The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Katy Simpson Smith 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Jacket illustration by TK
Katy Simpson Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007564002
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007563999
Version: 2015-06-22
FOR
MY FATHER
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death like a narrow sea divides
This heavenly land from ours …
But timorous mortals start and shrink
To cross this narrow sea,
And linger shivering on the brink,
And fear to launch away …
Could we but climb where Moses stood
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore.
ISAAC WATTS
Contents
A Conversation with Katy Simpson Smith
On days in August when sea storms bite into the North Carolina coast, he drags a tick mattress into the hall and tells his daughter stories, true and false, about her mother. The wooden shutters clatter, and Tabitha folds blankets around them to build a softness for the storm. He always tells of their courting days, of her mother’s shyness. She looked like a straight tall pine from a distance; only when he got close could he see her trembling.
“Was she scared?”
“Happy,” John says. “We were both happy.”
He watches Tab pull the quilt up to her chin, though even the storm can’t blow away the heat of summer. She is waiting to hear his secrets. But it is hard to describe how it feels to stand next to someone you love on the shore at dusk. He didn’t have to see Helen to know she was there. Something in her body pulled at something in his, across the humid air between them.
“When you’re older,” he says, and she nods, familiar with this response.
“Why don’t you ever tell about the ship?” she asks. “All the things you must have seen with her.”