We’d survived so much: storms, fevers, stomach bugs, and a virus we’d all succumbed to, most likely transmitted by a mosquito.
Through it all, we raised a healthy baby into a toddler, a child into a young girl, and a boy into a capable sixteen-year-old.
Conner had changed from scrawny boy into gaunt young man. His copper hair was more russet gold from so much swimming and his skin would never again be snow-white but forever bronzed like an Arabian prince.
I pitied the female race who’d missed out on such a brilliant specimen and kind-hearted individual. It made me proud that Galloway and I had (in some small measure) a role in raising him.
And because of those qualities, and the fact that he was so loved by us all, it made what happened next even more tragic.
.............................
SEPTEMBER
“Help! G! Stel! Help!”
Ice water splashed down my spine as Pippa tore into the house, disrupting me in the middle of changing the tatty t-shirt that’d become Coconut’s diaper. Abandoning my child, I shot upright and grabbed her quaking shoulders. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Pippa could barely speak. Tears tracked down her face, horror consuming her completely. “Co. He...he...he’s hurt.”
Galloway charged inside, twigs and leaves sticking in his long hair, the Swiss Army knife clenched in his hand. “What? What is it?”
Taking Pippa’s hand, I shoved past him. “Conner. We’ve got to go.”
Together, we sprinted faster than we’d ever ran before to the water’s edge where Conner lay in the shallows on his back. The tide licked around him, almost as if soothing whatever had hurt him. Apologetic. Sympathetic.
I hated the water for touching him.
I despised whatever had hurt him.
Slamming to his knees, Galloway scooped Conner’s head into his lap, slapping his cheeks. “Conner, open your eyes, mate.”
I took his left hand while Pippa took his right. We all kneeled before him as if he were the alter accepting our final prayers.
No!
This couldn’t be happening.
The aura of dying wasn’t real. The stench of agony wasn’t true.
This isn’t happening!
Galloway tapped Co’s cheeks again, rousing him. “Conner. Come on. Open your eyes.”
Conner groaned; his face scrunched tight from pain. “I—can’t—breathe.”
“Co, no.” Pippa sobbed. “I’ll breathe for you.”
“Wo—won’t work, Pip...”
Terrible despair lashed her. “Come on. Don’t be a jerk.” Swatting at her tears, she bowed as if to give him mouth to mouth. “You’re fine, you’ll see.”
“Pip, don’t.” I held her back. I couldn’t fix him if she was in my line of sight. What did this? What happened?
There was no blood. No bite.
What dared hurt my son?
And that was when I saw it.
The spine, the deadly quill, the poisonous barb I’d hoped never to see again. But this time...it wasn’t a minor graze on his instep but a full quiver pinpricking his heart.
A stonefish.
He’d been so careful. He fished with flip-flops. He did his best to stay where it was safe.
My hands flew up to cover my face as hiccupping horror fell from my lips.
Galloway’s eyes wrenched to mine, dancing over my frozen features then to the death sentence on Conner’s chest.
“Shit.” He turned white. His hands fumbled on the spines of venom, ripping them from Conner’s flesh as if they were grenades about to detonate.
But it was too late.
The damage had already been done.
Last time, Conner had cheated extermination. This time...necrosis had won.
This can’t be real.
It can’t!
My shoulders trembled as I swallowed sob after sob.
No amount of hot water and poultices would save him this time.
Galloway shifted, laying Conner’s head on the wet sand and moving to his side. Weaving large hands together, he placed them over Conner’s heart, ready to palpitate him back to living, ready to resuscitate and revive and reverse the horrible, horrible catastrophe.
Conner grimaced, his lips dark blue, his eyes shot red. His fingers spasmed with toxins, clawing at his throat as his body succumbed to anaphylactic shock.
He suffocated.
Right before us.
“Conner, no!” Pippa blew air into his mouth as Galloway started CPR.
Shock turned me into a mute statue witnessing Galloway’s long hair wafting around his face with every compression, Pippa’s white cheeks as she exhaled into her brother’s mouth, and the warm tide never ceasing in its caresses.
A stonefish was fatal in high doses. I doubted anyone had had a larger dose.
I have to do something.
Anything.
But I knew, better than them, better than Conner, that there was nothing.
Even if we had an antidote and ambulance, there was nothing anyone could do.
The Grim Reaper had finally visited.
For three years, we’d survived together without loss. We’d laughed, cried, kept our diet varied, and fought our illnesses with strength. We ignored every statistic saying a crash landing like ours would ensure another death before long.
This wasn’t fate.
This was destiny.
It had finally found us.
To claim a life far too young.
Conner met my eyes, seawater tracking down his cheeks. “Stel—”
I captured his spasmodic fingers, bringing them to my lips. While my husband and daughter fought to keep him alive, I offered solitude and safe harbour as he slipped.
Slipped and slipped, faded and faded.
“I love you, Conner,” I whispered. “So, so much.”
He couldn’t reply but his gaze burned brown with bravery. Reaching out, I touched Pippa’s shoulder, creating a connected triangle between us. “Shush, it’s okay, Pippi. I’ve got you.”
The moment my hand landed on her skin, Pippa dissolved. Her spine rolled and tears pried from her soul. My touch blared the truth; truth she didn’t want to believe.
He’s leaving us.
She collapsed into gut-wrenching sobs. “No. No!” Her fingers looped with Conner’s as she chanted over and over, “Don’t go to sleep, Co. Please, please don’t go to sleep. I can’t make it without you.”
My own tears made everything a water-world as I held my two children and gave into the heart-cramping, soul-tearing knowledge that we knocked on demise’s door.
Galloway coughed back tears as Conner convulsed in his embrace. The teenager’s heart pounded so hard, his pulse was visible in his white-shocked neck. His tan couldn’t hide the spread of suffocation, turning him icicle-blue.
“It’s okay, Conner,” I murmured. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay.
Nothing about this is okay!
Pippa screamed and struggled.
But Conner couldn’t comfort her.
His eyes remained locked on mine.
Brown to hazel, young to old.
This boy loved me.
I loved him.
I sobbed harder, giving him every ounce of my affection. “I love you, Conner.” My back gave out as I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed him. I let gravity sway me to his venom-riddled form and I kissed his brow, his nose, his cheeks.
His eyes remained open, stealing final glimpses of this world. His skin lost life-luminosity as his mouth sucked air.
His body suffered too much poison.
His nervous system shut down.
His consciousness was the last lingering piece tethering him to pain.
I didn’t want him in agony any longer.
Pulling me away, Galloway snatched me to him, hugging me, hugging Pippa as we worshipped at the feet of an angel and said farewell.
Pippa peppered kisses all over his face, murmuring prom
ises and pacts. Galloway patted him and stroked his cheek, unable to hold back his sadness, vowing to keep his sister and me safe for him.
Conner’s eyes landed on each of us as his lungs failed and his heart gave up its valiant beat.
His body thrashed.
His lips mouthed, ‘I love you.’
And then...
he
was
gone.
.............................
OCTOBER
Conner.
I couldn’t say his name without battling wet, heavy tears.
I couldn’t think about him without wanting to tear apart the past and make it false, to reincarnate him from a terribly sadistic joke.
I even struggled to say my daughter’s name as it reminded me too much of Conner’s grin when she’d said her first word. The similarities between Conner and Coco mutilated my heart on a minutely basis.
He’d loved me.
And left me.
For days, I couldn’t get out of bed.
No one could.
We lay frozen, neither eating nor drinking; only cracking the tomb of our sorrow to care for Coco when she squalled.
Coco.
Those two letters were forever smeared in woe.
Co.
Co.
Come back.
I’m sorry.
I couldn’t understand how the quills had lodged in his chest. How had he stepped wrongly? Did he fall? Had a wave pushed him onto the reef?
Or had it just been one of those things—unforeseen, unplanned, but the tiniest mistake that cost the best of lives.
We would never know.
We’d forever wonder what stole Conner from us.
And we’d never have an enemy in which to extract vengeance.
.............................
The funeral was held two weeks ago, yet the pain of his loss felt only hours old.
Pippa hadn’t said a word since we’d gathered on the same beach where we’d laid to rest our pilot and her parents and weighed down Conner’s body for the tide to claim.
He’d looked asleep. Cold and unloved. But only asleep.
Watching the waves slowly claim him, slipping over his closed eyes and parted lips, drove me wild.
Galloway had to hold me, putting up with my fists and screams, as Conner slowly left land for sea. I craved comfort from my husband’s arms but I felt undeserving. Who did Conner have to hug and kiss?
He was alone now.
That night, we didn’t move from the beach. Pippa sought solitude rather than our arms, and we sat in the moonlight with silent sadness in our souls.
Once the sun rose and Conner had vanished, we added his name to the small shrine of the Evermore parents with a newly carved cross and an inscription of our everlasting love. We plucked a hundred red flowers and scattered them over the sand in his memory. And we lost each other, retreating to our private corners of grief.
The day we lost Conner was the day we lost all energy to continue.
I didn’t remember much of those weeks.
I didn’t remember comforting or speaking or doing more than eating when my body demanded and crying when the dysphoria grew too much to be contained.
Pippa curled in on herself, turning into an inconsolable wraith.
Galloway spent a day hunting every stonefish he could find, slaughtering them one by one. It terrified me that he would step wrong and suffer the same end as Conner.
Death didn’t pay for death.
And once he’d finished, his shoulders wracked with silent sobs, crying for Conner, our future, and a past he still couldn’t shake.
Even Coconut grieved.
Her questions about Conner petered out the longer we shook our heads and gave no answer to his return. Her babbling conversation turned quiet and morose as if, even at her young age, she understood that her favourite older brother was gone forever.
We’d been so brave.
We’d been so strong.
But this...this was the breaking point I feared would ruin us.
.............................
NOVEMBER
Grief had an awful way of lingering.
It tainted, not just our crying hearts and every thought, but I tasted it in the sky. I ate it for dinner. I slept with it at night.
After our self-inflicted solitude, we found our way back to each other.
For two months, we existed in a daze, constantly expecting Conner to charge up the beach with an arm full of freshly caught fish or proudly carry Coco to go swimming.
Pippa jumped with hope if the wind whistled in the trees, morbidly mimicking Conner’s laugh.
Galloway threw everything he had into protecting Coconut. He became mistrustful of everything, and the light that’d shone so bright in his gaze, the same light that mirrored in mine, had been snuffed out.
For so many months, we’d beaten adversity together...now, I felt more alone than ever.
Night-time turned into nightmares. I couldn’t escape them. I couldn’t stop the heartache of missing him.
One star-spangled night, Galloway kissed my cheek and spooned me.
I tensed, expecting sex. Sex I wasn’t emotionally ready for.
Instead, he whispered, “We loved him, Estelle. We loved him a son, friend, and brother. But we can’t keep killing ourselves this way. He’s gone. We’re still here. We have to keep going.
“He would want us to move on. He trusts us to care for Pippa.” He embraced me hard. “We owe it to him not to give up.”
My tears came afresh, but this time, they weren’t full of weeping acid but pure with parting.
This man wasn’t my other half.
He was my heart.
And no matter what happened, that would never change.
.............................
Days vanished without us bothering to count them.
The rainy season pelted us, but we ignored it.
The sunshine burned us, but we paid no attention.
The constant sameness of our humid, tropical island was a mockery to our pain.
We lost sight of how to be happy, how to laugh in fear’s face and survive in death’s glare.
We bowed under the pressure and finally came to terms with the fact if we didn’t leave, we would die.
We would die, and we wouldn’t really care.
We weren’t playing house on the beach.
We weren’t living a fantastical dream where society couldn’t touch us, everyday flu couldn’t find us, and stress of work couldn’t harm us.
This was real.
Conner was dead.
Dead.
We were the gateway and final destination to life and death.
We were the morgue, the supermarket, the hospital, the house, the bank, the pharmacy, the restaurant. We were every mortal thing and the pressure to fight had finally vanished.
.............................
DECEMBER
Only a few dates smudged and sullied into perspicuous recollection.
A few dates that would forever be known as life-changing.
The date Madi uploaded my song and changed my career was one.
The night we crash landed on our island was two.
The morning Coco was born was three.
The afternoon Conner died in our arms was four.
And the upcoming nightmare in our future was five.
Five dates that defined me.
Five dates that would carry such heavy, heavy weight.
Even now, three months since Conner abandoned us, we hurt just as badly.
Three months since we’d genuinely laughed and smiled.
Three months since our will to survive had dried up.
However, with death came life, and Coconut blossomed overnight. She morphed from human larvae into a chatty little girl, magically stealing our sadness and reminding us how to smile again. Her tiny cheeks and intelligent eyes acted as a balm for our smarting memories.
&n
bsp; The tears were never far away, and Pippa was irrevocably changed. She’d become a stranger who we shared our island with. The last surviving member of her bloodline.
But life dragged us onward, patching up our wounds with hours and days, slowly healing us despite our wishes.
The turtles visited (as they did every year) but this time, no one stayed up to witness their night long laying.
We were too tired.
Too weak.
Growing weaker by the day.
One night, the urge to connect with Galloway overwhelmed me and I stole his hand to lead him to bed.
Pippa remained by the fire, staring into the flames the same way she did every night. The only time she remembered she was alive was when I put Coco in her arms. Then she would blink and converse, shedding her cape of listlessness until the squirmy toddler decided she’d had enough being the emotional medicine for a severely sad sister.
For some time, I wondered if it’d been fairer for fate to take Pippa’s life instead of Conner’s. She carried her family’s death too hard. It might’ve been kinder for her to pass, to find her mother and father in the great wide ether and trade this existence for a celestial one.
But fate didn’t work that way. It didn’t give invitations to its upcoming events. It just orchestrated what would happen with no apology or suggestion.
We didn’t speak as I pulled Galloway inside our bedroom and hurriedly undid the bows of my bikini.
Galloway’s eyes burned with an intensity I’d never seen before as he shed his board-shorts and gathered me in his arms.
Our kiss was wild and furious.
Our coupling messy and violent.
And after whatever compulsion had driven us was sated, we lay in the dark and agreed.
It was time.
“We’re leaving this week, Estelle. It’s time to prepare the boat.”
We were saying goodbye.
Leaving Conner in paradise.
It was time to return home.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
...............................................
G A L L O W A Y
......
JANUARY
I’D HAD ENOUGH.
My family were dying.
Conner had already left us.
I wouldn’t lose any more.
I’d never missed someone as much as I missed him.
Unseen Messages Page 47