a chair against the bedroom door.
On the third morning, the sky cleared to a hard pale blue. The sea below was still violent, smashing white against the rocks. Julian made tea and toast as if we were any normal couple on a winter holiday.
Then he came to the bedroom carrying my red coat.
‘Come outside with me,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes. You have been trapped in here for days.’
‘I am tired,’ I said.
‘You have been tired for months.’
His tone had not changed, but the room did. The air grew smaller. The baby shifted under my ribs, and I placed my palm over her as if she could hear him too.
‘I do not want to walk near the cliff,’ I said.
Julian crossed the room and held out the coat. ‘Then I will stay close.’
There it was again. The loving answer with the threat underneath.
I slipped the recorder into my pocket and pressed the button with my thumb.
The path to the weather tower began behind the house, a narrow track cut between wind-twisted pines. Ice glazed the stones. Needles stuck to my boots. Julian walked slightly behind me, one hand hovering near my elbow without quite touching it.
Below us, the Atlantic was black and restless.
‘Careful,’ he said.
I almost laughed. The sound caught in my throat and turned into a breath.
At the overlook, the trees opened. There was no fence. No railing. Just a shelf of rock and a drop so steep the waves seemed impossibly far away.
Julian stopped behind me.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he murmured.
I turned my head. His face had gone still. Not angry. Not wild. Still.
That frightened me more than rage could have.
‘Julian, step back,’ I said.
He leaned close enough that his breath warmed my ear.
‘I waited too long already.’
Then his hands struck my shoulders.
The push was hard and practiced. My boots slid. My fingers clawed at the frozen edge, catching nothing but loose grit. For a heartbeat, I saw him framed against the winter sky, his dark coat whipping around him, his expression open with relief.
Then I fell.
Branches tore at me first. A pine limb cracked across my side, stealing the air from my lungs. Another ripped my cheek. My shoulder slammed against stone. I curled around my stomach before I understood I was doing it, folding my body into a shield around my daughter.
Protect her.
That thought became the only world left.
Protect her.
The cliff did not drop cleanly. It broke in shelves and jagged ledges, each one hitting me with a new color of pain. I tumbled through snow, rock, and thorn until something struck my temple and the sky went out.
When I woke, I was not dead.
For several seconds, that was the only fact I could hold.
I was wedged on a narrow shelf halfway down the headland. Snow had drifted deep against a cluster of scrub pine, softening the final impact enough to spare my spine. One boot was gone. My coat hung open. Blood had dried stiff along the side of my face. My ribs burned when I tried to breathe.
Then panic split through me.
The baby.
I pressed both hands to my stomach and
