The Light Between Oceans: A Novel

by M.L. Stedman

No”—his voice became sober—“we always have a choice. All of us.”

“The first time I saw you, it was because you came to save me. When I was a complete stranger, and you owed me nothing. That counts for something, I suppose. And I know that if you hadn’t found my daughter, she would have died. I tried to remember that too.” She paused. “I don’t forgive you—either of you. Being lied to like that… But I’m not going to get dragged under by the past. Look what happened to Frank because of people doing that.” She stopped, twisting her wedding ring for a moment. “And the irony is, Frank would have been the first one to forgive you. He’d have been the first one to speak in your defense. In defense of people who make mistakes.

“It was the only way I could honor him: doing what I know he would have done.” She looked at him, her eyes glistening. “I loved that man.”

“What, so you forgive me, just like that? Like it’s nothing?” “What else is there to do? You’re my wife, Isabel.” “You mean you’re stuck with me…” “I mean I promised to spend my life with you. I still want to spend my life with you. Izz, I’ve learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past.”

Every end is the beginning of something else.

There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way.

Scars are just another kind of memory.

Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story ...