The Light Between Oceans: A Novel

by M.L. Stedman

But he’s scarred all the same, having to live in the same skin as the man who did the things that needed to be done back then. He carries that other shadow, which is cast inward.

instead of getting back their precious, strapping husbands and sons, the women began to get telegrams.

It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breathe in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he hear the full extent of the rolling,

Splitting. Labeling. Seeking out otherness. Some things don’t change.

cubbies. A proper gang of pioneers. And the Missus makes sure they do their lessons. Take it from me—raising kids on a light station’s

nursing the baby in the rocking chair

But if a parent lost a child, there was no special label for their grief.

would be a pity to lose it.” He gave

“Das Stunden Buch—Rainer Maria Rilke.” She had learned German

leaked from the nib, and he stroked

drawer, and takes out the letter. She opens the envelope slowly.

You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”

He thinks back to Janus, and the light he cared for there for so long, every one of its flashes still traveling somewhere into the darkness far out toward the universe’s edge.

Scars are just another kind of memory.

until their story is just an unvisited headstone.