Excerpt from These Granite Islands by Sarah Stonich, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Perhaps after getting out to the island?

His own hand felt rough as he felt upward along her calf, taking care not to snag her stocking. Tailor's calluses ran in crested ridges across his fingers, and he wondered idly if he could file them down with the stone he used to grind scissors blades.

He laughed that he was even considering such a vain notion.

Isobel lowered the opera glasses to her chest and smiled crookedly at him.

He grinned hopefully. They used to go off, just roam away from the house, even if only for a half hour after the children were asleep. They would talk, and she would laugh and hang from his arm and he would tell her jokes or stories he'd heard, aping the voices of the townspeople, relaying what recent gossip he'd been privy to in the shop. Not very long ago, yet it seemed ages, the last time he'd made her laugh. It couldn't have been as long ago as autumn?

They'd been walking under the turning maples in their neat neighborhood. As he kicked leaves, Victor spied something on the ground. He picked up a scrap of white paper, folded it to a square, and held it to his collar, mimicking Father Thiery's oil-thick Irish brogue. He whispered somberly into her ear.

"Why aye, lad, I'm as fond of curly little darlin's as the next feller, but in yer capacity as a shepherd-in-training, these types of impure thoughts about the lambs might.... What's that, boy? Well, perhaps it's not so great a sin if ye were thinkin' of good St. Francis whilst...." When Victor wriggled his eyebrows in mock consternation, Isobel laughed so she had to lean against the neighbors' fence. "Now, did you say flock, son?"

She folded herself into a crouch and wiped her eyes with her knuckles. Victor looked down the street and back, waiting for his wife to stop laughing. He held out his hand.

"Up now, there's a girl."

"I can't!" There was an edge of hysteria in her voice.

He knelt next to her, the cloying accent back. "And why's that, my child?"

"Stop it!" Her tears were mixed now, and her answer was a hiccough. "B-b-because I've wet myself." She slapped his chest. "You've made me . . . I've peed on Mrs. Perlin's sidewalk!"

They both started laughing then, but hers was thin, and as she walked awkwardly away she gave him an accusing look. "Having three babies will do that to you."

"Aye." The accent thickened. "Wonder what four'd do, lassie?"

She looked at him with disbelief before pulling free of his arm. "Victor, not everything is a joke."

Steadying herself against a sudden wind from the lake, Isobel gingerly climbed down from atop the car, taking the hand he offered her. The gravel was a shock after the smooth metal of the hood, and as she limped to her shoes she brushed off her skirt in sudden industry.

He was reminded of her demeanor in the shop, her movements there swift and economical. She had worked nearly every day since Thomas, their youngest, had started school. She'd bring lunch, and while he ate she'd work on the account books or wait on customers. If she had a dress order or alteration or was sewing something for the children, she bent quietly over her machine through the afternoon, rising promptly at the sound of the school bell so she could rush home to greet the children.

She glanced at the lake, at the far speck of the island, before turning to look into her husband's eyes.

"I've seen it. Now take me home.

From These Granite Islands by Sarah Stonich. © March 2001, Little, Brown & Co, used by permission.