Once she’s cried it out she lies there for a long time.
She feels calmer, cleaner somehow.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, she knows she’s forgiven herself. All the fear and anger and guilt she’s carried for years has gone.
She was put in a bad situation, and she’d done what she had to do.
She’s done blaming herself. That’s past. All that matters now is the future. All that matters is the baby, and her and Jaap and the future they’re going to build together.
She feels a blossoming of expansive hope.
Rain hammers on the houseboat’s roof, and she’s suddenly struck by how beautiful it all sounds, like some kind of natural symphony full of contrapuntal lines and percussive riffs. She listens to it, lying there, breathing quietly, losing track of time.
By the time she gets up she’s just starting to wonder where Jaap is.
In the kitchen she finds a clean glass and pours herself an orange juice. There’s hardly any left so she’ll need to pop out and get some later. Or Jaap can get it on his way back.
Thinking of which, where is he?
The rain’s harder now, if that’s possible, streaming down the windows in thick, ever-shifting rivulets. As she heads back to the bedroom to get her phone to call Jaap, find out when he’s going to be back, she glances out of one of the landward portholes.
For a moment she thinks she sees someone, a figure keeping to the shadows.
By the time she gets her phone the rain has intensified, hiding the figure from view.
If they were even there at all.