Luanne Rice

by Summer's Child

  “I’d like to stay,” Lily said.

  “I appreciate that,” said Paul Colvin, the older doctor, a cardiac surgeon who had built a very respectable department here at Melbourne. “But we really need to ask you to step aside. Just for a few minutes.” With silver hair and a steady stare, he might have intimidated a different mother. Lily shook her head, unable to let go of Rose’s hand.

  “Please, Doctor,” she said. She didn’t want to fight, and she didn’t have to. He had encountered Lily before; he knew what he was up against, and let her stay.

  The doctors listened with stethoscopes, checked machines, read the chart. Lily was glad it was just the two of them, and that Melbourne wasn’t a teaching hospital. She thought back to when Rose was ten months old and they were in the Boston hospital, waiting for decisions to be made about surgery. Students were constantly stopping by to examine her—prodding and poking her, listening to her heart, surrounding her in their green scrubs—making her cry. Which made her turn blue.

  It didn’t take long for Lily—inexperienced though she was in the ways of hospital procedure—to complain to the cardiologist and put a stop to the student visits. She had learned right at the beginning how to be a mama bear, and she’d only gotten fiercer over the years.

  Now, holding Rose’s hand, she watched her daughter wake up, gaze at the two doctors working on her, and then look over at Lily for support. Lily squeezed her hand. Rose pressed back.

  They were getting their fill of each other. The simple things. Just knowing the other was there; holding hands; smiling at each other; Rose drifting off, then waking up to see her mom at her side; Lily brushing her hair off her forehead. Soon it would be time for sleep, and Lily planned to sit in a chair beside Rose’s bed.

  When the doctors were done, Bonnie returned to Rose’s bedside. She had the tray of medications, ready to administer. Lily felt better about leaving Rose for one minute with Bonnie than with the two doctors. While Bonnie measured out dosages, Lily walked to the desk with Drs. Colvin and Cyr.

  “She’s been having cyanotic episodes with increasing regularity,” Dr. Colvin said, reading the chart. “She told us she had one today.”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “It’s the main reason she has surgery scheduled in Boston. To replace the patch for her VSD”—ventricular septal defect—“that they first put in when she was ten months old. Have you called her surgeon down there? Dr. Kenney?”

  “Yes, as soon as she was admitted. He’s aware of everything that’s going on, but he’s practicing in Baltimore now. He’s recommending a surgeon in Boston, though, and he’d like you to call him later, after we’ve had a chance to finish testing her.”

  “What have you found so far?”

  “Well, she’s in congestive heart failure. She’s got pulmonary edema with a substantial amount of swelling. We have her on Captopril and Lasix. I’d like to do a cardiac catheterization, to get a better idea of how her heart is functioning.”

  Lily was nodding—numb, in shock, on autopilot. When had she gotten used to hearing that Rose was in heart failure? It no longer punched her quite as viciously as it once had. She knew there was a finish line—the ER in Boston, where they would replace the patch and make her well again, almost good as new. If they could just get her stabilized here—and they would—Lily and Rose could keep to their plan, and the next surgery would be her last.

  “When did she have the Blaylock-Taussig shunt?” Dr. Cyr asked.

  “Ten months,” Lily answered.

  “In Boston,” Dr. Colvin said.

  Lily nodded, inching away, eager to get back to Rose.

  “She’s a fighter,” Dr. Cyr said.

  Those words made Lily’s lips tighten, but she vowed not to explode. She had that geyser feeling—a buildup of pressure inside—that she was going to have to release somehow. Hearing about procedures sometimes had an extreme effect on her, as if the cells in her body remembered that first time Rose had had to kiss her goodbye as they wheeled her into surgery. That moment had nearly killed her, and it still did, every time she remembered it—or thought about what they had faced, and still had to face.

  The doctors gave her a form to sign, which she did with a scrawl that would have done them proud. Sign fast, get back to Rose …

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Colvin said.

  “I’d like to request that you stop the morphine,” Lily said.

  “She seemed rather upset when she arrived,” Dr. Colvin said. “We need to keep her calm.”

  “Morphine makes her sick to her stomach. And she likes being more alert.”

  “Still, we don’t want her agitated.”

  “I’m here with her now,” Lily said. “I think that will do the trick.”

  The doctors both nodded, and Dr. Cyr shrugged. They didn’t get it.

  Lily didn’t care whether they got it or not. As long as she and Rose did.

  Chapter 12

  Back in Cape Hawk, the party had broken up. The Nanouk Girls had loaded up their cars, driven home, fed their families, and were already on the phone or Internet, exchanging information. Plans were being made to box up Nanouk Girl care packages for both Lily and Rose—filled with yarn, canvas, books, CDs and DVDs, and photos taken at the birthday party, especially the many taken of Rose with Nanny frolicking in the background.

  Anne Neill had placed Rose’s birthday cake in the inn’s freezer, as promised. She and Jude ate together in the dining room, amid all the hotel guests, barely able to talk or do more than pick at their food. Jude looked as if he had aged ten years since that morning.

  “When Liam asked me to captain the cruise, I never expected this. Annie, have you ever seen Rose look so bad? So blue?”

  “No, dear. I truly haven’t.”

  “What does Lily say?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet. Has Liam called you?”

  “No, and he has his cell phone turned off. What did Lily say before the party?”

  “Well, I knew that Rosie had been having some problems. But they seemed routine, given her condition, and they were going to get taken care of once and for all with the surgery she was scheduled to have in Boston.”

  “Is it worse than Lily thinks? You know we all love her, she’s the greatest—and with such spirit, and positive attitude—but Annie … is she living in a dreamworld about Rose?”

  “Jude, Lily once told me that she and Rose are just used to things that would scare other people. Being a cardiac patient means never knowing for sure, I guess.”

  “I think we should pray for them tonight,” Jude said.

  Anne smiled at him. She knew that he prayed for them every night already, as she did. He was her sea captain husband, straight from the wilds of maritime Canada, but he had a heart as big as the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  “All three of them,” Jude continued.

  “Three?”

  “Yes, if you count Liam.”

  Anne nodded. How could they not count Liam? It was an unspoken fact that he was an intimate part of Lily’s life. Probably Anne and Jude knew it better than Liam and Lily did. Probably Rose knew it better too. Never had two such guarded people come together, and with such frustrating results.

  “You think they’ll ever have a romance?” Jude asked. “Or is that like asking if there’ll ever be palm trees in Cape Hawk?”

  “I used to think palm trees were more likely,” Anne said.

  “Used to?”

  Anne just shrugged. “Hope springs eternal.”

  “What do you hope for, my love?” Jude asked. He reached across the table, with its uneaten food, and covered her hand with his.

  Anne whispered, “For my best friend to have a little more happiness than she’s had so far in her life.” When the waitress came over to clear, asking if there was something wrong with their meals, Anne was quite unable to speak.

  Jude answered for both of them, saying no, everything was great, they were just still full from the birthday
party. Anne thought of the uneaten birthday cake and had to reach for the starched napkin to dab her eyes. Jude took the opportunity to try Liam’s cell again, but there was still no answer.

  Anne looked across the table at her husband and wondered what was happening down in Melbourne.

  Two days passed without any word. That night, Marisa and Jessica sat on the back porch. Cape Hawk was so far north, it stayed light hours past sunset in New England. The tips of the pine needles looked painted gold, and crickets chirped in the woods. They sat on the top step, their sides touching. Jessica hadn’t smiled or said very much since Rose flew away in the helicopter.

  After Rose’s party, something in Marisa had given way, and she’d known that she had to be true to herself and her daughter, had to celebrate Jess’s real birthday—just the two of them. What would be the harm in that? She—they—had been on guard for so long. Stopping at the grocery store earlier, Marisa had sent Jessica into the bookstore next door to pick out her summer reading choices, so Marisa could buy a cake. Now, while Jessica sat watching the stars just starting to come out in the darkening sky, Marisa went inside the kitchen.

  When she came out, she was holding a cake burning with nine candles. “Happy birthday to you,” she sang, and by the end of the song, Jessica was almost smiling.

  “Mom, I thought we weren’t having my real birthday this year.”

  “Well, we are. Go ahead, honey—blow out your candles. Make a wish!”

  Jessica took a big breath, then blew. The nine candles went out in a rush. After today, Marisa felt extra grateful for her daughter’s health, for the simple things like being able to blow out her candles. She began to cut two slices as Jessica slid the plates over.

  “Know what I wished, Mom?”

  “What, honey?”

  “That Rose would come home soon.”

  “That’s a good wish.” Even as she said it, Marisa stopped herself. What would a bad wish be? She thought of Ted, how he would judge every single thing according to his own standards. Good wish, bad wish.

  “Will she come home soon?”

  “I don’t know,” Marisa said. “We’re going to hope and pray that she does.”

  Jessica nodded, and together they dug into their slices of cake. Marisa felt a pang, remembering how her mother had always baked birthday cakes for her and her sister Sam. She had always made beautiful pink roses out of buttercream frosting, and written her name in pink script with a special pastry bag. What was Jessica missing, without extended family in her life?

  Rose’s party had felt exactly like a big family—Lily and Rose and all those strangers who by the end of the day had felt like sisters. Standing on the dock, watching Rose being loaded into the rescue copter, a woman Marisa had just met took her hand. They had all stood there, watching Rose take off in silence. Marisa and Doreen had held hands on one side, and Marisa and Jessica on the other side, and Jessica and Allie, and on down the line.

  A gust of strength had entered Marisa at that moment, inspiring her to buy her daughter this birthday cake. She squeezed Jessica’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

  “It’s expensive to go to the hospital, isn’t it?” Jessica asked.

  “Yes,” Marisa said. Especially, she thought, when you’re on the run and you don’t have health care. She was sure Jessica was remembering falling right after they’d left Weston and having to get stitches. Marisa had had to pay with cash—health insurance was too easy to trace.

  “Heart operations are a lot more expensive than stitches, right?”

  “Quite a bit.”

  Jessica nodded. She ate her cake as the sun went down all the way, turning the forest purple, with shadows cast by the rising moon. A night bird called from the trees, long, throaty sounds that preceded the hunt.

  “Mom,” Jessica said, her mouth full. She chewed, swallowed, wiped her mouth. “I want to do something for Rose.”

  “I’m not sure she can have visitors,” Marisa said, remembering the Pediatric ICU at Johns Hopkins, when she had done a rotation there, seeing all those sick children, knowing that Jessica wouldn’t be allowed inside. “But I’m sure you could make her a card, and her mother would give it to her.”

  “I want to do more than a card.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want to raise money for her. So she can have her operations and her mother won’t have to worry or work so hard. Rose says she works all the time.”

  “Oh, Jess!”

  “I want to make it so the hospital cures her. Makes her all well! Mom—why does Rose have to have heart defects? Why did she turn so blue?” Jessica asked, starting to sob. “I don’t want her to die!”

  Marisa pulled her onto her lap, rocking her and trying to soothe her. Jessica cried with unbridled grief—the way she had when her father died, and when she saw her puppy killed. Marisa’s own eyes filled. She thought of all the sick children she had worked with, of the pain she had felt seeing them suffer. She had worked on learning detachment—it was taught in nursing school, but she had had to get extra help from groups and friends. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, and it escaped her right now.

  Holding Jessica, she wished she could soothe the anguish of losing her father, seeing Rose so sick, watching Ted kill Tally. Marisa knew that she would do anything to protect her daughter, keep her from the harshest realities of life. She thought back to the nursery, nine years ago today, when she had held her daughter in her arms, wrapped in a pink blanket. The baby had been so tiny; the blanket so soft. Yet Marisa’s memory of the moment was ferocious—she felt love so enormous, she knew she would do anything to protect her baby.

  She had once wondered whether she could ever love anyone enough to die for them. Jump into freezing water to save them, step in front of a wild animal, give up her life. Holding her baby, all doubt had been removed. Sitting on the back porch now, she remembered the feeling of love that had come over her, all the promises she had made to protect her tiny daughter from anything or anyone who ever tried to harm her.

  Yet she couldn’t protect Jessica from this: the terrible hurt she felt to see her best friend suffering.

  “Mom?” Jessica asked now, wiping her eyes. “Will Rose die?”

  “Her mother is doing everything she can to make sure she doesn’t. She has excellent care.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  Marisa shook her head. She stared into Jessica’s brown eyes, smoothed the hair from her high forehead, thinking of Jessica’s father. His death had hit them both so hard, and she could hardly bear that Jessica had to go through the same kind of worry about Rose. “No, honey. We don’t know.”

  “So many bad things happen,” Jessica whispered. “Like when Ted kicked Tally downstairs, just because she was barking.”

  “Good things too, Jess. I want you to think about the good things.”

  “I have to help Rose,” Jessica said, jumping up from the step as if she couldn’t bear to waste even one minute.

  “Honey—we can pray for her. Make her cards …”

  Jessica shook her head. “That’s not enough. I want to raise money, so Rose can be cured. I don’t want her to die, like Daddy did, or Tally. I’m going to start now.” She had been powerless to save her puppy, but she wasn’t going to turn her back on her friend.

  Marisa nodded. The screen door shut behind Jessica, leaving Marisa alone on the porch. Her thoughts were racing. Maybe it was the big event of her daughter’s birthday here in hiding, or maybe it was the shock of seeing Rose taken to the hospital. She knew, from her rotation on psychiatric units, that old trauma could be triggered by the oddest things. From experience, after living with Ted, she knew how easily she went numb, shut down, wanted to pull the covers over her head. Those had been her old ways.

  But something new was happening. She felt a ripple run through her body, like a river under her skin. She thought of Paul, Jessica’s father, and suddenly shivered, feeling alive in the cool sea air. The bird called from th
e woods again, announcing itself to the night. As Marisa watched, it rose on wide, silent wings, beating high over the ground. She heard its wing beats as it flew up, and saw its yellow eyes: an owl.

  For the months since April, when she and Jessica had left home, she had felt like a hunted creature. Change of name, change of home, change, even, of country. She had packed up her daughter and taken her away from every single thing that mattered to them. How many sleepless nights had she felt guilty for doing that to her daughter? Hugging her pillow every night, she had prayed for Paul to forgive her.

  Tonight, it felt as if he had. Marisa felt her strength returning. Holding hands with the Nanouk Girls, seeing their love for Lily, and knowing that Lily understood, somehow, what Marisa and Jessica were going through—all those factors had changed Marisa today.

  So when she saw that owl—with its hot gold eyes and killer talons—instead of feeling afraid, being reminded that she and Jessica were hunted by a man she still, crazily, wanted to understand—she felt thrilled and powerful. Ted had wormed his way into her life, pretending to help her invest the money Paul had left them. He had known Paul from business and golfing, and he had used that to win Marisa’s trust. He had traded on Paul’s friendship to work his way into Marisa and Jessica’s life.

  The problem was, Paul hadn’t known Ted. Not really. Not like Marisa did. Life sometimes handed people strange, dangerous gifts. Ted had done terrible damage to the people Paul had loved most. She closed her eyes, listening for the owl, and she thought of herself and Jessica, Lily and Rose. She was beginning to see clearly now.

  Jessica went into her bedroom and stared up at the crucifix. She made the sign of the cross. Then she went over to the statue of Mary—the one she loved the most, because she had several. This was Mary with her blue robe and crown of yellow stars, standing barefoot on a snake. Jessica stared down at the snake—which was very scary. Its mouth was unhinged and wide open, with yellow fangs and a pink throat. But Mary had killed it by stepping on it with her bare feet. Jessica had to check every time—that the snake was still dead. She kissed Mary’s face.