk. "Now get some sleep; you'll need rest. I swear to God the old girl's come back," he muttered, snapping open the door and shutting it firmly behind him. I watched through the window as he settled himself heavily into his chair and, tossing the blanket up over his shoulders, pulled a box of matches and his pipe out of his pocket. Hauling another blanket off the bunk, I sat down in a chair besides the window, looking out over his shoulder at the sea rolling up over the shore. Wrapping the blanket around me, I settled more comfortably in the chair. This was one night when I was going to sit, watching and brooding, alongside of him.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

KIT'S LAW THE NEXT DAY I WAS ON MY WAY TO ST. JOHN'S. It was hard to tell if it was the journey itself or its destination that was filling me with the most fear. Clinging to my rattling seat in the Newfie Bullet, we thundered across meadows and plains at forty miles an hour, and entered deep forests, and crossed over bridges and rivers, outrunning herds of caribou and moose around each winding turn. Doctor Hodgins had assured me as I was climbing on board that there was nothing to be scared of, and had pressed a piece of paper with the name and address of his friend's boarding house into my hand. He was bawling out instructions on how to get a taxi, and warning me about the Portuguese sailors down on the docks, even as the train was pulling out of the station and hurriedly leaving him behind. And if it weren't for Maisie Rice about to give birth to a breeched baby, I've no doubts that he would've been climbing aboard the train himself, and going to St. John's alongside of me. Despite my fears about heading into the city alonea"and it so far awaya"it felt right that I do so. Like Loret, going out into the storm-driven night with Fonse. No fear had she for what might come. Such was her strength, and her trust in his. And such was their love, built upon strength. Neither had I felt fear with Sid, no matter how frightening a decision. Like our marriage. It was because I loved him that I married him. And it was because I still loved him that I was going to fight for him. No more watching and brooding, watching and brooding. And if he was unwilling to move back to Haire's Hollow now that he had a taste of living somewhere else, then I was willing to take up living right alongside of him no matter where it was. And Josie would just have to make do. I was willing to do most anything, as long as it would put me next to Sid for the rest of my life, and the closer we got to St. John's, the more unsettled I became over another feara"that of Sid himself. Supposing it wasn't because we were half-brother and -sister that he no longer wanted me? My stomach lurched sickly. Supposing he wanted the other woman more?

I squeezed my eyes shut every time the thought shot through my mind, which was every second that brought me closer and closer to knowing. And when the train finally trudged its way through the rusted meadow of steel tracks that lay at the feet of the grey, windswept city, with its hundreds of rain-soaked windows staring down at me, I became more and more determined to cling to my seat and wait for the train to move off again, taking me back to the gully and Josie and Loret and Fonse, and everything else that was loving and warm and comfortable in its commonness.

But I never. Making my way down the rickety train steps with my bag in my hand, I sucked in my breath and held it, recoiling from the sharp, fousty smell of the city, and remembering what Nan had said once about people dying from the plagues. "It's in the cities that germs gets bred," she had said. "All them people living on top of each othera"sure, no sooner is the breath out of your mouth, than it's into the gob of another, without gettin' a chance to circulate and clean itself of whatever germs it's carryin'."

"Taxi, Miss?"

I started at the gravelly voice sounding from behind me, and give a slight nod to the scrawny, red-cheeked man who tipped his hat as I turned to face him. Giving him the piece of paper with the name and address of Milly's boarding house on it, I mutely followed and climbed into the back seat of his car, just as Doctor Hodgins had instructed me to do.

Clutching my bag, I stared mesmerized out the window at the hundreds of houses and the squalor that we drove by, and more people than all of a hundred outports brought together as one. As frightened as I was at the thought of seeing Sid again, his was a comforting face to think on in this whirling clutter of roads, cars and buildings. Once, we came in view of the harbour and I shrank back from the sight of the fishing boats and ships, minding Doctor Hodgins's warnings about drunken Portuguese sailors.

After it felt like we were going in circles for an hour and my stomach was getting queasy from my head being giddy, we pulled up in front of a peeling, two-storey house with "Milly's" painted over its front door. Paying the taxi man, I took my bag and walked slowly inside.

Everything was just as Doctor Hodgins had described it to bea"a small room with a white-railed, steep stairwell leading up one side, and a cluttered counter in its centre, piled high with papers and dirtied mugs, beyond which sat a grizzly-haired old woman, knitting the back to a sweater.

"A room?" she said, not taking her eyes off her knitting.

"Yes. Please."

"Where you from?"

"Haire's Hollow."

Her mouth dropped, and coming to her feet, she peered harder through her specs.

"You're here, already? Sure, I just got Johnny's message!"

"W-Who?"

"Johnny!" She gave a hard laugh. "That'd be Doctor Hodgins to you, I suppose. Hah! What with two baywops for parents, he'll always be Johnny around here."

I fixed a smile on my face and nodded politely. She sobered and peered at me more closely.

"Heh, do you know what a baywop is?"

I shook my head.

"It's you! One who was born and bred in the bay!" She gave a hard, rattled laugh and I nodded, politer still. Sobering again, she shuffled out around the counter and started up the stairs.

"Heh, come on then," she said, rubbing the small of her back. "You can carry your bag, I suppose? I'd help you but I got a bad hip. Good old Johnny gives me pain pills every time he comes. How's he doing?"

"He's fine. You've a known him long?" I asked, becoming a little less tongue-tied with the effort of lugging my bag up over the stairs.

"We started school together. Smart as anything, Johnny was. Course, I only made it through to grade six, had to go to work," she puffed, coming to a stop at the top of the landing to catch her breath. "But Johnny kept on with it. Brother, you couldn't stick him on a sum. Heh, poor Elsie. She was a good soul, though pinched as it was."

"Pinched?" I rested my bag on the edge of the step, looking up at her.

"Yeah, pinched. She come from the Gut. That's over by the harbour. Her mother liked the drink," Milly snickered, "like everyone else in the Gut. And sickly! Well, she was always sickly. I said back then Johnny married her to guarantee he'd always have a patient." Another hard, rattling laugh and Milly hobbled down the hall. I followed, wondering if it wasn't for something that Doctor Hodgins had me stay with Milly. For certain he knew she was the one to talk.

"You looks like her," Milly went on, opening up a door and stepping inside a small room. She held the door wider and I stepped past her, laying my bag on the narrow bed, and taking a peek through the paint-stained window onto the street below.

"I'll get you some water," Milly said, taking the wash pan off the stand. She glanced at me in the mirror on the wall before her. "What brings you here, a young girl like you, all by yourself?"

"I'ma"here to meet my husband."

"Husband!" She looked around, squinting me up and down, shaking her head. "Lord, you don't look old enough to be married."

I grinned nervously.

"I'm not so young."

"Heh, there's something about you that speaks of time. Though, if Johnny sent you to me, it's because he's wanting me to keep an eye on you. When's your husband coming?"

"I'ma"goin' to meet him. Doctor Hodgins said you could help me find my way around?"

"Hah, like I figured, gathering the lost sheep. Where's your husband staying?"

"The university."

"What's he learning?"

"Uh, to be a teacher."

"A teacher? That's nice." She shuffled to the door. "I'll get your water."

An hour later I was freshly washed and neatly dressed, and sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling slightly irritated as I listened to the roar of cars and trucks shuttling by, blowing their horns and squealing tires from every which way. How could a body stand such noise? I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Perhaps if I was to sleep a little, I might feel more like myself. As it was, I was a bundle of nerves, and half-sick from the fousty-smelling air.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to pretend that the roar of the cars was the roar of the surf pounding upon the shore, and the blowing horns were seagulls, circling the sky and calling out. But it felt like there were springs on the back of my eyelids and the second I stopped squeezing them shut, they popped wide open again.

After a while I gave up trying to sleep and sat up on the edge of the bed. It was about an hour before four. I had planned to see Sid later in the evening, when he had finished his schooling for the day. It felt easier somehow, to meet with him in the evening. Evening time was when sweethearts walked, when each other's faces would soon be covered in darkness. I wanted it to be dark when I met with him. Dark, but not too late, not so late as he'd be off with his other girl before I got there. And I was wanting it dark, dark as pitch, so's he couldn't see how nervous I wasa"especially if we were to do something. Not that I was scared of making love with Sid. Just that I knew I'd be so damn shy of doing it that my face burned like fire every single time my mind went to it. That's why I wanted it to be dark soon after I met up with him, so's he couldn't see my face burning like fire when he touched me. If he touched me.

The thought that he wouldn't touch me wasn't one I dwelled on for long. The fact that I had come all this way to find him, and alone, would surely convince him of my loving him, and how nothing would ever make it stop. Surely, he would see how futile it was to be away from me, that it was just as well to be living as husband and wife than to be living in a dream, thinking on it every day.

It was about a half-hour before five, and I couldn't contain myself no longer. Throwing on a sweater, I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. Loret had cut my hair a few days ago, and it hung straight and wispy fine to just below the collar of my blouse, and it was darker. Its yellow dulled by the winter's sun. I leaned closer to the mirror and smiled, then grimaced, not liking how it rounded the curve of my cheeks when I smiled. Pulling back a safer distance from the mirror, I tucked my hair behind my ears. I leaned closer to the mirror. My eyes were grey, clear grey, like the down on a goose, Loret once said, and just as soft. I bit my lips to make them red, as Loret showed me the day of the wedding, and pulled back from the mirror, practising a smile, a small smile that Loret said was sure to hook the heart of the most hardened man. I smiled. Sid wasn't a hardened man. He was sweet and soft. And kind.

"Oohh!" I threw myself impatiently on the bed, then come back up and walked determinedly to the door. I was going, light or dark. I'd find some other way of hiding my face. Besides, we wouldn't be doing anything in the daylight. Perhaps we would just walk and talk, like we always done, and by the time night come, I wouldn't care.

If he comes with you, a small voice kept nagging. And let's not forget the other girl a Yanking open the door, I ran down over the steps to where Milly was still sitting behind the cluttered counter, knitting.

"Can you show me how to get to the university?" I asked.

"Your husband knows you're coming?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, opening the door and stepping outside. There were roads and cars going everywhere. How did a body find his way back home? Milly came to the door behind me, holding onto the small of her back.

"See that smokestack? That's the hospital. Walk past that, and up over the hill, and then look down, and you'll see it, three buildings in the middle of a field. That's the campus."

"Thank you."

"Got plans, do you?"

"No," I said quickly, my face flaming.

She rattled out a laugh and punched me lightly on the arm.

"It's your supper I was thinking on."

Blushing furiously, I started walking.

"Not scared, are you?" she sung out. "It's just five minutes from here."

"No, I'm not scared." I paused, my step faltering mid-air. "Is it that close?"

"That close."

My knees went weak. Sid was just over the hill. Five minutes from where I was standing. I swallowed hard and tried to get my breathing regular. Suppose he wouldn't come back with me? Why ever would he? Nothing had changed! Nothing a "What's wrong?" Milly asked as I'd stopped walking altogether.

I turned back and ducked past her inside the boarding house.

"Do you have any clips?" I asked breathlessly.

"Clips?"

"Hair clips."