Luanne Rice (26 page)

“How do
you, Lily Malone?” he asked. “You encountered a shark too.”

“Sometimes
I wonder,” she said.

“Good comes
from bad,” he said. “That’s how. You got Rose out of it.”

“That’s
true,” she said.
“But what about you?”

“Here I am
with you,” he said.

“That’s …”
she began.

“Something
brought us together,” he said. “To me, that’s the good that came from bad.”

Lily stood
on tiptoes to reach up and slide her arms around his neck. She caressed the
back of his head, looking into his eyes. She felt so much emotion, all of it
just swirling around. She wanted to comfort him, but even more, she wanted to
kiss him.

Liam took
care of it. He held her tight, she tipped her head, and they kissed. It was so
long and tender, as if the feelings had been building up forever, just like the
last one. His touch was gentle, but so strong. Lily had come up to comfort him,
but he was bringing tears to her eyes. She grabbed him, holding on, and with
one arm he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

“I wanted
to tell you,” she said, lying beside him, eye to eye. “I think you’re
wonderful. You’ve been wonderful to me and Rose, and I’m sorry I didn’t ask you
before, when you—”

He put his
finger to her lips.

“You don’t
have to be sorry for anything,” he said.

And then it
seemed that words were beside the point. They had nine years to make up for.
Lily
lay
back, her hand on Liam’s chest. He rolled
over, on top of her, hiked up on his elbow, kissing her cheek, lips, the whole
length of her neck, making her squirm and ache. She kept that arm between them,
hand on his chest, and they both knew she was ready to push him away—she was
always ready to push someone away.

It was now
or never—she was sweating for his kisses, she needed them, but she was ready to
fight. Tension coiled in her spine like a spring. Liam’s eyes were bluer than
any sea. They looked at her with such openness, all the while he was kissing
her, slowly, one kiss at a time, and she felt the fight just go out of her.

She must
have sighed, and Liam took it as a sign. He lay on his left side and, with his
right arm, reached around her, stroking her back as he kissed her long and
hard. His tongue was so hot, and she bit it—just lightly, but the
unexpectedness of it just sent them both over the edge.

Their
clothes came off. Lily wasn’t sure who unbuttoned or unzipped what—but their
shirts, and his pants, and then her pants, and all that underwear, all got
thrown on the floor, and then they were on the bed again. The only light came
from the small table lamp, warm and dim. Lily had never seen Liam with his
shirt off. She wanted to look but was afraid.

Liam lay on
his back, staring up at her. She let her eyes travel from his strong, broad
chest to his left shoulder. It looked powerful, and extended down to his upper
arm, which ended about six inches below the shoulder bone.

She saw his
left side—it looked raw and scraped, crisscrossed with scars and old stitches.
His arm looked healed, but his side was a reminder of the shark’s ravages, of
old surgery. Lily leaned over and gently kissed the side of his body.

They held
each other, kissing. Liam ran his fingers the length of her torso, making her
arch her back. He kissed her harder, and she got lost in the moment. She lifted
her hips, wanting him inside her more than she’d ever wanted anything.

His kiss
held her steady, but his touch made her lose her mind. Lily shivered, and felt
everything about his body: the curve of his spine, the narrowness of his hips,
his broad shoulders, his strong legs. He held her and rocked her, even when she
cried out, letting go of everything old and cold and frozen, and even when she
trembled and cried again, afterwards, because she hadn’t realized that she
could still feel and still love.

They fell
asleep together, holding each other tight. Lily woke up a few times, but she
didn’t want to move—she never wanted to let go of Liam. Lying beside him, she
felt reckless joy. He had shifted in his sleep; his right arm grazed her chest.
They embraced, as if it was the most normal and familiar thing in the world.
As if they had loved each other for years, and had been just
waiting for the perfect time for their lives together to start.

Lily held
on, feeling her eyes flicker as sleep overtook her again, wanting to stay awake
just a minute more, knowing she was with Liam, knowing Rose was safe.

From the
time Rose moved down to the pediatric floor, her healing really did begin to
seem miraculous. Lily’s own heart soared—because of Rose’s fast recovery, and
because of Liam.

Rose was
unhooked from all the tubes, wires, and machines within twenty-four hours of
the surgery, and by the time she reached her new room, she was moving
unrestricted. She wanted to take lots of walks so that the doctors would let
her out soon. Lily had never seen Rose so eager to leave. And Lily had never
felt so eager about life—as if she had finally found the magical key that other
people had, the one that made every day worth living.

Usually
after surgery Rose was a bit hesitant, very protective—keeping her left hand at
her shoulder, hunching her back to protect the heart area. Lily understood such
maneuvers very well. But this time, Lily watched her trying to walk free, to
stand up straight, remembering many of the exercises she had been taught after
other procedures—because she really disliked going to physical therapy. Lily
had never been sure why—of all the hard things Rose went through, why did
something so ostensibly benign seem so threatening?

Now that
the surgery was over, Liam returned home to catch up on work. His leaving had
been wrenching for both him and Lily—she had felt herself cave in, just knowing
he was going. But he called every morning and every night, and on the third
day, as if the distance was too great, he drove back down—and Lily was
overjoyed.

So was
Rose. She was blooming like her namesake flower, getting pinker and
more healthy
by the minute. Lily stood back, watching her
and Liam laugh and talk, watching Liam show Rose his laptop with Nanny’s light
blinking just outside Boston Harbor.

“Why is she
there?” Rose asked—although she had asked it before, she liked to hear the
answer again and again.

“We have no
way of knowing,” Liam said, glancing at Lily. “But we think it’s because she
wants to be near you.”

“But she
doesn’t even know me!”

“I think
she knows you,” Liam said.

“But I’m a
girl and she’s a whale. We’ve never talked or played or swum together. Mommy made
me all those needlepoint pictures of her, and I have them hanging on my wall,
but she doesn’t
know
me.”

“I want to
tell you a story about that,” Liam said.
“About how Nanny
just might know you.
It’s about a sea hawk and a black cat.”

“But—” Rose
began.

Rose’s
green eyes were wide, and she had a big smile on her face. But just then the
physical therapist stopped by, to let Rose know what to expect when she went
home. She showed her how to keep her left hand down, keep her spine straight,
and checked with Lily to make sure they had the name of a PT office near Cape
Hawk. Lily assured her they did.

When the
therapist left, Rose was clearly drooping. She glanced over at Liam, as if
waiting for him to cheer her up with the tale of the fish hawk and black cat.

Lily wanted
to hear too. She had thought Liam would jump right
in,
tell Rose the story to take her mind off the fact that the physical therapist
had just outlined a fairly arduous program. And although the program didn’t
seem bad—and even seemed
fun
—to Lily,
clearly it was upsetting Rose. But Liam looked unsettled, disturbed himself.

“It’s not
fun, is it, Rose?” he asked.

She cocked
her head, as if to ask what he meant. But she must have read something in his
eyes—a kindred spirit who knew how she felt. Because she just shook her head,
and then bowed it so low, her chin drooped to her chest. When she looked up,
her face was wet with tears.

“I remember
how hard it was,” Liam said.

“What do
you mean?” Rose asked. “You’ve had PT too?”

“Yes,” Liam
said.
“About six months’ worth at first—and then another
year.”

“For your arm?”

Liam
nodded. “I had to learn how to do everything all over again.
And
how not to do things.”

“Like
what?”

“Well, when
I first lost my arm, I thought it was still there. I would wake up at night and
reach for a glass of water with my left arm. Only it wouldn’t be there. So I’d
get all confused and upset. If I felt it, it had to be real, right? But it
wasn’t. So I got … kind of angry.”

“I get that
way,” Rose said in a low voice.

“I’ll bet
you do,” he said.

“What else
happened?”

“Well, I
began to do everything with my right arm. Things my left arm used to do. So I’d
always be reaching across my body. That ended up hurting my right shoulder. And
also my left shoulder—because even though I no longer had a left arm, I still
had muscles in my shoulder that were starting to shrink and contract—I had to
make sure to use them.”

“I reach
across my body,” Rose said. “Only it’s with my left arm. I do it because I
don’t want anyone to bump my heart.”

“That makes
sense to me,” Liam said.

“I know,
but then it twists me all up and ruins my posture! But I don’t even care about
my posture!” Rose said.

“I didn’t
care about mine, either, Rose,” Liam said. “I just cared about doing twice as
much with one arm. But you want to have good posture, you know? Even if you
think you don’t. You want to have a healthy spine, right? Let’s see—we have to
make a list of things to do. ‘Protect heart, protect spine—’
Anything
else?”

“Use both
arms!” Rose said, and giggled.

“Oh, yes.
How could we forget?” Liam asked, pretending to write on a pretend pad. Seeing
him hold the pad with his prosthesis, writing with his real hand, captivated
Rose. Lily saw her staring intently, and she felt a spill of gratitude inside.
Looking at Liam, her own heart melted a little more, and she just faded back,
watching the two of them.

“What was
it like?” Rose asked quietly after a moment.

“When I got
my prosthesis? Well, that was the reason I had to go back to PT for a year.
To learn how to use it right.”

“And the
whole time, you must have been so sad,” Rose said.

“I was,”
Liam said, looking up. “How did you know?”

“Because
I’m sad sometimes,” she said.
“Because I lost someone too.
You lost your brother, but Mommy and I lost someone.”

“Rose?”
Lily asked, having no idea what she meant.

“My
father,” Rose said. “I’ve never had a father. The one that was there didn’t
want me.”

“Rose, it
wasn’t you,” Lily said. She had purposely never discussed him with her. “You
weren’t the reason he’s not in our lives!”

“No matter
what the reason, that’s what she feels,” Liam said, holding Rose’s hand—and for
the first time in a long time, Lily felt impatient with him. He was supposed to
go along with Lily on this—reassure Rose that nothing she did had driven her
father away!

“It is,”
Rose whispered. “It’s why my heart doesn’t work right.”

“I felt the
same way,” Liam said. “I was with my brother when he died. I was his older
brother, Rose. And I thought—if only I had protected him more. Swum faster,
rescued him—it should have been me, not him.” Lily steeled herself, remembering
what he had told her the other night.

“And you
thought the reason the shark took your arm was because you were bad?” Rose
asked.

“Yes,” Liam
said. “For a long time I thought that.”

“Just like
me. Thinking I must have been bad, to have no father with me.”

“Sweetheart—”
Lily began, and stopped, searching for the right words.

“But you
know it’s not true,” Liam said, stepping in. “You know that, don’t you, Rose?
You’re the most wonderful girl there is. Sometimes things just happen. You were
born with heart defects—but it wasn’t because of who you are, the kind of girl
you are. If that were true, you would have the healthiest, most beautiful heart
in the world.”

“And the shark
didn’t bite your arm because you’re bad, right?”

“Right,”
Liam said, looking up at Lily. “I finally figured out that that wasn’t true.”

“When did
you figure that out?”

“The night you were born, Rose.”

“Really?”
Rose asked.

Liam
nodded.
“Really.”

Glad for
something to do with her hands, Lily continued her needlepoint, watching them.
She had heard Liam’s story their last night in Melbourne, but she watched
Rose’s eyes widen as she took it in. What a gift for Liam to give a fatherless
girl, Lily thought. Rose thinking
herself
so bad, she
drove her father away—yet here was Liam, telling her the opposite, that she had
given him back a sense of worth the night she came into the world.