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, righ
t?”
“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.
Sitting back, Lily just kept needlepointing. She let her fatherless daughter and this daughterless man continue their conversation, and she tried to imagine what would happen next.
Anne Neill stood in the garden between the inn and the parking lot, clipping flowers to put on the dining room tables. She wore a wide straw hat and carried a flat basket, which she was filling with freshly cut zinnias, snapdragons, larkspur, and cosmos. She was well aware that Camille was stationed on a porch rocker, watching every move; these gardens were showpieces because of Camille’s many years creating and tending them. As impatient as Anne sometimes felt with her mother-in-law, she never had any doubt about whose domain the flowers were.
Glancing up, she saw a hotel guest heading down the brick path. He had unruly red hair, glinting in the sun—it was curly and wild hair, the kind that must have driven his mother crazy when he was a kid. Anne smiled as he approached.
“Whew,” he said, before she had a chance to speak. “I drove all night, and thought I’d never get here.”
“Hello,” she said. “Welcome.”
“Thanks,” he said. “So—this is the Cape Hawk Inn?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Huh,” he said, swiveling his head to look around. A slice of the harbor was visible between the trees. “So, that’s where all the whale boats are?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Did you book a whale-watch package? Because I’ll be happy to go inside with you and schedule you on a cruise.” She slipped off her garden gloves, aware of Camille watching every move—at least Camille had stopped, after all these years, suspecting Anne of flirting with every unattached male guest. Her own marital tragedy had colored the way she looked at everyone else’s marriage—including Anne’s very happy one to Jude. Anne hitched the basket over her arm and began to walk with him up the front steps.
“Um, I didn’t book a package,” he said. “In fact, I don’t have a reservation.”
Anne grimaced. “Oh dear,” she said. “We’re completely booked.”
“Really?” he asked, his blue eyes sharp with surprise. “You’re so far away from civilization, I didn’t think I’d have a problem.”
“Well, many people come here for that exact reason,” she said. “Especially during the summer. If you’d come in December, you could have had the place to yourself. I’m so sorry.”
He sighed, leaning against the doorjamb and looking around the lobby. Because the day was so clear and fine, hardly anyone was around. An older couple sat on the sofa, gazing out at the blue bay. Chambermaids crisscrossed the wide space, on their way to clean rooms. The huge fireplaces at either end of the lobby were swept clean, stacked with fresh wood. Bouquets of flowers graced nearly every table.
“Would you like to have lunch in our dining room?” Anne said. “That might be a good idea, if you really drove all night.”
“I did,” he said, but he didn’t look a bit tired. He had fire in his eyes, as if resting or eating was the last thing on his mind.
“Well, if you came up for whale-watching, I might be able to get you onto the afternoon boat. I actually have quite a bit of pull—my husband is the captain.”
The man chuckled, his freckled face creasing into a wonderful smile. Anne found herself checking his left hand—wedding ring alert for her Nanouk friends. Not married, she noticed.
“Do you see any beluga whales around here?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she said.
“The same belugas that sometimes wind up in aquariums? Like the one in Mystic, Connecticut?”
“Yes,” Anne said. “Although we think they belong in the wild.”
“Right,” the man said.
“I might be able to help you find a different place to stay,” Anne said. “Some locals take boarders—and there’s a motel a few miles up the road that might have a vacancy. It has a good view too.”
“I might not stay,” he said. “I’ve just come for some information.” He seemed to be studying her face—as if trying to see if he knew her, or maybe she just reminded him of someone. “Are you from here? Cape Hawk, I mean? Have you lived here long?”
“My whole life,” she said.
“So you know the people who come and go, I imagine.”
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “I married into the Neill family, which owns the inn and whale-watch boats. We sort of keep an eye on things.”
“The Neill family?” he asked, reaching into his pocket, patting it madly, searching for something. “Are you related to Camille Neill?”
“Yes,” Anne said. She glanced out the screen door, but Camille had left her porch rocking chair—probably to lie down for her nap.
“Holy shit,” the man said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to talk to her,” he said. “If she’s still here. Is she still … alive?”
“Very much so,” Anne said, chuckling. “I think she’s just resting right now. I can check on that, if you’ll wait for just a minute,”
Anne straightened out the display of “Bring Rose Home” pillows and began to lift the phone, when the man took a picture out of his pocket. He cleared his throat and showed Anne a badge.
“I’m Detective Patrick Murphy,” he said. “Actually, retired detective, from the Connecticut State Police. Major Crime Squad. I’ve just recently gotten a lead on an old case, and it’s led me here—to Cape Hawk. I’m looking for a woman who disappeared nine years ago. Mara Jameson, from Black Hall, Connecticut. She was pregnant at the time, so she would have a nine-year-old child. I’m going to show you her picture—”
Anne took the photo from his hand, and her heart stopped. There was her friend, eyes bright and shining, beaming for the camera as if she were the happiest woman on earth.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“You know her?” Patrick Murphy asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Anne said. She tried to keep anything from showing on her face. She swallowed hard, buying time. The picture itself might have been taken just yesterday—not nine years ago. Her fellow Nanouk Girl had hardly changed at all… .
Just then, she happened to look out the window and saw Marisa and Jessica Taylor walking up the hill from the harbor. Jessica was laden down with a big bag—obviously more pine pillows. Anne tried to catch Marisa’s eye, to steer her around back—but she couldn’t. Marisa was beaming—all those dark fears she’d arrived with seemed to have evaporated during the last weeks.
Very casually, Anne came around the desk, took the retired detective by the arm, and led him back onto the garden porch—opposite the entrance Marisa was about to use. Her heart was racing. She knew she had to check with her fellow Nanouk before deciding to tell the detective anything.
“I can help you,” she said. “You say you want to talk to Camille? Well, that can definitely be arranged.”
“But the picture,” he pressed. “Have you seen Mara Jameson?”
“She looked a little familiar at first,” Anne said. “But I really don’t think I’ve seen her.”
“I could have sworn …” the retired cop said, suddenly crestfallen. He looked pale, every freckle standing out.
Anne patted his arm. She had to get him out of here—now—to a place where he couldn’t ask any questions that mattered
.
“Look,” she said. “You’re tired—you’ve driven all this way. I know just the perfect spot for you to go and rest and wait for me to get hold of Camille.” As she talked, she started walking him to the car. Not a moment too soon—because there was Camille, not napping at all, but right back on the porch, settling into her rocking chair with a cup of tea, this time with the old suspicion back in her eyes as she watched Anne walking this stranger to his car.
“Maybe I’ll try your restaurant,” he said. “For lunch.”
“Of course,” Anne said, cursing inwardly. “But why don’t you drop your bag at the guesthouse first? It’s absolutely lovely—just up the road, half a mile. It’s called Rose Gables. It’s run by a friend of mine, Marlena Talbot, and I know she would love to have you. Perhaps you can show her the picture—she might have seen this Mara Jameson.”
Jessica opened the inn door and yelled out, “Hi, Anne! We brought more pillows for Rose!”
“Lovely, dear,” Anne called back, flashing a smile at the detective, heart tumbling as she prayed he wouldn’t turn around to see the nine-year-old girl standing there. He didn’t. “Pillows,” she said. “I really must go attend to the pillows. But you go to Marlena’s and check in, and we’ll see you back here for lunch in a short time. I’ll round up Camille for you.”
“Hey, thanks,” Patrick Murphy said, stifling a yawn. “That drive really did me in. I drove straight through—it’s a long way from the Connecticut shoreline.”
“Yes, no wonder you’re tired. By the way,” Anne said, hoping she sounded cool. “What did this Mara Jameson do?”
“She disappeared,” Patrick said. “At the very least, she married the wrong guy, and he beat her up. At the very worst, he killed her. But lately something happened, to make me think she might have come up here, to hide out.”
“Hide out? Is she in trouble?”
“No. Hide out from her husband. She was afraid for her life.”
Luanne Rice Page 24