Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The house, somehow, feels a bit emptier than it had ever before. 

Midnight walks aren’t uncommon. Midafternoon walks are hardly out of the ordinary. That was the way they lived when they were first married. (Has it really been three years now?–it’ll be four soon.) Small, empty cottage by the beach held the memories of their young love by the seashore and they were content with that knowledge as they explored the town he’d grown up in and the first place where his wife claimed she felt free. 

But the walks aren’t just at night anymore. Nor in the afternoon. They’re all day. 

Anthony tells himself not to worry. He tells himself that every moment he tries to put his foot down is another moment with his wife more distressed than usual. She is still alive, she is still eating, isn’t that enough?

The house has been quieter since they found out. 

Despite the whimpers he hears escape her throat, despite the headaches she complains of, despite the long nights of rubbing her back, despite all of it–they are frozen. 

He tries to think back to when his mother would find out, only to remember that he was either too young or too naive to grasp the entire story. With his youngest brother, he only remembers hearing her bed creak and months later, holding a blanket that held the newborn. As much as he wishes he could, he can’t ask the woman now . If he sat down with her to ask whether she was happy or not with every child, she would get suspicious. She would end up asking more of her questions. 

His father isn’t here to ask either. Anthony doesn’t think he would want his advice anyway. 

The grass is still slick from yesterday’s snow. It hadn’t lasted more than a few hours, but it reminds all who dare to step on the grass to remember it. If it had come in December, his younger siblings would have been delightedly rolling it into clumps and calling the small statue their friend. In February, snow has become a reminder that God is teasing them with springtime. With his line of work, Anthony can’t say he’ll miss the snow when the months finally roll into April. Perhaps, it will be this spring he can finally get his brother to help him with the pathway he’s been planning on paving since they first rented the cottage. They’ll need a pathway more than ever. 

For now, he grits his heels into the soft earth as he makes his way along the inclination to home. Soon enough, he can see lavender curtains hanging in the window. It’s rare his wife doesn’t greet him at the docks. 

When she didn’t, he would find her sprawled out on the floor like that. 

He tries not to worry as he opens the door. 

“Jo? Love? I’m home.”

Scaf falls off his shoulder. Coat is shrugged off. He wanders through their home, peeling off each layer as he calls for his wife, not allowing himself to miss the moments when they would come through that door and she would start removing layers for him. He misses her fingers, as cold as they usually are. 

Anthony is nearly tripping over his untied laces when he finds her in their spare bedroom. Their budget doesn’t allow for another bed. Any guests or poor wayfaring souls Anthony finds on the side of the road are satisfied enough with the sofa downstairs. There is only a stack of books, a box full of thread and a single chair–parodying the sewing room or perhaps a library of women richer than them. They hadn’t quite figured out what to do with the room aside from this. 

Until recently. 

A slow smile spreads over his face as Anthony moves closer to adjust her shawl over body. The hearth downstairs must have gone out hours ago. If he wasn’t afraid of waking Johanna, he would climb into the chair next to her. Hold her in his lap, run his fingers through her hair. She needs her rest. 

Perhaps, they can once she’s awake. They’ll fold a blanket or two over themselves downstairs, closer to the fire. He’ll kiss her hairline. She’ll tease him for his fantastical ideas. 

They could talk like that. He would wipe away her tears again if that’s what she needs. 

Yes, they’ll have a talk. She can feel safe and he will soothe away whatever worries plague her mind. 

And perhaps , he can even hint at names for their baby.

Two Weeks Prior

It’s funny, this used to happen a lot more often than it does now. 

When she was younger, Johanna completely used to the lack of blood. The sight of any on her drawers would be a surprise that would soon cripple her into spending the day on her side in bed. It hadn’t regularly come for years. Then after she donned the itchy uniform at Fogg’s, there was a lack. A lack that went on for years . 

During those years, she couldn’t say she missed it. She doesn’t particularly miss it now. There’s more flesh upon her bone; foolishly, Johanna assumed there wouldn’t be a lack ever again. Not since that cycle returned to haunt her the way orphans feel haunted by their parents: a comforting presence, but a haunting still. Who would miss days of nausea and bouts of depression and having to don dresses that showed less of one’s figure? 

It’s strange, though, she has still been awfully nauseous. 

And, well, not exactly herself. 

Not that she was depressed–no, no, no. Melancholy isn’t her nature anymore. Plymouth and Anthony have turned her into a happier woman-girl than she’s ever been before. It was odd. Not a sadness, not a joy, not exactly an irritation, just a cloud over her. Not quite herself. 

Then, the issue of dresses and skirts… She hasn’t felt completely comfortable in some of hers lately. 

But that’s just silly. It must be her imagining things. Johanna has grown so used to a feminine cycle by now that she’s making herself believe that’s what she’s undergoing at the moment. Even if there isn’t the most basic symptom of womanhood that comes along with it. 

That has to be it. 

Or it’s a trick of nature. Forgetting what sight makes her most miserable and sending her with everything else instead.  

She knows as well as anyone how unforgiving nature can be. 

A trick. That must be it. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Besides, Johanna reasons with herself, she isn’t the first woman who's never… just a few months ago, Anthony’s sister Betsy had announced another addition to her little family (a family that isn’t very little anymore). Not all women go through such a thing monthly and they’re perfectly fine. 

Sitting next to her now, she feels all-too-aware of her sister-in-law’s swollen belly. 

“It’s calmed down now,” Betsy is saying as she cuts her mold through wax. “I’m glad it’s not the same with my Sarah. I wouldn’t even be able to look at lavender without getting sick. This baby’s being good to me.”

“What’s calmed?” Johanna asks, aware she’s awoken late during this conversation. 

She’s used to hearing about symptoms related to carrying babies. The first conversation about it she’d heard, she’d paled and made up an excuse to leave the room. To talk about such a delicate situation! Just like that! Over tea! In the judge’s world, a woman that’s obviously showing off the baby inside of her should be kept indoors until her figure has returned to a more appropriate shape for society. Nevertheless, to talk openly about such a thing! Why, no one would ever think of it in that world. 

But she’s had to adjust. As long as there were Hope women, there was no lack of bulging stomachs and wailings from infants. The family line was a long and wide one. 

Sometimes, what the people of Plymouth are willing to discuss versus what was shut away in London still astonishes her. 

“The sickness,” Betsy says. It’s never phased her. She simply passes the cinnamon to her. “That’s one of the first indications I’m having another. No monthly and I’m puking my guts up more than a fish on a boat? I know right at that moment.”

“Sick?”

How particular. 

“Mighty so.” Betsy glances at Tellie. “You got sick too, didn’t you?”

Tellie nods. “Aye. Last baby boy especially had me running out to the garden.”

“And don’t you forget the headaches!” Maria bursts in. “Terrible, terrible things.”

The three women all nod. Johanna lowers her chin, telling herself she’s trying to focus on the mixture in front of her. The melted wax and bits of herb become a shield from the reminder that Anthony’s younger sister has had a child sooner than her. 

Questions on the matter still haven’t hushed down in town. People stare at the young couple–married for nearly four years , no less–without a girl or boy in their arms or an infant to baptize. When will it be? they ask. How much longer ‘til you make a man out of our Hope lad?  

There are rumors behind their backs. At church, they wonder if there is something wrong with her. 

Johanna can’t deny it. They very well may be right and she’ll never know it. It isn’t as if the midwife could deliver her such information. 

Pleasure and babe; that is what a wife is supposed to provide. They have had their wedding night. They had enjoyed many nights since then. It’s not a longshot to think her womb truly is barren such as the women in Biblical times. She is the Hannah of the modern world. But she is not such a holy woman. As much as she worships, there are sins she’s committed not even God could forgive to fill her womb. 

Pleasure has come. Not a babe to prove evidence of it. 

And the worst part is: Johanna isn’t certain if she’s completely mournful of that fact. 

Of course, children will come later, if they do ever come. That is what is expected of a wife. She asked Anthony to wait for their wedding night so they did. They waited until she said so and even waited some more. They are simply waiting if God will send them a Samual-like miracle. 

A home with just herself and Anthony is a warm, happy home indeed. 

And what child should be punished enough to have to be born unto her? Mother with blood on her hands, mother who was less-then-virgin when she married. Mother who barely knows how to even hold an infant. 

She is no Virgin Mary. 

“--and, oh! How my belly would throb!” 

Johanna looks back up at Tellie. The other women are once again nodding at each other somberly. 

“Hurt just as much as the ones my monthly greeted me with. Whose idea was that?” Tellie pauses, the same sort of mischief her little boys display written across her smile. “Oh, sorry, I forget–Eve.”

The others fall into a chorus of laughter. Johanna was taught to take Eve’s sin as seriously as one would take the death of the Messiah. Here, it is a loser subject. Every woman and man gathers in the chapel, humble as they bow their heads before God. Yet after church, there are jokes about the Bible, reminders of when Christ acted less than his perfect self and stories. 

“What is all this about?” Mrs. Hope questions with a wide smile as she enters the kitchen. “You all use my kitchen for your soaping, then you laugh about me behind my back?”

Ever afraid of trouble, Johanna shakes her head. However, a sister steps in to make a joke about Mrs. Hope now that she’s there. Mrs. Hope simply rolls her eyes as laughter roars. She sets her basket of herbs in front of Johanna. 

“Your sisters are silly girls,” Mrs. Hope whispers to her with a wink. 

She gives a weak smile back. 

“Is that all true?” Johanna asks before she stops to think. “Do you really get that sick and ache that much when you’re with child?”

Mrs. Hope glances the other girls over , then at her. Whenever Mrs. Hope studies her, Johanna can’t help but feel like she is her governess and she is trapped in some sort of exam. Arms instinctively cover her abdomen. Anthony has since told her about Mrs. Hope’s comments when she was at her sickest. For a moment, it seems like Mrs. Hope can see her shriveled womb instead of her or knows she had missed last month. 

“Usually women miss their monthlies and that’s when they know.” Mrs. Hope takes a stack from her basket and begins picking apart the leaves into separate piles. “But yes, sometimes it takes a little bit of good old nausea and an ache here and there to really wake you up. Eve’s punishment, as I’m sure you were told.”

Johanna nods. 

“Now get back to your mixing. The other girls will need that in just a moment. Can’t leave them without anything to mold or stiffen up.”

As she sets back to work, she still feels Mrs. Hope’s gaze upon her. When Johanna looks up, the other woman glances back down at the tablespace. She frowns. 

“I’m not,” Johanna says, “I’m not in the family way.”

“Hmm?” Mrs. Hope raises her brow. “Wasn’t insinuating you were, child, dear.”

“I was just curious.”

“Alright, lovely.”

Johanna left with pockets full of soap, basket in hand and mind feeling more like a cloud than anything solid. Wasn’t insinuating? Well, it’s hard to believe she wasn’t insinuating anything when she looked at her stomach, as if she expected to find an ocean-sized bump there. Could a woman not ask about these things without everyone assuming everything about her? Mrs. Hope barely knows anything about her, really. She had no right to–

But this is silly , isn’t it? It’s all just a little silly. When in a few months, she and Anthony aren’t announcing an edition, Mrs. Hope will forget about it all. 

If it is this silly, why does she feel her annoyance all the way in her ankles?

Because it is irritating. Mrs. Hope shouldn’t assume –

Assume she’s with child?

Despite the fact that she has been nauseous and she has been cramping and she has had a headache or two now that she thinks about it. 

Her brows furrow on the way up to the backdoor. 

Soap is arranged accordingly in her own basket and spread throughout the house. Some of it will be sold; sailors do love a fresh bar after weeks of living with hardly anything. (And the better for it, they smell .) Johanna busies herself with a hum of Roll the Old Chariot Along before her mind starts to wander back to what happened earlier today. Anthony won’t be home for a while yet. If he was home, conversation would be a delightful distraction. 

When she’s satisfied with her work, she makes her way to the spare bedroom. Perhaps, today is the day she’ll finally make it look presentable . A real sewing room like what she dreamed of. Or a real library . Perhaps, she will combine both ideas into the perfect room for herself. 

As she sits down, the muscles between her hips seize. Teeth grit. Then, her jaw relaxes. This could be it. And she doesn’t have to think of any baby-related nonsense again. (Or not for a while yet.) 

As ladylike as possible (maybe it’s silly, but what if someone was watching?), she lifts her skirts just enough to reach a hand to feel her drawers. 

Nothing. 

Pushing her skirt back down to her ankles, she leans back. 

And tenderly, with the utmost hesitation, she lays her fingertips on her stomach. 

It was one missed month. One! One in years. That can’t mean anything. Does any woman really have a regular cycle? 

(No, because most women are having babies.)

Hands reach inside her sewing basket. She doesn’t notice she was pricked by a needle until the blood spills onto her skirt. It’s the wrong sort of blood. She never thought she would be praying for such blood. 

The pain. The sick. The ache. 

The miss. 

Is she bigger? Is she getting bigger? 

Will she get bigger?

If she is –which she isn’t –but if she is … The image of Anthony’s sisters pops into her head, nursing swollen abdomens. And how they get bigger and bigger and bigger . Not even fully disappearing after they give birth. 

She dares to lay her palm on her belly, trying not to imagine herself in the same precarious situation. 

She’s better now. Would she still be better even if…?

Johanna shakes her head. 

Who could picture her with a baby? She barely even understands how to hold one, doesn’t get on that well with children, and is shy around even older children. Who is she to have one herself? 

When she looks down at her corset-less self, she still finds ribs poking out of her skin, trying to escape. That’s not what a mother who is expecting should look like. It could kill her. 

She doesn’t want to die. Not now. 

There aren’t any mirrors in their house, save for the handheld one Anthony uses to shave. She’s never done well with mirrors, the object that serves to remind her of every flaw, but for the first time in her life, she wishes she had one. That way, she could look. Could see if there is a slope to her belly. If she is…

Her finger is still bleeding. It stings to remind her to wipe away the blood. Johanna throws everything back into her sewing basket before tearing off a spare piece of fabric to hold over the small wound. 

Rag still over her hand, she wanders downstairs. A glance at the clock reminds her that Anthony is off his shift. She drops the rag on the table. Without putting a shawl over her shoulders and after barely tying her laces on her shoes, she sets off to greet him. Trying to take deep breaths. They don’t know. She doesn’t know. She can’t act like this around him, he’ll think something is wrong when nothing is . 

Anthony meets her along the way with a bright grin. He grabs her by both hands, pulling her into a deep kiss. It’s their tradition. She‘s still shy about people seeing them kiss (especially like that ) in person so once they get far enough away from the dock, he kisses her wide and deep on the mouth and she’ll giggle and swat at him before taking his hand again so they can get home. 

Today, all she can offer is a smile. Which is more than she expected of herself. She doesn’t much feel like smiling at the moment. 

“Are you alright, Jo?” he asks. 

She shrugs. “Bit of a headache. But I’m alright.”

Anthony would be a good father. And she knows how much he wants a family of his own. Part of their reason for purchasing the cottage was to fill it with children. She didn’t expect that until later . Much later. 

But she isn’t. She’s just late. 

An entire month late. 

She asks Anthony about work and barely hears anything he says. 

Once they’re inside, she lingers by the door. Anthony tugs off his scarf. She doesn’t realize he’s frowning at her. He brushes his palm across her knuckles. 

“Are you alright, love?”

For a moment, she stares back up at his face. Stares with an aching chest and a whirlwind mind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to collapse against him and just sob? To tell him everything that’s happened and let him take away all the badness of the world and all the trouble that comes from womanhood. 

“Fine, Anthony. I’m fine.”

“Johanna.” And their fingers intertwine. “I know you.”

She sighs through her chest. “It’s more than a ‘bit’ of a headache now. I think I need to lay down.”

Before she does, she turns with a smile to it, popping open a button. She can feel him trying to come up with a way to get her to go back upstairs, but she focuses on the buttons and adjusting the coat from his shoulders. As she flips it away, he catches her wrist. Gently, gently, as ever gently as he is. He looks at her with the same tenderness. 

“It’s not that bad. Not yet. I’ll lay myself down once I’m down.” She gives a weak smile. “This is tradition.” 

“Jo–”

“ Tradition. ”

Finally, he relents. She finishes removing the layers and he helps to tuck them into place. He kisses her forehead, her palms, stray curls. She kisses him on his fine lips when they’re finished. 

“My turn,” he whispers. 

He scoops her off the ground, causing her to shriek for the pure joy of feeling him around her. As he carries her up the stairs and into their room she giggles, tapping at his chest and reaching for his shoulder. 

Anthony lays her on their bed, tugging at her laces. A way others may view as the beginnings of sensual pleasure, but they know. She knows. She trusts. He asks before each layer is removed, if it is alright with her before she rests. Once she is in her shift, he gathers sheets and quilts on top of her, keeping the brisk away from her skin. But what good is cold air when she has his warm lips drawing kisses across her skin?

He ends with another kiss–this time to her forehead. 

“Will that do?” he asks. 

Johanna offers a smile. A real smile, this time. “As always, you are perfect to me.”

“I’m not perfect–” Another kiss to the top of her head “–but with you, I am all the closer to it.”

He closes the door behind him. 

Under the comfort and warmth of the layers, she’s almost forgotten the reason why she was tucked into it in the first place. Then, the thought comes to mind: would Anthony still be able to carry her like that when she’s that big? 

If… if she is…

Yet the idea grasps its thorny hands around her chest. 

She turns herself onto her side, lifts the pillow to her face and lets herself sob. 

The next few days, she doesn’t think of it. Barely acknowledges her entire abdomen (even when her breasts ache after Betsy embraced her). Doesn’t consider monthlies or other aspects of femalehood. There’s no reason to think about it. That isn’t her . She isn’t .

She isn’t sick. She doesn’t hurt. She’s fine. 

Even if she is the slightest bit nauseous, she’s become quite good at ignoring it. She’s quite the distractress if she does say so herself. A slice of bread and bit of boiling water put together then served cold does wonders for the stomach. She chews on peppermint leaves and sips weak tea. But all that aching and bloating can’t be because of a…

It is four days later, she gives into her nausea. After cleaning herself up, she spent the rest of the day without Anthony looking up at the ceiling. 

Another full month has gone by. 

Still no blood. 

Nothing seemed wrong to Anthony as they came into bed together. She tucked herself against his body. He kissed her cheekbone. 

When Johanna closes her eyes, all she can see is the absence of blood and a belly. 

When she reopens them, she sees her husband. 

Tomorrow, she’ll have to tell him tomorrow. 

Then tomorrow came. The morning was airy. The afternoon was fuzzy. The sun returned to them briefly to say hello before tucking itself back down below the horizon and greeting them with cloudy skies. Still, she feels as exhausted as if she’d been working underneath a bright sky for days. Not quite real. 

After returning him home after work, she sits him at the table. Unsure how to begin, she simply stares at him for a moment. He stares back, expression too full of worry and void of most anything else.

Her hands are belly-level. 

She hopes that’s enough. 

“Anthony, I’m… I…”

It takes him a moment. She should have expected that. She takes a breath. 

“ Oh!”

And he knows. 

He knows and she is ruined. 

It becomes real for the first time. She has not felt the small kick of an unborn child nor has yet known more than bouts of nausea and tenderness, but it is now that it becomes solid and true inside of her. 

As her hands hover over her stomach, she knows: there is a child growing in there. 

Her child. Their child. 

Anthony wastes no time in wrapping his arms around her with a joyous cry. He has wanted this for so long. Too long, perhaps. Now it is finally his. This is the future he’s always seen for himself. Finally, he’s holding it in his arms. Wife and child. In their home that he’s bought for them. 

“Johanna! Can you believe this! Can you feel them? When did you realize? Are you alright? Johanna! Johanna!”

Despite the dance in his eyes and the honey dripping from his tone, the tears come wild and fast. 

She can hear his mumble, a soft “ Johanna?” but she doesn’t acknowledge it. Why isn’t she happy? Anthony is finally getting what he’s always wanted and… didn’t she always know she was eventually bound for motherhood? This is what her life has prepared her for. She should at least smile . Should be able to muster up some excitement, no matter how dusty it is, for this occasion. 

It’s real now. All she feels is alone. 

Despite Anthony’s arms around her. Despite the child growing inside. 

Women are supposed to be happy when they’re having a baby. They’re supposed to glow. All she is a dull, dull being. 

“Jo? What’s wrong? Tell me.”

Occasion after occasion has taught her that there is nothing she could do to make Anthony throw his love for her away. He won’t toss her away in some asylum. He would push her onto the streets for not wanting to lay in the marital bed with him. He only holders her closer and kisses along her jawline. They would fast onto each other. They are each other’s person. 

Yet, she doubts. If she told him the reason why, would he be upset with her?

He saw her pull the trigger once but what if this is it?

“I don’t know,” she mumbles into his shoulder. It isn’t terribly far from the truth. 

“Are you… feeling unwell?”

She takes a breath in through her nose. “I’m feeling unwell,” she confirms. It isn’t a fib , exactly. It just isn’t fully how she feels. “I think I’d like to be alone for a little while.”

And she rises, ignoring her arms that ache for him. She flees to their bedroom like a thief in the night.

Why doesn’t this feel right? Why isn’t she the wife she is supposed to be?

Present 

They do not have a talk. The house continues to stand quiet. The people inside, afraid and uneasy, flitter around the rooms and each other. Both wanting desperately for some connection, yet depriving themselves out of it in case it upset the other. Anthony lays his head next to his wife’s. They still entangle each other. There is hardly any conversation. None of the joy he’d expected when this moment eventually came. 

The night is a pitch when he hears fluttering around their room. When he opens his eyes fully, he finds his wife dressed. He shoves his feet through his trousers and into his shoes. With one pleading look, he asks the question of if he can come with her. All she does is nod in return. Anthony grabs her shawls on the way out. 

Dead conversation haunts them through the streets. He doesn’t dare upset her. She is content with the silence–or so it seems. He doesn’t know anymore. It has been a week and a half and he doesn’t know anymore. 

“I like the name Marianne,” he finally says, just to break the winter chill. “But not as in two different names. With a certain spelling.”

Johanna doesn’t reply for a time, then, 

“I think it’s a bit early to be thinking about such things, Anthony.”

Bowing his head, he doesn’t bring up names again. 

A few hours later, he wakes up again. 

“ Anthony ,” his wife pleads, tone opposite of what it was before. No longer distant, the dullness of it is replaced by an emotion Anthony understands his wife knows all too well: gut-wrenching fear.  

“Jo?” He turns over, hands searching for any part of her. When his fingers are wrapped ‘round her forearm, he sits up. “Johanna? What’s wrong? Did you have a–”

“I’m bleeding.”

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness. Instead of Johanna at her usual spot to the right of him, she’s kneeling on the floor beside their bed. Both hands have wrapped themselves around his arm, one perched on his bicep, the other on his fingers. And her face… He’d never be able to burn that expression from his memory. 

“You’re bleeding? Like…?”

“I’m certain , I’m certain that I am. That we’re having a baby. I know it. But now I’m bleeding and I…” Breath hitches in her throat. “I’m bleeding.”

Anthony may not know much about matters of the childbed and such, but he knows women aren’t supposed to bleed. 

“When did this happen?”

“Only a-only a… I only saw it a few minutes ago. I was getting dressed and-and-and on my drawers… There’s only a little, but it’s blood . I’m bleeding .”

Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding . 

They just found out about this baby. How could they already be losing them?

“What if it’s just a little before…?”

Before she could finish that thought, Anthony cups a hand on the back of her head and holds her to his chest. He can feel her chest moving up and down, how rapidly each breath falls. Her hands squeeze around his arm. There is no calming down not now–and how could they? Their baby…

“Do you know? Do you know that for certain? ” 

He feels her shake her head. “N-n- no . But– Anthony …”

He pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head. 

“We’ll go to Mrs. Crowle–or I’ll go and bring her here.” Anthony talks faster than he thinks, barely considering the hardly risen sun. “She’ll tell us for certain. She knows what’s best for both of you.”

A pause–then he feels her nod. 

He lets her go then, staring her in the eye, furrowed brow matching her. Johanna’s eyes aren’t red, she is only panicking. She hasn’t accepted anything quite yet. Either that’s a very good thing or a dangerously bad one. 

Anthony lays her in their bed. There’s no time to undress what she has already layered on. Making her remove her corset to get more comfortable would only make her feel anything but. A towel is tucked beneath her. Sheets lay on her paling body. He wipes away the sweat on her brow, makes her promise not to get up and kisses her there before he sweeps out the window. 

An undershirt and pair of trousers isn’t much protection from winter, but Anthony moves–mind and body–too quickly to realize the frost biting at his ears and how it sneaks through his shoes to nip at his toes. Town feels terribly far. The midwife’s house even further. 

He bangs on the door of the older woman. It is she who answers it. With a mention of how he’s lucky she rises early, she trails behind him on their trek back to the cottage. Back to Johanna. 

There, he waits outside the door. Pacing. Chewing his fingernails–a habit he’d left behind in boyhood. They had gone through so much, yet he hadn’t reverted to that state of mind until now. Not when he held a gun to a man’s head. Not when his wife pulled the trigger. Not when they saw the bloody bodies. He has never been more nauseated than now. 

Their baby…

None of this was the way he’d imagined. The fantasy he created was a delighted surprise and a loving embrace that swallowed them both whole. Kisses on her belly. Feeling the slope of it. Pretending like they could hear a heartbeat. Discussions about names. Kisses before each bed at night. Feeling their child under their palms. Lullabies that his wife would sing sweeter than the morning lark. A baby. 

How could it be gone so quickly?

The midwife yawns as she closes the door behind her. 

“What–?”

“Let your wife tell you.” She wipes at the corner of her mouth. “And since you’re both new, I won’t charge you for this. When you tell your mother, tell her that’s me paying her back.”

Anthony barely hears the rest of what Mrs. Crowle says as he dashes into their room. Johanna grabs his hands. 

“It’s normal! It’s alright! Everything’s quite alright!” 

“It’s–what?”

Johanna pats the space in front of her. Like an obedient child, Anthony sits, unable to resist taking both of her hands in his own. She gives another nod, not quite smiling, but something hinted at there. 

“Mrs. Crowle says that this happens to women when they’re just found out. When they’re… new in this. It’s just a trick of nature. As long as I don’t bleed too much before they’re born. If that happens, we’re to fetch her right away. But that hasn’t happened.” She breathes out, a breath it seems like she’d been holding for weeks. “And she confirmed it. I am.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

She is. 

Again, Anthony holds her close. 

There are no words between them, trusting Mrs. Crowle has let herself out. Johanna pats to the side of her. Anthony obeys. He pats to his chest. She follows, laying her head where his heart is beating. 

She is. 

There will still be those lullabies. The rhymes. The naming and the gentle kicks. They will have all of it. 

He closes his eyes with his fingers tangled in her hair. 

When he wakes, she is gone again. His clothes have been laid out where he’d sat that morning. Anthony draps a shirt around himself, but neglects the rest. His toes regret such a decision the moment he steps onto the floor, though he doesn’t return for his socks. 

She’s just outside their door, leaning against the way of another. Their extra room with sewing supplies and the stacks of books. Instead of a library or sewing room, in recent weeks it’s become a separate napping room. Anthony lays a gentle hand around her hip, inviting himself into the scene. 

“What are you looking at?”

Johanna doesn’t answer at first–the tilt of her head indicates she’s heard him, but has to consider first. He never minds when she hesitates. A habit she’d caught onto in her own childhood, but he now finds as endearing as the sound of her laughter. She glances at the room, then up at him, then back at the nearly empty space. 

“The nursery.” 

Chapter Text

“Mrs. Crowle said something interesting to me the other day when she was here.”

Johanna frowns. Mrs. Crowle isn’t her favorite person in the world and she knows for a fact that she isn’t hers either. If she hadn’t been so distracted by other matters at hand, their brief conversation would have been terribly awkward. Johanna wasn’t known in the birth chamber for obeying orders. She’s made a name for herself in the worst way possible for the midwife. If a woman can’t be helpful in the way the midwife bids her to be, then what is the point of her presence? 

Johanna still doesn’t know what the point of her being there was. She’s never had a child. She hadn’t a lick of experience with such matters–until she was called to help Tellie in delivering her second boy. There are all sorts of quips Mrs. Crowle could have flung at her. If she had been able to think straight, she would have requested Anthony not bother her. She must be even more irritated by Johanna’s existence than before. 

Nose wrinkled, she asks, “What?”

“She said, ‘when you tell your mother .’”

She tilts her head to the side, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s so unusual about that?”

“It’s just–” Anthony creeps behind her to pull her hair away from her face “–I’d completely forgotten about telling anyone.”

Telling anyone . Well, she supposes they would have to break the news to his family at some point or else leave them to come up with their own ideas when her stomach stretched enough or his sisters were called to her birthing chamber after years of her trying to avoid theirs. Knowing his mother, she already had it figured out before she even knew. 

“Do you think we should tell people now?”

They’ve seen so many similar announcements in his family. Is it really their time?

“I don’t know.” Anthony shrugs. “Do you think it’s time?”

There would be Mrs. Hope nodding along to the announcement with a wide grin. Andrew wouldn’t spare his brother a tease. The younger children wouldn’t quite understand what was going on and request another piece of pudding. The sisters would pat her on the shoulder, reminding her to tell her when and they would be there to provide support. Nothing but excitement. Everyone knows how much Anthony wants this. Finally, it’s come. 

Yet the image of the blood drops on her drawers can’t be chased from her mind, no matter how many days further they get along from it. 

What if it happens again? What if there’s more than a few drops that stain?

How devastated the Hopes would be. And they would have to be the ones to tell them.  As much as she loves his family–and for her love for his family–she can’t allow that to happen. 

“Perhaps, we wait? A few more weeks?” Johanna lifts her arms and Anthony gets right to work untying the apron from around her. He sneaks a kiss to the back of her neck. “You can’t even really tell and… well, I don’t think anyone can tell quite yet.” She glances at her stomach. Her corset and all the layers before and after haven’t needed any adjusting. She should be alright. “Can–?”

“I wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t told me.” 

A nod, a deep breath. “Well, that’s a good thing, then.” That’s a problem for later on. “I just… I think we should wait a little longer before we tell anyone. Just in case. I don’t want to have to tell them bad news, too.”

He nods, but she can sense the shrug of disappointment hanging from his bones. Johanna offers a smile, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. 

“You’re excited to tell them.”

Again, he nods. “I’m excited to tell everyone.”

“You can do the honors when we do.” 

Out of nowhere, he catches her by the hips and swings her up in the air. Palms balanced on his shoulders, she catches a kiss to the top of his head. Beaming, Anthony opens his mouth to say something, but interrupts himself by setting herself down. 

“I probably shouldn’t do that anymore, should I?” 

Like a deer caught in front of a wagon, she blinks back. “Why not?”

“Well because…” His head gestures down towards her stomach. “I don’t want to cause anything that shouldn’t…”

The blood on her drawers terrified her enough. Johanna nods. 

She would miss being swung up in the air like that. 

“But I mean it,” she says, not quite as a way to distract herself from that thought (well, perhaps, it is a distraction), “when it’s time, you get to tell them. I hope you’ve been practicing.”

He chuckles. “I’m already working on something. I think I’ll begin with a long spiel about my lovely wife and how beautiful and creative and sweet and–”

Finger taps at his lips, though she’s grinning. “If you keep talking about your lovely wife , you’ll never actually tell them.”

“Oh–” Anthony brings her closer to him “–but what is the harm of that?”

“I just gave you this privilege, don’t make me take it away from you!” 

“You’re silly.” 

Johanna laughs. “No, you .”

“ Silly ,” he repeats, leaning closer to her face, “and very beautiful.”

She beats him to the kiss, pecking him first on the nose before the lips. 

The idea–no, now the very fact –of this occasion still terrifies her. At night, if she isn’t hunched over a chamber pot or some sort of other bowl, she lies in her ache thinking about everything that could go wrong. Motherhood isn’t built into girls like her. Maternal instincts weren’t passed down from her own mother–if her mother had any at all to begin with. What sort of woman is she to carry and raise a child? 

But simply sitting in the rare beams of winter sunlight in Anthony’s embrace, it feels more possible than it should. 

Seeing his brothers kiss their children’s heads before they took off brought some new feeling to Anthony’s chest. In a few years, they will have a child he will say goodbye to in the mornings and will tackle him down when he comes home in the evening. He will get to ask about their days, he will get to tuck them into bed at night, he’ll have a child . 

“Is it hard to leave them in the morning?” he asks Andrew as he passes him another log. 

Andrew allows his ax to cut through the wood before answering, “My family? ‘Course it is.”

“I miss mine all the time,” Lewis interjects. He slips his gloves back on after attempting to thaw out his hands by massaging his fingers. “Is even harder now that Betsy’s several months gone.”

“I can’t imagine it would be easy.” Anthony nods. “If Johanna–and I mean if –she was… I’d be terrified to leave her all day. What if something happ– were to happen?”

Lewis sends him an interesting look. “Poor girl.”

“If she was, you know.”

“If she was.”

They’re not telling people. Not yet. Not for a few more weeks. 

“You’ll–” Andrew’s ax cuts through the log. “–make a great pa.”

“You think so?”

It’s impossible to keep his elation from his tone. It isn’t as if they could figure out just based on vocal inflection. Besides, isn’t that a comment every man would like to hear–childless or not?

Andrew throws his log into the pile. “I know it. You were like a third father to the younger ones. Third because I was the second one to them.”

First and only , Anthony could argue, but now is not the day for dwelling on darker moments of their family history. Their father wasn’t much of one to them. But now their children will never have to know a life like that. 

“Only because I had you as an example.”

Lewis rolls his eyes, though he smiles. “Didn’t realize what I was expecting from you lot today. It wasn’t this.”

“I’m excited,” Anthony says, though his voice is lost in the wind, “to be a father.”

“I reckon you’ll have a mix of both. Not just boys like me, both like Lewis. And a good amount, too. It’s not too late for a big family, you know.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know if poor Jo wants to go through that so many times.”

“Ah–but then you see the little tyke and you get addicted. After seeing my first for the first time, I told Betsy, I wanted ten if she could manage it.”

“What did she say?”

“That she couldn’t manage it.”

Anthony snickers. “I just want as many as Johanna wants–even if it’s just one. I’m happy as long as she is.”

“Oh, you romantic,” Andrew accuses. 

“I’ve never loved anyone so much as I’ve loved her.”

“Oh, no! Here we go again!”

“I can’t help it!”

Both men chuckle. Only Heaven kept track of how many times he managed to bring up his wife during conversation when he first brought her home. The Hopes may be a patient and loving kind, but no one has such a patience for that. 

“Do you want a boy or a girl?”

Anthony pauses in his work of organizing the logs into piles. One for their mother and the children at home, one for Lewis, one for Andrew and one for himself. They’ll need another two to balance them out. But he doesn’t call it out loud, instead he is distracted in the question. Boy or girl? Well, he doesn’t exactly get to choose! He’d never considered it before. 

“I really don’t mind. I’ll be thrilled just to have a baby in the first place.”

“I think you’ll have a boy first,” Lewis says. 

Andrew tosses him another. “Nah–a girl. You’re the type of man meant to father girls.”

“Well–” Anthony laughs again, trying to cover up the immense pride that filled him at Andrew’s comment (he would be a good father to a girl?) “–I’ll focus on getting one in the first place before that comes up.” He moves the log onto a pile. “I wish we could know beforehand.”

“Tellie does as well–but I like the surprise.”

Anthony glances up at his brother. “A surprise. I like that. It is a good surprise either way.”

“Yeah.” Andrew sticks his ax into the stump. “And when little boy Hope or little girl Hope comes, let us know. You’ll need some distraction–especially for the first.”

“Jo?” 

She can hear him putting away his layers and layers, yet she cannot move herself to join him downstairs. Today has been particularly difficult. From the moment Anthony rolled over to kiss the side of her head (she was still in bed!) she has been clutching her stomach and praying she won’t be sick again. The only time she was able to get herself up from the mattress was to open the window a crack. Sweating, yet freezing, she’s spent her entire day laying on top of the sheets. 

“Anthony?” is her pathetic reply.

A few moments later, he enters. He doesn’t hesitate to rush to the bed. When she glances at a free space on it, he sits and rubs at her forearm. 

“It’s been a bad day?”

She nods. How is trying to look up at him making it worse? She spent her entire day staring at the ceiling! 

“Should I ask Mother if she–?”

But already, Johanna is shaking her head. “I don’t want her to suspect anything. She’s already suspicious.”

“Suspicious?”

If she was more herself, she might try to cover up prior conversations she had with the women with a little white lie. No need to worry Anthony. Though, those lies hardly seem worth it almost four years into their marriage when they both know he can catch her on them. She doesn’t like lying to him anyway, even if she believes it’s for the greater good. 

“A few days before I realized…” Now, she does close her eyes. The combination of speaking through a raw through and trying to focus becoming too much to handle. “We were making soap and Betsy was talking about hers… and I asked a few questions. I didn’t know then. I didn’t even really realize it for a while longer. I just…” She sighs. “I wasn’t thinking. Your mother is suspicious of me.” 

Anthony pauses. If she didn’t feel so miserable, she might grow concerned that he was angry or even disappointed in her. 

“If she already has a suspicion, there can’t be much harm in asking, right? You’ll feel better and she can let herself mellow on it until we actually tell people.”

And wouldn’t it be lovely not to feel this way anymore?

“Out of everyone–” His finger trails along her arm “–we know, I think a woman whose given birth at least seven times would know what to do in these circumstances. She’ll help, Jo. I promise. No judgment or anything.”

She doesn’t respond for a time, allowing herself to slowly open her eyes. The gray sky out the window is too bright. Anthony’s hands are cold, yet gentle. She takes his free one and lays it on her belly. He understands her cue, beginning to rub there. That helps somewhat . If they could lay like this for another few minutes, she might feel completely better–cured without any external factors. 

But he’d have to stay forever. He’d have to give up his life just to coddle his pathetic wife. 

“Are you certain? And if she does ask or pry…?”

“I won’t say a word about it. I’ll even lie to her if you wish me, too.”

It wouldn’t be the first time they lied to his mother. Or would it be the last. 

“Whatever you feel is within the bounds of your morals.” She opens her eyes again, providing a small smile. “I don’t want you to feel terribly about yourself after.”

“I’ll try not to.”

He begins to slide away from her, planting his feet back on the ground when she lets out her groan of protest. As soon as he hears the faintest sound, he lies back down, eye-to-eye with his wife. 

“Can you do that again?” she asks. “Just for a little while more? It feels much better when you’re here.”

So he does. His head lays under her chin as they relax into each other and submerge themselves on the bed. It’s easier like this, it’s calmer. Whether it’s what he’s doing that’s making her feel better or his mere presence, she’s happy to close her eyes and smile into it. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, out of the blue and hazy. 

He tilts his head towards her. “For what?”

“The way I was after I told you. I shouldn’t have cried. I shouldn’t have been so distant.”

“Jo…” he says it in his lovesick voice, the kind of tone he uses whenever she’s in need of comforting, whenever he doesn’t quite understand, yet holds her closer as if he does. 

A heavy hand leans into his hair, brushing against the side of his face. 

“I’m not upset with you. I know you weren’t upset with me either,” he continues. “We hadn’t talked about having a baby and, well, it was a surprise.

“I didn’t think I could.”

“Think you could…?”

“Have a baby.”

He pauses in his assignment to adjust himself to his elbows and caress a hand over her face. His free one resumes, though he doesn’t say anything as he stares at her. She stares back, wondering who is supposed to speak first. 

“You didn’t?” Anthony asks. 

If she could shake her head with nausea pooling to the back of her throat, she would. 

“I wasn’t well, Anthony. For a long time. I’m better now, but… I was never like other women. I was barely one myself. Since I didn’t bleed like normal…” She shrugs. “Even after it was normal again, I just assumed.” Eyes close again. “I’m sorry for not telling you. I should have.”

He kisses her forehead, though he doesn’t respond. Not for another minute or two… or even longer. The silence they lay in is comfortable. Warm and safe. There is no need to run from it. 

“That’s why you were…?”

“Why I cried. Why I was like that.”

“You were confused.”

Johanna hadn’t thought of it that way, yet that’s the word that makes the most sense. Confused . Confused as to why this happened. Confused as to why she wasn’t feeling right. Confused about her own body and soul. 

“I was confused.”

He bends down to kiss her cheek. “I don’t blame you. That’s alright.”

“It really is?” 

Another kiss. “It really is.”

“Oh, I love you.”

He laughs, gently, gently, as if his chuckle might disturb her. “I love you, too.”

Anthony slowly sits himself up. She traces along the back of his arm as he pulls his socks back over his ankles and reaches for his shoes. 

“Anthony?”

“Yes?”

Johanna lets herself join him on the edge of the bed, leaning her head against his shoulder and wrapping her hand under his. “You’re really excited, aren’t you?”

She watches as his smile spreads across his face. “I’m really excited.” He pauses in what he’s doing. “Are you?”

“I’m getting there. Slowly. But I think I’m getting there. At least a little.”

“That’s alright.”

Once his feet are both planted on the ground, he eases her back onto the pillows. He folds the covers over her and she thinks of him doing the same to a baby in a few months. He’ll kiss them on their head the way he does with her. He’ll sing a song or tell a story. He’ll coddle their crying. 

Anthony Hope is the perfect man to be a father. 

When he leaves, she closes her eyes, content with that image. 

“She’s just nauseated?” 

Anthony nods, leaning slightly on his heels. “It’s the winter. She’s caught something from the chill.”

“And she hasn’t been coughing it up?”

It’s as if his mother has a smell for these kinds of things. Like she could sniff a person out for whatever secret they may have. How is it that she doesn’t catch onto the details of Johanna’s past, yet she doesn’t try to hide her doubt as to why he needs remedies for his wife. She’s been sick in the past. This certainly isn’t the last time she will be. This isn’t the only reason why she might feel ill. 

Usually, he admires this ability of his mother’s. Today, he is less than impressed. 

“Mother, I don’t think she wants to be diagnosed. She just wants to feel better.” His sass astounds himself. Anthony sighs. “Please?”

“Alright, alright. I hear you. Has she tried peppermint?”

“Peppermint and bread with water.”

His mother nods. “That’s a good start. She might put some salt on that bread to get herself to eat a little–she’s been eating?”

His shoulders deflate. His mother is too good, too sharp in her memory. “As much as she can, but she’s been sick. I don’t think it’ll be good for her.”

“As long as she tries when she feels like she can.”

“I promise, Mother.”

She sends him home with another basket (how does she get all these baskets?) of supplies to cure his wife’s ailment. As the door shut behind him, dread pooled the lining of his stomach. She absolutely knows.

But they’d expected as much, hadn’t they? And he couldn’t have done much more to protect their secret. 

At least he still has the rest of the family to surprise?

When he gets home, he nurses her. Rubbing her stomach between sips of tonics and teas. Holding her head after ripping pieces of bread covered in little flakes of salt. Pressing kisses to wherever she gave him permission. 

“You’re going to be the perfect father,” Johanna whispers after the sun has long gone down. If she hadn’t spoken, he would have assumed she was asleep. 

“I don’t know that for certain, but I’ll try.”

“No.” She adjusts herself on his lap. “I know that for certain.”

“You’re going to be the perfect mother.”

Here, she chuckles. Perhaps, it is the nausea that's distracting her, but she doesn’t deny it. Anthony hopes she knows that in her heart. He’s seen her from a different pair of eyes their whole lives. The way she coddles birds and interacts with their nieces and nephews. The story Tellie told him about the birth of her second son and how Johanna stayed by her side the entire time. There is a fierceness in his wife, one that will aid her through raising their child. She will be as close to perfection as anything. 

“I like the name Marianne,” she mumbles.

“Really?”

Johanna doesn’t answer. By the way her chest is rising and falling, he can tell sleep has overtaken her. 

He lifts her wrist to kiss before closing his eyes.

Sailor though he may be, it was always Johanna who woke first in the morning. It’s always been Johanna to lay out his clothes, to warm tea over the stove for them, to slice bread and provide jam for his breakfast. It gave her some delight, knowing she was taking care of him in their own way. But between feeling ill and ache-all around, she has been the last one of them to wake. Now, she stumbles down the stairs to nibble at the bread and find her own wardrobe in the morning. 

Despite the breech in tradition, she still dresses first thing in the morning. However, no mirror is needed for her to make that realization when she looks down. 

She’s grown. At least, her stomach has. 

Oh, dear . 

Since she found out, she knew this day was coming. Dreaded it ever since. Now, that day is here… Oh, dear . 

Johanna throws a shawl over her shift as she runs outside. 

March signals the perfect time of the year to start bringing the garden back to life. Upon trying to shut the window this morning, she’d seen her husband in the dirt, digging through solid with the hopes of finding fertile ground. The garden has always belonged to him. Her only request has been no flowers. But the strawberries, the blackberries, the tomatoes and countless other produce are a blessing. 

Oh, those tomatoes …

Hopefully, those will be growing sooner rather than later. Even the thought of biting into one that’s skin is too green makes her mouth water. 

She says nothing as she approaches her husband, waits for him to notice her. 

It doesn’t take long. He looks towards the sun and finds his wife over him instead. The expression on his face admits to her that he would have jumped if he had been standing. She continues to be quiet until he rises. 

“Do you see it?” Johanna asks. 

Anthony doesn’t answer her. “It’s freezing out here!” He takes her hand, leading her back inside. “What are you doing? You’re just in your…” He blinks as he realizes what she’s just in. “ Jo… ”

“ Look .”

She is undeterred, though allows him to close the door behind them. It is much warmer in here. Every morning, Anthony lights a fire for her to protect her from whatever chill Plymouth has in store for them today. She told him once that it was hardly fair how she has a roof over her head and a fire in the pit while he had to slave away on the docks. With a kiss, Anthony told her that he’s delighted that’s how it’s worked out. 

He said something about her not having any fire for nine months. As if her time in Fogg’s could make up for a whole lifetime. He doesn’t want her to suffer like that ever again. 

How was she able to marry such a perfect man?

“ Look ,” Johanna whispers again as she brushes away her shawl. Anthony grabs a corner of it, but with a move of her shoulder, it falls away again. She takes his fingers. “It’s already begun.”

He glances over her with a look so serious one might confuse him for attending a funeral. “What has? Johanna–are you alright? What’s wrong.”

Her free hand tucks itself beneath her stomach, showing off the little bump that’s already grown there. 

Anthony’s expression remains just as tense. “Jo–? Oh .”

“Oh,” she copies without meaning to. 

He lowers himself to a knee like a man about to propose. His gaze doesn’t leave her stomach. His gentle features take it all in. The little bump. The little evidence of their baby. 

“Jo,” Anthony whispers again. 

And his expression breaks, displaying all the joy of a man. The way his fingers quiver, she can tell he wants to stroke the skin there, let himself fully grasp a reality he considers to be nothing but beautiful. 

Her own fingers shake as she lifts her shift to let him see. 

Not much else has changed. Her ribs are still evidently dancing through. Her skin is the same color. 

There’s just that bump. 

Anthony looks up at her. 

“You can touch,” she whispers. 

His fingertips are cold. She doesn’t flinch as he drags a finger across her skin. 

He’s mesmerized. 

“That’s them.”

Johanna nods. “That’s them.”

And he presses a kiss there, as delicate as he would holding their child. The same way she knows he will hold them. 

His check rests against her there. She wonders if he’s trying to hear them. 

How strange. Johanna hasn’t even been able to let him touch her there. Not even Anthony who she trusts with every bone in her body and adores him with even more. That is an intimacy she’s never found the bravery to let him into.  

She begins to pull her shift back down and Anthony understands. He takes it and tugs it the rest of the way, pressing a kiss to each hip as he does. 

“Thank you.” His voice is weak. A prophet after receiving prophecy. 

“I’m already getting fat.”

As he stands, Anthony shakes his head. “That’s what happens, Jo. What happened to my mother. What happened to Tellie and Betsy and Maria. I’m pretty sure that’s just how the baby grows.”

“Well, it’s not very fair. I’m sick all the time and now I’m already getting big and-and-I can’t fit anymore–”

He takes both of her hands, squeezing her fingers. “Fit what? Johanna, I’m sure you can still fit into most of your things. It’s hardly noticeable.” 

“How am I supposed to get into a…” Johanna takes a breath “ corset? ” After all these years, she still gets bashful at times when discussing her undergarments with her husband. He’s seen her in nothing but many times (take now for example) and yet… well, she’s already struggling with this morning! 

“Can I help you?”

Like one of their nieces or nephews quivering their lower lip, she bows her head. She nods. 

He leads her up the stairs and asks her to pick out what she wanted to wear that day. He takes her shawl, placing it on their bedframe with the promise to put it away after they’re done. He already knows how to help her with her corset–having learned how to help her in to it before learning how to get her out of it. 

Anthony holds it around her, completely unlaced. When she looks up, he’s frowning. 

“You still remember how to do it, don’t you?” she asks. 

He nods. “I think … Well, when we had problems like this on the ship, we’d just tie a looser knot.” 

“You had problems helping a woman in an interesting condition on The Bountiful? ”

At that, Anthony grins. He kisses the back of her ear. “Not quite, but when we replaced our ropes with ones that were less frayed… We had to adjust. And it was alright then and it’s alright now.”

She lifts her arms to allow him to do his work. Smiling when he sneaks kisses in and teasing him when she felt his hands stray to where she was bare. 

“Does that feel right?”

Johanna spreads her fingers down the corset. It doesn’t feel quite the same, though she doubts she’ll have any problem going down the stairs or running. It’s just that: looser, like the knots Anthony used to tie. 

“Yes.” She turns back around to grin back at him. She holds his torso against herself and she enjoys his back running up and down her back. “We’ll just have to figure out what to do when I can’t get away with wearing this one anymore.”

“I’m sure they’ve invented something for that by now.”

“Let’s hope.” Johanna breaks away, though keeping her stare on him. “I can’t go around corsetless for nine months!” 

“Well, perhaps… You wear it for, uh, shape, right? Maybe you won’t even need it anymore?”

“Not just for shape , Anthony.” A brow raises. Well, Johanna had never fully explained the necessities of a corset before. She doubts his mother sat down one day and told him. And she certainly wouldn’t trust whatever his brother had to say about it. “It’s for… well …” She looks down. Please understand . 

“For…? Oh .” He pauses. “Why?”

“ Anthony… ”

No more explanation is given. Besides, she can tell he figured it out for himself as his eyes widen. 

“Well, is there some sort of… I don’t know, a cloth? That you could just wrap around? It wouldn’t have to cover it at all.”

Johanna blinks. “A cloth? I don’t think that would…” She lowers her tone, “ do the same thing .”

“Um…” Anthony smiles. If she were to kiss his lips now, she could come away with the same mischief. “Well, I wouldn’t complain if…”

“Anthony!”

When he laughs, it’s impossible not to with him. 

“Sorry, Jo,” he whispers once his breath is caught. “I’m not serious.”

“I know.” He knows her and loves her too much to be. She lifts a coy shoulder. “Help me to get dressed?”

It is an old game they play: him gathering every garment she needs under her direction. Some days, she doesn’t give much, allowing him to pick what she’s going to wear that day. It’s some kind of thrill as the ensemble comes together to see what he chose. Today, Johanna has a few extra rules for him. There’s a certain dress in mind, one that won’t give away her figure too much (they still haven’t told people after all). She doesn’t have to remind him that in the winter she needs three petticoats, he just knows her well. 

His gentle hand on her calf as he helps to slip her legs into her stockings has her melting in the early spring. 

And, oh , his eyes looking up at her as he ties her into her petticoats. 

Once she’s under every layer and wrapped in a wool dress, he helps her up from the bed. 

“You can’t notice anything, can you?” 

“Not at all.” Anthony reaches for her fingertips, pressing a kiss to her nails. “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re certain? No one will be able to tell?”

He nods. “And even if they did… Well, my mother at dinner tonight would be elated that you’re gaining weight.”

“Dinner tonight?”

Another nod. “Remember? It’s Saturday, it’s–”

“Dinner tonight!”

How could she have forgotten! Every weekend, the Hopes dine all together. Tradition that’s been going on for years. They even open Anthony’s brother, Hugh and his wife’s letters during that time so it feels like they’re still in Plymouth with them. It’s not like herself to forget something like that. 

“What if they do notice? What if they say something about it? Your mother is already suspicious of me and–”

“Johanna–Jo–hey,” he says in his gentle, yet stern voice that always makes her pause. “Mother isn’t suspicious. And if she is, she’s suspicious of both of us, not just you.”

She sighs. Reminders that they’re both in this are comforting. 

“Remember what I said? I still mean it. Until you’re ready to tell people, I’ll lie to people for us.”

Another sigh. Her lips curl somewhat. 

“Good, Good Anthony Hope lying on my behalf.”

He kisses her knuckles. “I always will. I promise.”

She’s all-too aware of her grown belly as she sits down. Johanna keeps her fingertips on the table when she’s not eating. If she lets them drop, someone might follow where they fall and notice . 

There are tight smiles and small, quiet comments made at supper. The rest of the Hopes easily make up for her lack of conversation. It’s not unusual for them, though she hasn’t been this distant from the family since they were newlyweds. It was both easy and difficult to find her place within this family. Now that she’s found it, she still doesn’t know exactly what to do with it. 

“Are you feeling any better, Johanna?” Mrs. Hope questions. 

She can’t help her grimace at the question. Of course, Anthony had told her she hadn’t been feeling well, but that was weeks ago! She’s suspicious of something, Johanna knows it. 

“I’m alright, thank you.”

“Did the peppermint help?”

Johanna nods. “Very much.”

Is she showing?

She glances down–just to check. 

She doesn’t think so…

After shawls are wrapped around herself and goodbyes are said, they begin on their way back to the cottage. Anthony is holding onto her firmer than he usually does. It’s not difficult to notice. She relaxes into the hold. It’s not just herself treading on slush, it’s also their baby. 

“She knows.”

Anthony doesn’t look at her, too focused on navigating their steps. It’s hard to believe he was trying to start on his garden today just for it to snow on them. Not too much, none that will stick for long. Just long enough to torture them throughout their walk back. 

“What?”

“She asked me if I was feeling better.” Johanna lifts her skirts as she dodges a puddle. “It’s been weeks since you went to talk to her. She’s caught onto us.”

And then, she stops. 

What was that ?

Johanna blinks. 

There it is again. 

A little flutter of wings. Inside her stomach. 

Well, that’s certainly odd …

“What?” She barely hears Anthony’s voice. “Are you alright?”

“I think…” A frown. “I think I just felt the baby move.”

“What?” 

She nods. 

He lowers himself to the ground, drenching his knee in wet and mud. He looks at her midriff before glancing back up at her. “Can I…?”

“Well, I don’t feel it anymore.”

“Was it like a-a kick? I remember my mother would put my hand on her stomach when she felt those so I could feel it, too. Was it like that?”

Johanna purses her brows, shaking her head. “No… It was just… A flutter.”

“Flutter? Flutter.”

“Flutter. Like a little bird.”

He breaks into a grin and before she realizes it, he’s scooped her up off the ground and darts back to their home. She scolds and it is lost to the wind. She laughs in response to her own words. 

Anthony places her on the sofa, kneeling in front of her with hand on belly. Waiting.

She holds her breath, too. For Anthony. Move for Anthony . 

When, seven minutes later, they still don’t feel anything, she orders him to change from his weather-worn clothes. 

“I’ll be here,” she promises as he runs up the stairs. “I’ll call you the moment I feel anything!” 

Once she hears the door close, she laughs. How silly! They’re frantically waiting for something no bigger than a fig to make the slightest movement. 

That’s going to be the rest of their lives, isn’t it? Hoping and nursing after someone much smaller than them. 

She never thought–

“Anthony!” she shrieks, “Anthony! Now! Now! Now!”

He trips over his half-buttoned trousers as he slips down the stairs. His trousers are barely above the knees when he slides up to her. Ear and hand pressed against her stomach. 

Half-second later, she’s shrieking his name again. 

“Did you feel that? It was right there! Did you?” 

“No…” Anthony looks up at her. “But you felt it?”

“A little fluttering. A little bird.”

Anthony nods. “A little bird.” There is a drop of disappointment in his tone–she can’t blame him. He desperately wanted to feel it. It isn’t very fair she feels it all and he can’t really understand any of it. Though, Anthony still smiles. “You felt them. They’re really there.”

“They’re really alive .”

And she isn’t afraid of seeing any blood on her drawers. 

Johanna pats the back of his hand, then the other cushion on the sofa. Anthony sits. 

“I think we can tell them now.”

Even if the sun itself entered the room, it wouldn’t compare to the brightness in her husband’s expression. “Really?”

She nods again. “This is really real .”

“Mother’s obviously still there and Maria’s probably–”

“Perhaps, not tonight .” She giggles, though. What if they did walk down the hill just to inform his family of their news! “Tomorrow. At supper. For now… I’m quite tired. I’d like to go to bed.”

Did Anthony ever think his wife would admit to that? 

Nonetheless, he slips off his trousers and carries her to their bed. That is always the peace between them. Even if he undresses her, it is not always just for reasons of the marital bed. Sometimes (most of the time), it is because he simply wishes to serve his wife. 

Once his shirt is off, he slides in next to her. Hand on her stomach, head resting against her shoulder. 

“Little bird?” he asks. 

“A little bird.”

And their little bird quivers under them. 

Chapter Text

She isn’t nervous. No. Just a little, well, overwhelmed .

Dinner with the Hopes tonight can’t come soon enough–as much as she dreads it. 

For now, they’re waiting the hours away at church, half-listening to the priest. Anthony isn’t exactly subtle in his approach in asking if the baby’s moved. His eyes glance at her stomach every few minutes and the corner of his lips move, desperately wishing he could ask. If everyone already knew, she would let him rest his hand there, just in case he can feel it himself yet. 

But they haven’t told the Hopes yet. 

“It’s good to see you here again, Mrs. Hope,” Mrs. Robshaw says at the end of the meeting. She leans over the pew slightly. “Are you feeling better?”

Last Sunday had been brutal. Anthony had to half-lie to everyone about his wife’s whereabouts. 

Johanna offers a somewhat tight smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ever since the last of Mrs. Robshaw’s children left to find his place in the world, she’s become, well, a bit of a prier . Always asking about where Johanna came from, who her parents are, why she married Anthony… Over the course of four years, it’s become utterly exhausting. 

“Good, good.” Mrs. Robshaw glances over her. “You need to keep your strength up, dear, for your children.”

Of course . Johanna suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. 

“We don’t have any children, Mrs. Robshaw. I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

“ Yet .”

She sighs. “Yes, I suppose ‘yet.’ Technically.”

“Speaking of–” Mrs. Robshaw continues to lean her torso over the pew. It hardly looks comfortable. “This is the prime of your life, Mrs. Hope. This is the time to be having children. This–”

“Thank you, Mrs. Robshaw.”

As she stands, she makes eye-contact with Mrs. Crowle. The midwife gestures her head towards where the other Mrs. Hopes are gathered. She doesn’t need to speak for Johanna to grasp her meaning. Have you told them yet?

It feels silly to have a secret between herself, her husband and the town’s midwife. Not a usual combination. 

Not yet, Mrs. Crowle. Once the Hopes know, the rest of Plymouth surely will, too . 

That’s part of the reason she was hesitant to tell anyone. 

Things don’t stay secrets for long. 

She looks for her husband in the crowd. When she first came to Plymouth, she wanted to leave church as soon as possible. No room for additional chat in her book. However, it’s difficult to leave when one’s husband is incredibly popular in town. How can she blame anyone for their adoration of him? Everyone knows Anthony Hope is the kindest man alive. As much as she dislikes hearing about it, she’s heard several stories about parents pressuring their daughters to go after him. (A petty jealousy, perhaps, but it doesn’t feel very good to hear about Anthony’s other potential prospects.) All the men have befriended him–young and old. 

In fact, when she makes eye-contact with him, he’s holding a young boy at his hip. The boy tugs on his ear. Ah , the coin trick. 

Johanna makes her way over to them, silently taking her place at her husband’s side. 

“When are you gonna have kids, Tony?” the boy asks. 

Anthony laughs. “Don’t you already have a lot of friends in town, Ben?”

“I do … but I want more. You told me that it’s better to have lots of friends.”

“Good point.” Anthony glances at the group of grown men around him, dropping a little comment about their conversation before turning his attention back to Ben. “What if Johanna and I have a girl? Will you still want to be her friend?”

Ben makes a face. Anthony throws his head back in his pit of laughter.  

“Should I take that as a ‘no’, then?” 

Ben doesn’t change his expression. 

With a gentle smile, Johanna perches her hands against her husband’s shoulder. Anthony looks at her. Ben glances between the two of them. 

“ Don’t have a girl,” the boy warns her. 

Hopefully they won’t . 

“Alright, Ben,” Anthony says, “Do you see your da?” 

The boy points and Anthony follows in the direction. Johanna tags along from behind. There'll be some conversation, some tease and a goodbye before they’ll be able to get home. 

Once they’re hand-in-hand, they make their escape outside. Despite the snow that’s stayed, the sun beaming between the clouds warms the air. If anyone else was watching, would they notice the extra tenderness he takes with her? The way his hand falls to the small of her back with the sort of protectiveness that a bird reserves for its young?

It will only get more extreme, she’s sure, as the months go on. She’s already starting growing. When she’s sporting an extra-round belly, his protective instincts will only sharpen. 

She bites back a smile. 

“You’re still ready to tell them tonight?” he asks upon opening the door for her. 

When he steps inside, Johanna begins pulling away at his buttons. The sun prevented them from needing many more layers than that. She’s only sporting two shawls today. There’s a coat for her… somewhere in the house. The first and only time she’s ever worn it, she told Anthony it felt like a straitjacket and packed it away. 

“I’m ready.” She grins. “You’re still excited?”

“Greatly.” And he leans down to kiss her. 

They spend the rest of the afternoon of her body leaning atop of his, reading aloud pages from her book. They won’t be able to do this forever. Soon, she’ll be too heavy for him. Anthony disagreed, but he’ll soon see. His hand gently rubbed at her belly, still wanting to feel the baby that’s too small for anyone else to feel. 

He doesn’t by the time they need to leave for supper. 

“When are you going to tell them?” she asks on the walk down. 

“I’m not sure yet.” He squeezes her hand. “When the moment presents itself, I suppose.”

“What if it doesn’t present itself?”

Cheeky smile as he faces her. “It will. I’ll make sure of it.”

As she takes her place at the table, she looks around. 

In a few months , Johanna thinks, I will be the same as everyone . 

“Everyone” being his siblings who help their children into a seat or bid them to sit still during supper. It’s something else that felt foreign to her when she first came. Children at the table with the adults. Not shut away in bedrooms or nurseries (not that most of them can afford a nursery). 

Will their baby be well-mannered like Tellie’s firstborn? Or wild and mischievous like her second-born? Like neither?

She glances at her husband. 

She hopes they’ll be just like him. 

When Anthony meets her eye, she mouths to him, “Now?” To which, he shakes his head. She nods in return. He’s wanted this so badly, she can’t blame him for wanting to make the moment of telling those he loves most to be one of the best of his life.  It takes nearly ten minutes and the slightest lull in conversation for him to open his mouth.

“I have an announcement to make.” Anthony squeezes her hand before standing. Johanna’s brows spring up. No one has ever stood to make such an announcement in this family before. Is he starting something new? Is he just nervous? “Well, Jo and I have something to announce, actually.” He takes in a long breath that melts into a wide smile. “We’re expecting our first child.”

And everyone pauses. 

“I’m sorry…” Lewis begins. “You hadn’t told us yet?”

Anthony’s chin dips. “No? We’re, uh, just now telling you.”

“Oh.”

Oh, dear . Were they that obvious? 

“Well, everyone congratulate your brother and Johanna,” Mrs. Hope says. “We’ve been anxiously waiting for this sort of news for only five years now.”

Four , but Johanna doesn’t say that out loud. 

A chorus of congratulations and “that’s great, mate” ring out. Anthony sits down, facing her. She squeezes both of his hands from beneath the table. She had been so sure they weren’t obvious about it. They can both be good liars when they set out to be. Why hadn’t it worked this time?

“Are you alright?” she asks. 

“I’m glad everyone knows.” But there is disappointment written in the crease of his brow. 

Like Mrs. Hope said, this news has been long awaited. She thought everyone would be more excited for them. They’ve only received nearly a thousand questions on when they were starting their family, after all. 

Mrs. Hope disappeared into the kitchen for a moment. When she came back, she tapped the back of Anthony’s chair. 

“Tony, dear, fetch the cake for us. It’s a bit too heavy for my old hands now.”

Anthony did has he was told without a mumble about it. Mrs. Hope took her seat with a suspiciously large grin. When Johanna glances around the rest of the table, many of them share the same Hope expression. 

“What?” she asks. “What is it?”

There’s a shriek from the kitchen. Did they really? Her napkin flew off her lap and onto the table as she runs into the kitchen. They hadn’t decided to pull a nasty little prank on Anthony right after telling him such good news? Why aren’t they following her? They might as well see the aftermath of what they–

It’s a cake. A normal cake. 

But as she gets closer, she can see the berries decorating the top of it. 

All spelling out: Congratulations!

Anthony wraps an arm around her shoulder. She leans against his shoulder. He whispers into her hair, 

“They actually do care.”

“It’s your family, Anthony,” Johanna whispers. “They were the ones seeing you grow up wanting this.”

“Well, where’s that cake, boy!” 

Anthony pokes his head out the doorway. Smiling, he shakes his head. “I was beginning to think you didn’t care.” He doesn’t wait for their responses before dating back to the kitchen to slice the pudding. 

The children squeeze between them, collecting the goods and passing them around. Johanna spots little Hirem stuffing a handful of berries down the front of his shirt. Anthony helps her into her seat as she notices him tuck himself into the corner to eat it. She can’t blame him. He won’t get caught either with this many people packed into one house. 

“Funny story, actually,” Mrs. Hope starts, passing out the treats, “we panicked when we realized we never did anything to celebrate.”

“None of us could even remember congratulating you!” Tellie chimes in. 

Andrew squeezes her shoulder. “Mother knew we had to make up for it somehow. But now we expect this sort of behavior whenever we have something to announce. Eh, Mother?”

That’s why they were so quiet about it! Johanna bites the inside of her cheek. They were just as shocked .  

She traces a hand over her stomach. Their baby makes the slightest movement beneath her fingertips. 

“Now, now. Tony wanted this more than any of you.” Mrs. Hope leans back in her chair. “I remember him coming to me when he was no more than two and telling me that when he grew up he wanted to be a father.”

“And you told me my job was to support my family.”

Mrs. Hope nods. “And you said you would become rich, then, so you could have lots of children.”

Johanna laughs at the story, but whispers to her husband that she’s glad he isn’t rich . As he holds her closer, she has to hope this isn’t the beginning of lots . Just a… good amount for them. Whether that be just this one or perhaps another. She can’t imagine herself doing more than that. One already feels quite enough as it is. 

“Soon as he started rambling about if Johanna was expecting and if he was becoming a father…” Andrew chuckles. “I was excited for you.” He glances at Johanna. “Both of you.”

Tellie leans over to squeeze her wrist. “We’re all here for you, Miss Jo.”

“You’re too kind for me, Tellie,” she whispers back. 

“Never.” Tellie winks. “I’ll be your friend, too.”

There’s a little chuckle between the two of them. Though, Johanna knows she’ll never be able to forget that moment. The first birth she’d ever been present at… and what she expected to be the only time. But when Tellie’s next two boys came along, she requested Johanna be there. What could she say? Reject a laboring woman’s plea to have her back rubbed and hand squeezed? 

She shouldn’t think of that now. Not when they’re celebrating the fact that in a few months, Johanna will be in the same precarious situation. 

Will she also be begging Tellie for the same thing? Will the midwife be–

No . No. Best not to think of it now. 

She smiles back at the compliments and tolerates a bite from a pastry. She isn’t nauseous anymore, but is in dangerous territory of becoming back in that situation if she eats much more. Mrs. Hope is known for her extra sprinkle of sugar in her treats. A good thing for those with a sweet tooth. For a girl who starved herself for most of her life… it is an adjustment her body is unsure what to do with. 

Johanna finds herself caught up in stories featuring Anthony’s nurturing nature, when she feels a little hand against her stomach. Instinctively, she bounces herself away from it. When she looks down, however, it’s Tellie’s son. 

“Hiram!” 

The boy gives a sheepish smile. “‘Thought you could feel the baby now.”

A smile of her own slowly overtakes her. “I can. A little.” She bends down so she’s somewhat beneath the table with him. “But Anthony can’t feel them quite yet. I don’t think anyone else can.”

“When will it kick you?”  

Soft chuckle. Johanna pushes curls from her face. “I don’t know.” She doesn’t know much about any of this. 

“You don’t look fat yet.”

At this point, Anthony’s youngest brother had stuck his head under the table as well. Excited to see what the commotion was about, Matthew bursts into giggles at the comment. 

“Well, that was blunt,” he says once he’s calmed himself. 

Hiram is distracted by his young uncle and scoots his way over to him. Content with leaving them under the table like that, Johanna reemerges to the adults, reminding her of the images she’s seen of mermaids coming up from the water. Anthony is in the middle of a laugh which she grins along to without knowing the context of it. Children under the table is hardly foreign in this household. 

It was unheard of where she grew up. 

Will it be in theirs? 

At least she knows that according to a six-year-old, she still has her figure intact. 

“Alright, love?” Anthony whispers. 

“Your brother is entertaining Hiram.”

“Matt?”

She nods. 

Crumbles fall from the table to the floors. Children lick the sides of their mouths. Conversation slowly winds to a close. Couples with younger ones gather their family together to begin home. 

Anthony rises and at the same time, so does she. He takes her hand to escort her back home. If they’re lucky, he’ll say goodbye for them and they’ll be able to get out the door and be home within minutes–

“Oh! And dear–”  

Mrs. Hope rushes over to them. 

They’re not getting home anytime soon. 

But she surprises her. She embraces them both and whispers something in Anthony’s ear which he nods to. With a final squeeze, she lets both of them go. 

“Did that go the way you thought it would?” Johanna asks as they begin up the hill. 

Anthony chuckles. “Not at all.”

“Oh? So you weren’t planning on no reaction and about a million berries on a cake?”

“Next time, I’ll be sure to count on that.”

Johanna hums, deciding not to remark on his next time . She doesn’t even know if she’ll survive the this time . Or if it’ll be brutal enough to completely convince her to make sure there isn’t a next time. 

“Hiram wanted to feel them,” she says instead. 

“Really?”

“He went under the table and surprised me.”

“Ah. I was confused when I found my wife under the table.”

“Really?” Her eyes glitter. “Have you forgotten about all the other times I’ve stuck my head under the table with the children? And besides–I wasn’t completely underneath!” 

He squeezes her hand before tucking it in the bend of his below and wrapping his other arm around her waist. “If you say so, love,” he teases. 

She’s tempted to mock-swat at him, but that would mean moving her hand. She’d forgotten her gloves tonight. Wrapping her fingers in her shawl is her only way of keeping them warm. Anthony intertwining himself with her is a much better solution in her opinion. 

“I was thinking some more about names.” Anthony helps her over a particularly icy point. “For a boy–”

“Oh, goodness, we’d better be having a boy!”

It’s out before she can stop it. 

He glances over at her. “You want a boy?”

“Anthony… I can’t have a girl. Girls in this world only get hurt.” 

“Jo, she won’t get hurt here. Not while we’re around.”

“But what if…” She bites her lower lip. “We can guarantee anything.”

“She’ll be alright. She won’t get hurt like you were. Never.”

Unconvinced, she nods. “ If they are a girl.” 

“If they are a girl.” Anthony tucks his free hand into his coat’s pocket. “If they’re a boy… perhaps we call him Rutherford?” 

“Rutherford?”

She couldn’t stop herself–nor the way her nose scrunched at the suggestion. But really? Rutherford ? How did her beloved husband even manage to come up with something like that? 

“Yes…” He moves that hand from his pocket to the back of his neck. (Oh, dear, she didn’t mean to embarrass him!) “It was the surname of the first captain I had on The Bountiful … He showed me a lot. Taught me a lot. I always imagined naming my son after him… If it’s a son.”

Well, it is more understandable now. Her heart sinks into the story. Captain Rutherford was likely a father to Anthony when he was young. She can just imagine the starry-eyed boy looking to the older man for guidance. Of course, her husband would want to show his respect in such a way. 

However… It's still the name Rutherford. 

“Would it…” She feels terrible for pausing, though what else is she supposed to do? How does she figure this situation out? “Would it work potentially as a middle? If-if we think of another name, perhaps.”

Anthony opens the door for her, letting her inside first before following. He tugs at the door twice to be sure. “I’ll still get to write to him and tell him we named our son after him. That’s perfect.” A pause. “ Do you have any ideas for a boy?”

Think of something! Quickly, Johanna! 

“Hen…ry. Henry.” 

Anthony looks at her. “Henry?”

She nods. “If I ever had a male bird, that’s what I would have called him. I think.” 

“Henry is a good name.” 

It’s better than Rutherford , she thinks and immediately feels guilty for. Henry Rutherford Hope… Well… It could be worse. It could be Rutherford Hope. 

Those little feels of some sort of movement come more frequently now. Is it a hand? A foot? Leg? It’s silly to imagine, yet every time there is a flutter, Johanna’s mind can’t help but wander. 

Other mothers likely don’t bother with this sort of thing. The way she has known mothers is stern and having to move children out of their ways in order to get any sort of housework done. They complain about sickness in the evenings and they wish they weren’t in this sort of stagnant state that they are in. 

And then there is love. The ways some mothers look at their little ones. Their gentle hands as they stroke their chubby cheeks. They look happy.  

Was that what her mother was like? Did she sing lullabies and stroll her proudly around the park?

Johanna wants to be that type of mother. 

Imagine, a house full of children who tug at apron strings and who pick out rocks for her. 

But imagine . Oh goodness, this hasn’t been the easiest, she doesn’t know if she could have a household full of children! That’s Anthony’s dream. She wishes it could be hers. In Johanna’s mind, it’s a miracle, she’s here at all. Who would have ever guessed she would be by the sea, tapping an ever-swollen belly?

She’s grown more. Ever-slightly but Johanna can see it. Quite obviously. Anthony’s tried telling her that no one else can tell. She can’t fully believe him. 

One day, she wouldn’t even be able to get up from a chair without help. Johanna has seen enough of the women here through this to know vaguely of what’s going to happen. Before she had come here, she hadn’t even thought of that. Her closest encounters with expecting women was a single maid who was dismissed before she was too obviously with child. One day, she was tying Johanna’s hair into ribbons. The next, she was never seen again. The only reason Johanna even knew she was having a baby was overhearing her speaking to another maid outside of her door about it. 

Now, families are the main population of this town. No one is particularly ashamed of it. 

She'll be bringing her child to play on this beach. 

Toes dig into the sand as she walks along. Wind brushes through her hair sharper than her nanny used to as she cried and begged her to stop. As the breeze turns against her, she can see the outline of her belly even clearer now. 

How strange how fast life can change. How strange how normal it is, yet entirely unique. 

Well… That little sensation felt particularly strange. 

Johanna stops. 

Not like the little flutters she’s been experiencing lately at all. This felt like… Well, it felt like a… 

A kick.  

With held breath, she waits on the beach. The waves crash, yet she hardly hears them as they do. 

Another. 

The beach seems terribly long now. The ocean so spread out, she understands how it touches so many continents. The sun is so far away, it doesn’t seem real. 

The sand feels even less sturdy as she runs across it. Heels sink as if it’s the sea and she can’t swim. 

She can’t experience this alone. Anthony’s waiting just over there. 

There’s half a bun in his hand and his lips are moving a mile a minute. He’s sitting on the dock, legs swaying over the edge. Johanna hadn’t realized this was their dinner break. Good thing. She doesn’t know what she would have done if Anthony was working . Waiting an extra few hours would be the upmost torture. 

“Boy or girl–it doesn’t matter to me,” Anthony is saying to his fellow dockworker. “I love having brothers and I love having sisters. I’m sure it’s the same way with children. I’m just happy . To be having one, to be able to–”  

The conversation causes Johanna’s lip to curve. Heart swells at knowing her husband discusses their future child with anyone and everyone. He’s proud . 

“Jo?” he says, the moment he notices he. In an instant, he’s thrown the bun into his pail and he’s on his feet. He grabs her hands. “Is something wrong? Are you–?” 

But she just takes one of those hands and steers it over her belly. 

And waits. 

“What are you…?”

“They kicked.” 

Anthony’s brow relaxes. “They did?”  

His voice is soother than the waves outside their home. 

Johanna looks up at him. “Yes.”

She looks back down at their hands, as if that could prompt their child to kick again. For their father . 

Breath held, she presses Anthony’s fingers more intently on her. 

Then finally. 

Anthony’s eyes widen, a “ whoa” on his lips. He glances back at her with the softest expression worn on any man’s face. This is the fact he wore at their wedding. The face he had when she gave him the news. 

She’ll be seeing this expression even more often now. 

Johanna nods. 

“That’s them,” Anthony whispers. 

“That’s them.”

“‘Ey not all of us have wives.” Another dockworker seems to come from nowhere, throwing an arm around Anthony’s shoulders. “Come on down. Back to work, boy.” He notices Johanna and a twinkle ignites in his eye. “Ah so you’re the girl he talks everything about.” 

Johanna doesn’t answer, perhaps, too stunned by his random appearance to speak. 

“You and, um, the babe,” the man continues. He points to her stomach with his free hand. “That’s all he is nowadays.” 

Anthony squeezes his wife’s hands. “How could I not be? When she is my wife and she’s giving me the best thing a man could dream of?” 

The dockworker moves his lips as if to make some sort of inappropriate remark but the raise of Anthony’s brows stops him. Who knew anyone could be afraid of him like that! It swells her with pride. 

“Nevermind. Tony, your lunch’s over. Time to get back.” 

Anthony wraps Johanna in an embrace. His fingers linger at her stomach, hoping to feel their baby once again before he has to turn back. Though he didn’t get it as he wanted, he still smiles and kisses her hands. 

“Oh love, oh love,” he whispers as he pulls away. 

“We’ll wait for you to get home.” 

And when he gets home, they sit together. Anthony’s head rests on her lap, hands wrapped around her belly. Everytime they feel a kick, they look at each other. He beams. She imagines she has more of a look of shock. It’s happened a fair amount of times, yet she can’t seem to grasp the reality of it. 

Another thing to solidify the fact that they’re having a baby. 

While Anthony rests there, muscles aching from work and too excited to do much else, Johanna takes out her book. When she was younger, she tried to convince herself that romances were nothing but silly fluff. Not something she needed to bother herself with. Then she got older and with that freedom, she shyly started to read the love stories published in the paper. Anthony led her to the library in town. He picked out a book for her without telling her what it was. Her first romantic novel. 

Jane Austen was discovered shortly after. Now, she’s on the fourth one of hers, Persuasion . It’s been a few weeks since she read from it. A pity. She missed it. 

As she flips through the pages, she imagines that Bath is like Plymouth. Just… with more baths. Are there sailors there, too? A dock for retired captains to work on? Are there little children running outside of the church? 

Johanna still has seen so little of the world. They won’t be able to travel like they used to with a baby, will they?

She sets the book aside. Fingers run through Anthony’s hair and he grins up at her. They will be happy like this in Plymouth. They will be happy with their baby and staying… here. 

Could one more trip do them any harm? 

“Anthony?” Johanna whispers. 

“Mmm?”

“What if we traveled again?” 

His head tilts to the side. “What do you mean?” 

Johanna doesn’t want this to be difficult to explain, nor does she want him to disapprove. It feels silly to ask. (There is still a shy, anxious child stuck within her.) 

“What if we went on one last trip before the baby comes?” she continues. “One more trip with just you and I.” 

Anthony slowly sits up, taking her hands as he does. “Johanna, won’t that…? What if something happens? Shouldn’t we just stay here? Just in case?” 

“We don’t have to go far,” Johanna says. “Or for very long. I’m feeling better and you know that I am.” (She doesn’t lie about that anymore. Not to Anthony.) “We can just go for the weekend.” 

Silence stretches on but it isn’t horrible. The look in her husband’s eyes tells her that he’s considering every aspect of what they’re doing. Plotting out details and imagining a weekend with just the two of them. 

She likes the idea of that weekend. 

“A little trip,” Anthony eventually says. “Just the two of us.” He smiles. “That would be very nice.” 

“Wouldn’t it?” 

He kisses her forehead. “Time to show you more of the world.” 

“Just as you promised.” 

“I promise.”