Luanne Rice (13 page)

“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

B
ack 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 the 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.