“I dreamed of you every night,” Rose said. “I hung the Polaroids of your beautiful belly from my lamp shade. They were the last thing I saw every night when I went to sleep.”
“You shouldn’t have had to go through any of it alone.”
“I had Lucy to lean on,” she said. “I hadn’t planned to, but thank God it happened that way.”
Maddy’s lovely face, both familiar and strange to her, began to crumple, and Rose’s heart ached in response.
“I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
“I know,” Maddy whispered. “All this time I thought you stayed away because”—her face contorted with remembered pain—“because you didn’t love me.”
“Oh, honey!” She pulled Maddy into her arms and held her tight. “That’s the one thing that will never happen.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
GRANDMA IRENE CONTINUED to hang on through the evening. The doctors couldn’t explain it, even though they tried to cobble together an AMA-approved explanation. The nurses just shook their heads and chalked it up to two things: the will to live and the will of God. Two things you didn’t learn much about in medical school.
Kelly’s father suggested she and Seth go out and grab themselves some pizza or a burger some place, but she wasn’t hungry. The DiFalcos had brought a ton of food. So had Aunt Claire and some of the old guys who hung out at O’Malley’s.
Seth was sitting with Tommy and Mel Perry watching some television special about the NFL. Kelly tried watching with them, but she felt unsettled and restless. Maddy and her mother, Rose, were looking sadder by the minute, and it was all Kelly could do to keep from crying every time she thought of Hannah. How strange was it that someone right there in Paradise Point ended up winning the samovar she had wanted for Grandma Irene.
She was glad now that she hadn’t won it after all, especially after seeing Grandma Irene’s reaction. Her great-grandmother’s cries still echoed inside her head. The last thing Kelly had wanted to do was cause her any pain and she hated herself for making such a big fat issue of the stupid teapot.
At least Hannah loved it. She smiled as she remembered the little girl pulling the samovar from its hiding spot in Rose’s closet, so eager to make pretend tea. Kelly had been the same way at Hannah’s age, living deep inside an imaginary world of fairy princesses and flying carpets. Her imaginary friends had seemed more real to her than the kids who sat beside her every day in school and she had the feeling it was the same way for Hannah.
How could everything change overnight? This time yesterday Hannah had been a healthy little girl rummaging through her grandmother’s closet for hidden Christmas presents. Now she was—
No.
She forced the scary thoughts from her mind. Thoughts had power and she refused to allow anything but positive, healing thoughts about Hannah.
Her father was sitting next to Irene, thumbing through a magazine. It was so dark in the room that she didn’t know how he could even see the pages, but she supposed it didn’t matter. He was just flipping the pages the way Toni DiFalco fingered her rosary beads.
Grandma Irene was muttering something under her breath, strange sounds that her father ignored, but that unnerved Kelly. It was like the old woman was trying to tell them something but they no longer spoke the same language.
“Could you move your chair, please?” she asked her father. “I better give the samovar back to Maddy before I forget.”
He nodded and shoved aside so she could get by.
Grandma Irene started at the sound of his chair scraping against the tiled floor. Her eyes fluttered open, deep blue even in the half light.
“Dad.” She kept her voice soft and even. “Dad, Grandma’s awake.”
He looked over at Irene, then shook his head. “Her eyes are open, Kel, but she’s not awake. The doctors explained it to me.”
Kelly met Grandma Irene’s eyes and smiled.
“She sees me,” she said. “I smiled at her and she blinked in response.”
He put down his magazine. “Kel, I don’t want to see you reading anything into reflex actions. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“I think she does.”
Irene extended her right hand toward Aidan. Her gaze was focused full on him.
“Just a reflex?” Kelly asked, heart pounding with excitement.
She saw her father swallow hard and her heart went out to him. He loved Grandma Irene. If only things could have been different for all of them. If only they could have been born into one of those big happy families like the DiFalcos. The DiFalcos were noisy and not great when it came to staying married, but they loved each other and they weren’t shy about letting you know it. You could do a whole lot worse.
Her father reached out and placed his hand over Irene’s. Kelly’s eyes swam with tears. He looked over at her and nodded. She put the samovar on the floor and rested her hand on top of his. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Irene’s cloudy gaze moved from Aidan’s face to Kelly’s, and she had the sensation of being hugged. Oh, she knew what the doctors would say—“She doesn’t really see you!”—and what Aunt Claire would say—“That romantic imagination is going to get you in trouble one day.”—but the sensation was so strong, so real, that she could actually feel the arms around her and the warmth of the embrace she had never known.
“I—”
Kelly and her father exchanged glances. This was more than the odd sounds Grandma Irene had been making now for hours.
Aidan leaned closer. “Did you say something, Grandma Irene? It’s Aidan. I’m here with Kelly.”
There was no doubt about it. Irene’s gaze left Kelly and settled definitely on her father. She was afraid to breathe, afraid to do anything that might break the spell.
“Ah . . . I . . . I . . .” Grandma Irene’s eyes closed.
“No!” Kelly’s voice rang out despite her best efforts at controlling her emotions. “Please, Grandma! What were you going to say?”
Irene’s lids were so thin that they were almost transparent. They fluttered open one more time, and there was no mistaking the clarity of her gaze.
Or the emotion behind it.
She looked straight at Aidan. Kelly heard a low sound deep in the back of his throat and she prayed he wouldn’t cry. She didn’t know what she would do if he cried.
“My blue-eyed boy . . .” Grandma Irene said, her voice the sound of a soft breeze. “. . . always loved you . . . always . . .”
MICHAEL WAS WAITING for her.
How funny life was. All these years she had expected it would be Kolya at the end, young and handsome and strong, smiling in that endearing way that had always touched her heart.
Not once had she expected it would be her husband instead, Michael O’Malley with his sad eyes and kind heart.
A surge of joy filled her and suddenly she was no longer afraid. He knew that she loved him! She saw it in his eyes, his smile. Perhaps he had known long before she had come to realize it herself. She prayed that was so.
How lucky she was . . . how little she deserved that luck. She had lived selfishly, allowing herself to dwell on a past that was long gone while the miracle of the here and now, all the wonderful things that were real and wonderful and hers for the taking, slipped through her fingers. She had sacrificed a family’s future for dreams of a past that existed only in her fading memories. What a fool she had been to waste the most precious gift of all, the gift of today.
She looked down at Aidan and his daughter and all the love she felt for them, all the love she had hidden away for all the long years of her life seemed to spill from her fingertips, showering them with blessings that glittered like diamonds, that shimmered like stars.
It would be different for Aidan and his children. She had felt it the moment her words blossomed in the air between them, known the precise moment when those words took root inside his heart. It was too late to give him the gift of the past, but the future was still his for the taking.
>
A wife he loved and who loved him in return . . . three beautiful daughters and a strapping son . . . such a wonderful life . . . she wished she could be there to watch it all unfold, but the look in Michael’s eyes told her that it was time to say goodbye.
MADDY HEARD THE soft sound of crying coming from Irene’s room.
Claire lowered her head. Billy Jr. and his sister pulled closer together. Big, strong Tommy, the bartender at O’Malley’s, was blubbering into an enormous white handkerchief while her hard-nosed cousin Gina leaned against the wall, crying openly.
She wondered how Aidan and Kelly were doing. Irene O’Malley had lived an exceptionally long and full life, but that didn’t mean the people who loved her found it easy to let her go. There was always unfinished business, things you wished you had said, and a few you wished you hadn’t heard. She whispered a prayer for Irene and one for Aidan and Kelly as well.
How long had it been since she’d prayed? It seemed that she had murmured more urgent prayers today than she had since she was a little girl making her first communion. So far, however, it seemed her prayers were falling on deaf ears.
Tom was in with Hannah now. He said he couldn’t explain it, but a warning bell had gone off inside him when Maddy’s e-mail arrived that morning and he hopped a ride on a friend’s corporate jet to be there with his youngest child. “Hannah will be so happy to see you,” she had said as they hugged briefly. The expression in his eyes said it all. Hannah was his daughter and he loved her. Maybe he didn’t love her the way Maddy wanted him to, but the deep, unbreakable connection was there and she thanked God for it. Hannah’s life would be the richer for it.
His wife, Lisa, had come upstairs with him and quietly charmed both Maddy and Rose with a Hannah story they had never heard. She met everyone, visited Hannah, then excused herself ostensibly to get a bite to eat in the cafeteria downstairs.
Maddy liked her. After all the months she had spent hating the woman’s very existence, she found herself glad that Tom had chosen so well for himself and for Hannah.
So many wonderful things had happened today. Miracles, if you believed in everyday wonders. The amazing changes in her relationship with Rose. The promise of discovery with Aidan. Her father’s quiet strength. Tom’s love for his daughter. The loving circle of family and friends who had gathered together because that was what you did when one of your own was in trouble.
So many things to be thankful for—if only Hannah weren’t lying in that cold and sterile hospital bed, growing sicker with every moment that passed.
The lumbar puncture was scheduled for ten-thirty. “We don’t expect to find anything,” the specialist had told her with the flat tone of a man with better things to do. “Just ruling out all the possibilities.” Another forty-five excruciating minutes to endure, followed by the endless wait for results. She couldn’t project herself that far into the future. It frightened her too much. These doctors knew so much about the mysteries of the human body. They could peer into the tiniest recess, into the secrets of DNA, and yet they couldn’t figure out why her little girl was dying. Things like that happened all the time. In a world that demanded explanations that could be charted on a graph or fed through a computer, sometimes life threw a curve-ball that couldn’t be charted or graphed or understood and she was afraid this was one of those times.
She had to face the truth because if somebody didn’t come up with an answer soon, Hannah was going to slip right through their hands.
Irene’s door opened and Aidan stepped out. Claire walked over to him, gave him a quick hug. They spoke quietly and she returned to her children. His eyes moved swiftly over the assembled crowd until they found Maddy’s.
She knew instantly that he had found what he had been looking for. He looked younger somehow; his sorrow over Irene’s death carried within it a sense of peace that Maddy could feel across the room.
She stood up and walked toward Aidan and Kelly, searching for the right thing to say and the right words with which to say it but nothing seemed adequate. His eyes never left hers and she suddenly realized exactly what was different. Somehow his grandmother’s death had freed him from the burden of sorrow that he had carried like a shield, a barrier between his heart and life’s many slings and arrows and joys. She didn’t know what had transpired in his grandmother’s last minutes on this earth, but they had obviously had a profound effect on Aidan.
She whispered a prayer for Irene O’Malley’s soul then, without a word, she and Aidan hugged. Her forehead rested against his chest for a second, just long enough for them both to register the rightness of the connection between them, the healing power of touch.
Kelly watched them, her expression a blend of curiosity and affection, and on impulse Maddy made to hug her as well, but a very familiar shopping bag came between them.
“The samovar?” She felt every bit as puzzled as she sounded.
Kelly’s face blazed with color. “I was just about to give it back to you.”
“So I see,” Maddy said, “but how on earth did you get it in the first place?”
“Rose let me borrow it earlier today. I thought maybe Grandma Irene would recognize it or react, but . . .” She shrugged. “Didn’t happen the way I hoped it would.” She handed the bag to Maddy. “I know this sounds crazy, but maybe you should show it to Hannah. You never know. She loves it so much that she might respond.”
Maddy clutched the bag to her chest. “Kelly, she doesn’t even know the samovar exists. It’s a Christmas present.”
“Uh-oh.” Kelly’s cheeks blazed an even brighter shade of red. “I forgot it was supposed to be a secret.”
“She knew about the samovar?” A buzz of awareness tingled along Maddy’s spine as she thought about Hannah’s sudden yearning for hot tea in a glass, the smattering of Russian, the grown-up sorrow in the little girl’s eyes.
“She showed it to me last night,” Kelly said. “I felt weird being in Rose’s bedroom like that, but Hannah was so cute about it being our secret that I—” She shrugged. “You know.”
“I know,” Maddy whispered, tears filling her eyes.
“Hannah wanted me to drink pretend tea with her but I—” Kelly made a face. “It looked pretty grungy when she poured it into her glass.”
“How’s Hannah doing?” Aidan asked.
Maddy shook her head. “They’ve checked everything. They even made us bring samples of the foods Hannah ate yesterday to make sure she hadn’t been accidentally poisoned.” The lab was also running tests on Hannah’s toothbrush, her bathroom cup, her pillowcase, and a clipping of Priscilla’s fur in their search for answers.
Her peripheral vision caught sight of Claire and Father Donato approaching. Jim Donato had been serving at Our Lady of Lourdes for as long as Maddy could remember. Her stomach knotted as she noticed the vestments draped over his arm.
He greeted Maddy warmly, expressing his concern for Hannah and promising to add her to the prayer list. Maddy thanked him, while her knees went weak with relief that he hadn’t suggested last rites for her little girl.
She excused herself and moved away as Father Jim explained to Aidan that while nobody knew with certainty how long the spirit lingered with the body after death, he believed Irene’s soul would be well served by the ministering of last rites. Irene had been a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes for as long as anyone in town could remember and Father Jim was determined to ease her way along the road to heaven as best he could.
Aidan, who had eight years of Catholic school under his belt same as Maddy, agreed and the family disappeared into Irene’s room.
Funny how all those hours spent studying the catechism came back to you when you least expected them. The drawings of the happy children marching out of confession without the weight of sin on their shoulders. The picture of a beatific soul hovering above a still body while the priest gave extreme unction. Page after page of mysteries that no one walking the earth could possibly understand.
The older she g
ot, the less she understood the hows and whys of life. One little decision fed into another and another and suddenly you found yourself back home with your family, back in the town you’d left behind and the people you thought you loved best from a distance, struggling to figure out if you really belonged there or if it was just another stop along the way to somewhere else. Or maybe you sat down at the computer one night and clicked on an auction Web site and there it was, a magic lamp masquerading as a battered rusty teapot with the power to change your life forever. One decision leading into another and then another and before you know it you find yourself with more love than you had ever dreamed existed. Random luck or the hand of fate—how could you possibly know the difference when you were smack in the middle of it all?
She glanced down at the samovar cradled in her arms as the familiar voices of family and friends rose and fell around her—Rose’s voice, Aidan’s, her father’s rumble, so many of them—all blending together as they waited and prayed for Hannah. If prayers meant anything, if love could work miracles . . .
One voice climbed above the others and she turned to see Tom standing in the doorway to Hannah’s room. The old saying about blood running cold suddenly made terrible sense.
“Come here,” he said, his voice both familiar and strange. “Hurry!”
She felt like she was moving in slow motion, pulling herself through a heavy dreamscape as she made her way toward Hannah. She was distantly aware of the sudden absence of sound, the spongy feel of industrial carpet beneath her feet, the sharp taste of fear.
Maddy’s heart threatened to snap in two at the sight of her mother leaning over Hannah’s bed, stroking the little girl’s cheek. Her father stood behind Rose, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
“She opened her eyes,” Tom said as Maddy joined them. “I think she tried to say something, but—” His voice broke and he looked away.
“Honey.” Maddy, still clutching the shopping bag, leaned over the bed. “I’m here, Hannah. Mommy’s here.”
Hannah struggled against the sheets and blankets. Rose placed her hands against the child’s shoulders and tried to calm her, but Hannah wriggled away from her.
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