by Rice, Luanne
Everyone moved onto the front porch for cake and champagne. They gave Kylie a glass of ginger ale, and when the grown-ups raised their glasses, she raised hers, too. She listened to everyone laughing and talking, the music playing from an old stereo in the living room. The Gardners seemed wonderful, and Kylie enjoyed hearing them exclaim about how happy they were for Martin, what a huge surprise to learn he was getting married.
Genny stood by Mommy’s side, asking her questions, calling her a brave woman for joining the ranks of hockey wives. Tobin stood close, wanting Genny to know that Mommy already had a best friend. Martin introduced Ray to Aunt Enid, telling her he had been his best friend since childhood, that they had skated to school together on cold winter days.
“And still skating together!” Aunt Enid exclaimed in that sweet, beaming way she had that Kylie loved so much.
“We’re lucky,” Ray said.
“Yes, you are,” Aunt Enid agreed. “Just as May’s lucky to have a friend like Tobin. They’ve known each other since first grade.”
“Really?” Genny asked, smiling.
“Yes, we used to walk home together,” Tobin told her. “We’d be in school all day, then we’d play till our mothers called us home.”
“It’s still the same,” Aunt Enid said. “They work together all day, then disappear on their bikes. Right, Kylie?”
“Right.”
“So lucky…” Genny said.
The priest was very old, and his black robe smelled like mothballs. He had to leave early, but first he leaned down and made the sign of the cross on Kylie’s forehead. When he did, he looked straight into her eyes as if he could read her mind.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Six.”
“I thought so.” He nodded.
“Martin and my mother are married,” Kylie said, although she was actually asking a question.
“Yes, they are.”
“Even though that isn’t a church?” she asked, looking down toward the gazebo.
“Yes,” the priest assured her; he might have laughed at her question, but Kylie liked him for taking it seriously. “Even so.”
“That’s good.” Kylie was so relieved she felt dizzy. “For me and Mommy.”
“I have known Martin for a long, long time,” the priest went on. “He made his first communion at my church. He has been at my church for…for other things, as well. This is good for him, too.”
When the priest walked over to say goodbye to Martin and Mommy, Kylie slipped away, down the steps and back to the gazebo. Only when she was sure she was out of sight of the porch did she reach into her basket, under the flowers, and pull out Natalie’s doll. Martin had looked very mad before, and she didn’t want that to happen again. She fixed the crown of flowers on the doll’s head, then turned her facing out toward the lake.
The night was very dark. Fish jumped out of the lake, making quiet splashes. The sky above the mountain peaks glowed with stars. Down here, fireflies twinkled in the pines and tall grasses. Kylie felt breathless, holding the doll. Something was about to happen, even more amazing than the wedding. She knew, she knew, she always did….
Scanning the opposite shore, she saw a little girl all dressed in white, with gossamer wings and shining white shoes: the angel she had seen on the plane. As Kylie watched, the girl opened her arms. Kylie opened hers back, as if she could hug the child across the water. But a hug wasn’t what the girl wanted.
“The doll?” Kylie asked, and the little girl nodded.
Kylie crouched down to place the doll in the basket. A rag doll, she had a simple painted face. But Kylie kissed her anyway. She would have liked to keep the doll, but she knew she shouldn’t. If you have a sister, you don’t take her toys to be your own.
Taking the basket down to the water’s edge, Kylie set it adrift. The basket tilted from side to side, righted itself, and sailed swiftly, as if carried by a current, to the child across the lake. Kylie watched it go, and she saw the angel girl standing still, her arms still open, waiting for it to come.
“Are you sailing toy boats?” came Martin’s deep voice.
Kylie was so surprised, she nearly fell into the lake.
“Well,” she began. “Sort of. I—”
“Father Beaupré told me you might be here,” Martin said.
“He’s nice,” Kylie said.
“He told me you’re happy about the wedding. That your mother and I are married.”
“I am,” Kylie whispered. She was so happy, she couldn’t even speak in a normal voice.
“Don’t worry that it wasn’t in a church.” Martin put his hand on her shoulder. “This is my church, it always has been: nature, the outdoors. I’ll take you rowing on the lake, Kylie. When it freezes over, I’ll teach you to skate. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” she said, staring up at him. “So much.”
“Do you see the fireflies?” he asked.
Kylie nodded, and she remembered what he had told her once before. “They look like stars.”
“Come down from heaven,” Martin said. “That’s what my mother used to say.”
“Heaven,” Kylie repeated.
“I have a daughter in heaven.” Martin was staring across the lake. His gaze was hard and strong, and he was looking straight at the tiny girl standing there. She was flapping her wings, and Kylie knew she was about to fly away. Kylie’s heart started pounding, because she wanted so badly for Martin to see Natalie: that Natalie was right here, on Lac Vert, that she had come down to earth with the fireflies to see her father’s wedding and meet her new sister.
“Natalie,” Kylie called, but Martin thought she was talking to him.
“Yes, Natalie,” he said. “Your mother told you.”
“Natalie!” Kylie called louder.
“I’m the reason you see angels,” Kylie heard the little girl say. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Tell me?”
“It has to do with my father,” Natalie said. “He needs you to help him.”
How? Kylie wondered.
“People can be blind, not only with their eyes,” Natalie said. “They can be blind to love, to the truth.”
“I miss her,” Martin said, looking so sad as he stared right at, right through, the shimmering white angel across the lake. “That’s why I got upset before.”
“She misses you, too,” Kylie said, trying to concentrate on both things at once.
“Your mother said,” Martin began, crouching down, “that you wanted to know whether you should call me Martin or something else.”
“Something else…” Kylie said, her throat so choked up she could hardly say it.
“Watch and listen,” Natalie said. “He needs you.”
“You can call me Daddy,” Martin said, holding her hands. “If you’d like. That would make me very happy.”
Daddy, Kylie thought. The word sounded so beautiful in her mind, so right and so wonderful. She had never called anyone by that name before, never had a daddy before, never said the word except when talking to her dolls. Thinking of dolls, Kylie looked across the lake for Natalie.
She was gone.
All that was left was a shimmer of white on the water, as if the entire Milky Way was reflected in the lake. Hordes of fireflies had gathered there, flying in a cloud, following something back across the water’s surface. When it arrived, Kylie could see it was the empty basket.
Natalie had taken her doll. There was nothing left in the basket except a white feather, as if from one of the swans that lived on Lac Vert.
“Daddy,” Kylie whispered.
And Martin picked Kylie up as if she were his own daughter, and he wrapped his arms around her just as her mother came looking for them, came walking straight into Martin’s embrace. Standing by the old gazebo where they’d just had the wedding, Kylie watched the two grown-ups and knew she finally had the father she’d dreamed of for so long.
Chapter 8
THE HONEYMOON
WAS HOT AND LAZY, clear summer days spent on the banks of Lac Vert. It began with their wedding night, after Kylie had gone to bed and the Gardners had driven Tobin and Aunt Enid back to the airport. Martin had lived here for many years, and the residents of Lac Vert were fiercely protective of his privacy. He assured May that no word of their marriage would leak out, no reporters would spoil their honeymoon.
It was their first time as man and wife, their first time together at all. Getting undressed in the bathroom, May’s fingers shook as she unzipped her dress. She had bought a new peach silk negligee, but suddenly she realized she had left it in the bedroom, where Martin now waited. So she pulled on his old white shirt, hanging behind the door.
Walking along the upstairs hall, she saw that the bedroom door was ajar. Shadows were dancing on the ceiling. As May entered their bedroom, she saw Martin lying on the old iron bed. She had been intending to grab her tissue-wrapped nightgown and hurry back to change into it, but as she passed the bed she saw his bare chest and shoulder gleaming in the light of one blue candle. He took her wrist and held it.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have to change—”
“Come here,” he said, easing her down onto the bed. She sat on the edge, but then he pulled the sheet back and helped her climb under. Their eyes were shining, face to face, as he started kissing her softly.
“Stay,” he said. “You don’t have to change.”
“I do. I want you to always remember—”
“Remember this night? I will, May. You don’t have to worry about that.” His hands traced her shoulders and upper arms, massaging her back as he kissed the side of her neck. May shivered from his touch. His body felt so hard and strong under the covers, and she wanted more of it. She pressed against him instead of pulling away, and she knew that nightie wasn’t going to get worn tonight.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “That we’re here together, married…”
“May Cartier,” he said, smiling and kissing her. “Or are you going to stay May Taylor?”
She shook her head, feeling his arms around her. “May Cartier,” she said. “It’ll take some getting used to, though. I’ve used Taylor my whole life.”
“This is what I want to get used to,” he said, kissing her throat, the spot between her collarbones, her breasts. “Being with you.”
The candlelight brought wildness to the room, the way the flame flickered and danced. Who needs a hundred candles? May thought. One is amazing. Just as their simple ceremony had been filled with intense power and grace. Now Martin held the sides of her body as she arched her back, reaching toward him, touching the side of his face.
His expression was tender, but his arms were bands of iron. His stomach was as hard as marble, and one part of her felt awed and amused to be looking, as it were, under the jersey of the Bruins’ biggest star. Hiking up on one elbow, she felt his muscle and smiled at the way he rolled his eyes. Teasing him, she pressed all the way up his arm.
“The Gold Sledgehammer…” She kissed his chest. “Now I know the real meaning.”
“May,” he said, trembling under her lips, her tongue.
“How do you get muscles like this?” she asked. “Do you work out all year round?”
“From now till September, not at all,” he said, laughing.
In the candlelight, May could see various scars. On his chin, over both eyes, the left side of his head, behind his right ear: she could imagine all the flying pucks and sticks striking his beautiful body. But across his chest, the scars looked different and mysterious: two long vertical lines, straight down the middle, and an X directly over his heart. She had been teasing, but at the sight of those scars she felt cold inside.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Don’t, May,” he said, his eyes closed.
“Tell me, Martin. They look—”
But he didn’t give her a chance to finish. He rolled her onto her back, and kissed her hard. His intensity exploded. He whispered her name, holding her against him as if he needed her more than anything.
May held him tight. She felt him inside her, their eyes locked together, moving in rhythm. Every surface of him was hard as ivory, but at the same time they were melting together. She stared at him with passion and trust, her new husband, and she knew this was what she had been missing all these years. Not because he was a hockey star, not because he was the strongest man she’d ever touched, but because he was Martin, her husband, the man she had been waiting for her entire life.
True to his word, Martin taught Kylie how to row and swim in the lake. Although she had swum in pools and on the beach, she had always been afraid of the grass and leaves hiding in muddy lake bottoms. Martin told her the easiest way was to walk out on the dock, hold on to the wooden ladder so she wouldn’t have to touch the mud, and lower herself straight into the water.
May sat in the gazebo, watching them. The sun was hot, so she stayed covered with sunscreen, one of Martin’s shirts, and a big hat. She had sketched every detail of her wedding, so she would have it forever. Now, she drew her husband and daughter on the dock, in the old rowboat, their heads bobbing in the blue water.
“I’m touching stringy stuff with my toe,” Kylie called out. “It’s just grass,” Martin told her. “It won’t hurt you.”
“It feels scary, like witch’s hair.” Kylie scrambled into Martin’s arms. He was treading water, holding her up.
“Mental toughness,” he said, gazing into Kylie’s eyes. “That’s what you need more of, just like a hockey player. Don’t let it get to you. Tell yourself it’s just grass, not witch’s hair. Over and over. Let me hear you say it.”
“It’s just grass, not witch’s hair,” Kylie repeated. “It’s just grass, not witch’s hair.”
May laughed, scribbling notes in her journal so she would never forget the day her husband gave his best pro-athlete, NHL-training advice to Kylie. Her daughter said the words over and over, and May watched as she let go of Martin slowly, easing herself back into the lake.
“It’s just grass, not witch’s hair, it’s…It’s WITCH’S HAIR!” she yelled out as soon as her toes touched the wispy strands, scrambling back into Martin’s arms, making him laugh out loud.
The three of them set out one morning to row to an island in the lake. It was sunny and bright, and May had packed a picnic lunch. She sat in the stern, and Kylie rode lookout in the bow, while Martin sat in the middle, pulling on the oars. His oars never seemed to touch the water. They would slice in without a splash and send the boat gliding forward.
Around every bend, white-throated loons swam and dived. Deer grazed along the shore, fleeing into pine groves at the sight of the boat. Twenty minutes passed, then half an hour, and Martin just kept rowing. As the sun rose higher, he slowed down to pull off his shirt. May trailed her fingers in the lake, watching rivers of sweat pour down his bare chest, wishing they were all alone.
With Kylie up front, occupied with spying wildlife, Martin and May teased each other in low voices. May wore a blue bathing suit, and she had pulled the straps down to tan her shoulders. Her eyes kept darting to the strange scars on his chest, hidden in his curly hair, but he was so handsome and sexy she nearly forgot about them.
“In your wildest dreams,” May said, “did you ever imagine honeymooning with a six-year-old along?”
“It makes things interesting,” Martin replied, giving May a passionate look.
“An island?” May asked. “A private island? That’s where we’re going?”
“Mon Dieu, May. You look good in that bathing suit.”
“A private island…” May tilted her head back and closed her eyes as she imagined spreading out their blanket, taking off their clothes, making love…
“Fish!” Kylie yelled, so excited she jumped up and nearly fell in. “Huge, gigantic fish! Look, Mommy and Da—!” She stopped herself from saying “Daddy.”
“Sit down, honey,” May called.
“We�
��re just about over the old trout hole,” Martin said, glancing over. “This is where the great-granddaddy of the lake lives. Those are his lieutenants.”
“A trout army?” Kylie asked.
“Yes,” Martin said. “Led by the biggest rainbow trout you’ve ever seen. Ray and I have tried to catch him our whole lives.”
“You never have?”
“Once,” Martin said. “But he got away.”
“He wouldn’t get away from me,” Kylie said, peering into the dark, still water.
“I’ll take you fishing here some morning. Have to get up early, though. Before dawn.”
“Okay, I’ll be ready,” Kylie said. But then she spotted a black bear eating berries on the shore. Two cubs emerged from the brambles. Kylie squealed, pointing, and Martin held her to let her know she was safe. May stared at his bare arms, his wide shoulders, and she thought of the night before.
But her passion took in so much more than just the physical: She loved the way Martin talked to Kylie, how he seemed to enjoy playing with her. May loved how they were all becoming a family together. By the time they got to the island, Martin and Kylie were starving. May set up the picnic, and she tried to eat, but she was just too happy. All she could do was lie back, feel the sun on her face, and wish for their honeymoon never to end.
On the way back, with the sun sliding behind the north ridge, the air turned cool. Both May and Kylie had gotten more sun than they were used to, so Kylie slept in the bottom of the boat while Martin rowed home.
“Wouldn’t you like me to row for a while?” May asked.
Martin just smiled, shaking his head.
“Don’t you think I can?” she asked.
“You can, but you don’t have to,” Martin said. “I want to take care of you, May. Is that bad?”
“No.” She felt a lump in her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. It had been a long day, and she was tired, but her feelings were deep and more complicated than that.
“What is it?” he asked, reaching out his leg to touch her toe with his.
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt…” she began, the tears running down her cheeks. “My father took care of me. He was everything to me—to both of us, me and my mother. I’ve never really had anyone take care of me since he died.”