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Despite all of the nonsense Serena's experienced and witnessed since her arrival, she knows better than to expect that whatever she sends will wind up in the hands of its intended recipient. But she also prays every night to a god she's not sure exists and she can't see the difference here.
She finds out about the mailbox in passing and leaves it for weeks before she puts pen to paper, sitting on a hill by the stables as she watches a group of horses graze. It's the most she's felt in her element for the longest time and it makes her miss Pemberton more than she's allowed herself to for a while. It's easy to forget how sad she is when she has so much else to focus on: her son, her new house, the hope of a career.
She wouldn't have had most of that without the husband that she left behind unwillingly in the Smoky Mountains, ripped out of bed with him and thrust into this strange world instead. For the longest time she hadn't want to rely on anyone else, hadn't want to risk the ache again, but it didn't take long before she came to connect with Pemberton in a way she hadn't anyone else. They'd been inseparable.
Or so she'd thought until they were separated and she had no choice in the matter.
She can't imagine marrying anyone else, still wears her engagement and wedding rings on her finger like a hopeless Miss Havisham. Serena might not have been jilted at the alter herself, but she's been jilted in life instead. Maybe there's no fire to force repent but being forced apart from the world she knew and loved best, well, it's its own punishment, though of course with it had come bliss.
Serena knows the unlikelihood George would have ever survived without Darrow's intervention, and it's what keeps her grounded at the worst of times. When she looks at him she sees the love of her love and it makes the loss of the first love of her life bearable. The one thing she'll never be able to make sense of in her own mind is that George will never meet his father.
She'd been raised without her parents and her siblings, and it had been torturous. There were children at the orphanage and kind strangers who took care of her there, but they weren't blood. And blood, she's come to learn, means everything. Her greatest wish in life was for her and Pemberton's blood to merge and create a son and that it came true makes all of this strange newness much easier to accept.
At least her son has his mother.
Though single parenthood isn't easy and if she were a better person, Serena might sympathize with Rachel Harmon as a result. She doesn't. Her son was born of love and in wedlock. The Harmon boy was a sin that never should have happened – a sin committed before her new life began.
All of this occurs to Serena, of course, but in the end the letter she puts in the mailbox for Pemberton is brief – a note with a photograph enclosed.
My love,
It's a boy, just as I promised. We wish you were here more than anything.
All our love,
Serena and George, your son.
She finds out about the mailbox in passing and leaves it for weeks before she puts pen to paper, sitting on a hill by the stables as she watches a group of horses graze. It's the most she's felt in her element for the longest time and it makes her miss Pemberton more than she's allowed herself to for a while. It's easy to forget how sad she is when she has so much else to focus on: her son, her new house, the hope of a career.
She wouldn't have had most of that without the husband that she left behind unwillingly in the Smoky Mountains, ripped out of bed with him and thrust into this strange world instead. For the longest time she hadn't want to rely on anyone else, hadn't want to risk the ache again, but it didn't take long before she came to connect with Pemberton in a way she hadn't anyone else. They'd been inseparable.
Or so she'd thought until they were separated and she had no choice in the matter.
She can't imagine marrying anyone else, still wears her engagement and wedding rings on her finger like a hopeless Miss Havisham. Serena might not have been jilted at the alter herself, but she's been jilted in life instead. Maybe there's no fire to force repent but being forced apart from the world she knew and loved best, well, it's its own punishment, though of course with it had come bliss.
Serena knows the unlikelihood George would have ever survived without Darrow's intervention, and it's what keeps her grounded at the worst of times. When she looks at him she sees the love of her love and it makes the loss of the first love of her life bearable. The one thing she'll never be able to make sense of in her own mind is that George will never meet his father.
She'd been raised without her parents and her siblings, and it had been torturous. There were children at the orphanage and kind strangers who took care of her there, but they weren't blood. And blood, she's come to learn, means everything. Her greatest wish in life was for her and Pemberton's blood to merge and create a son and that it came true makes all of this strange newness much easier to accept.
At least her son has his mother.
Though single parenthood isn't easy and if she were a better person, Serena might sympathize with Rachel Harmon as a result. She doesn't. Her son was born of love and in wedlock. The Harmon boy was a sin that never should have happened – a sin committed before her new life began.
All of this occurs to Serena, of course, but in the end the letter she puts in the mailbox for Pemberton is brief – a note with a photograph enclosed.
My love,
It's a boy, just as I promised. We wish you were here more than anything.
All our love,
Serena and George, your son.
