Luanne Rice (14 page)

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.

Then she
picked up
The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe.
It was her and Rose’s favorite book. She loved it for its magic,
secrets, evil, and, especially, goodness. She thought probably Rose loved it
for the same reasons, but in the way of newly nine-year-old girls, they had
never talked about it.

Looking
through the book—a hardcover edition her aunt Sam had bought her for Christmas
two years ago—she found a picture of Aslan, the kind, wise lion. Jessica stared
into his sad, knowing eyes and felt her heart tapping in her chest. She touched
his picture and thought of Rose needing help and said, “Daddy.”

In the
book, Aslan let himself be attacked and killed, so the children and all the
inhabitants of Narnia—the magical, secret world on the other side of the
wardrobe door—could live free. When he rose from the stone table and came back
to life, Jessica always felt chills and a little rush of tears—as if she
couldn’t believe that something so brave and true could happen.

Before Ted,
Jessica had believed in brave and true. Her own father was like Aslan. He had
died, and the last thing he said to Jessica was, “I’ll be looking down from
heaven, taking care of you and your mother. I’ll never really be gone,
sweetheart. I’ll be looking over you. Call me when you need me.” Jessica had
held on to his hand as long as she could, till the doctor and her mother had
pried her away. Then her mother had had some private time with him, and then he
died.

Ted came
along right after that. Well, maybe almost a year after that—but to Jessica, it
had seemed fast. She could still smell her father in his closet, she knew that.
She could stand in the dark, with her head in his suits, with her eyes closed,
and bring him back. The smell of his sweat and cigarettes and just
him
was all around her. She would stand
there and remember what he had told her:
I’ll
never really be gone
… .
I’ll be looking over you and
your mother
… .

And Jessica
would breathe in his scent and know that he had spoken the truth. He was right
there with her, protecting her. She liked the door to be partly closed, so no
one would see her in the closet; it was her time alone with him. She would
stand in a different spot each day. Although the closet was quite small, it
seemed like a whole world—just like the wardrobe in the book.

Jessica
would go through her father’s pockets, one suit at a time. He had been a
businessman who valued looking good. So he had seven suits and five sports
coats, with lots of slacks. His pockets were like treasure to her. At first,
before she had gone through them all, the things she found were thrilling and
magical.
A few coins, a business card, his tarnished silver
Saint Christopher medal, a stray Rolaid, torn bits of foil from a pack of
cigarettes, his mother’s mass card.

After a
time, some of the magic began to wear off. She would look in the left pocket of
his glen plaid suit and know that she would find his money clip, matches, and
appointment calendar. Or she would reach into the back pocket of his green golf
pants and there would be a grass-stained tee and a short yellow pencil for
keeping score. Standing on tiptoes to feel inside the breast pocket of his
summer-weight blue blazer, she would find her kindergarten school picture and a
pocket rosary.

Even without
the excitement and anticipation of not knowing what she would find, spending
time in her father’s suits was the happiest Jessica felt during that time. She
could smell her father’s smell and know that he had been here, on this earth.
That he wasn’t just an angel or ghost looking down from heaven—but that he had
walked and talked and saved her kindergarten picture and worn nice suits and
sometimes forgotten to empty his pockets. Sometimes she’d stand there in the
crush of wool blend and summer cotton and tell him about her day, and she would
hear him talk back.

Once her mother opened the closet door while Jessica was in there.
Jessica
had held her breath, so her mother wouldn’t see her there. Not because she’d
thought her mother would be mad, but because she thought she might be sad—even
at seven, Jessica had known how bad her mother would feel to see her there
among her father’s suits. But she needn’t have worried; her mother had just
stood there for a few minutes, and then she’d closed the door and walked away.

Maybe her
mother liked to do the same thing, Jessica had thought—go back in time and
remember how happy they had all once been, when he was still alive to wear all
those beautiful suits. Maybe being near his suits made her mother able to hear
his voice, just like Jessica did.

Then Ted
had come.

Her father
had known him from golf. Ted became his stockbroker, and he did a good job
investing some of her family’s money. Jessica remembered hearing her parents
talking about Ted so often—“We couldn’t do it without Ted,” her father had said
again and again about his business expansion. “He’s a godsend,” her mother had
said. Oh, Ted had sounded like the family miracle. He had helped her father
afford a new office for his title search company in downtown Boston—instead of
out of the way, in Dorchester. The money had helped buy a new computer system,
hire more people, and provide health insurance.

Jessica
remembered wondering about Ted, before she met him. How did stocks work? Why
would the family pick someone they barely knew and give him their money to
grow? It had seemed almost unbelievably wonderful and benevolent. Could
someone’s job really be to oversee a family’s savings and help them earn more?
She asked her father once, and he told her, “He’s a smart man, honey. He went
to the best schools to learn business, and he only chooses stocks that he
thinks will make money.”

“But he’s
nice, right?” she had asked, unable to conceive of Ted’s role in their lives
any other way.

Her father
had laughed. “Yes, he’s a great guy. Everyone likes Ted. He has a lot of
friends, and he’s the vice president of the Rotary Club in the town where he
lives.”

Jessica
didn’t know what the Rotary Club was, but she thought it sounded very exciting.
Her father’s words made sense to Jessica. Ted had to be a great guy. Money was
hard to come by—her parents worried about things like their mortgage, and car
bills, building the
business,
and a college education
for her when the time came. If they trusted Ted with their savings, then Jessica
trusted him too. Her father once said that he was “as generous as they come,”
because of his volunteer work with poor kids.

Now,
staring at the lion’s sad face in
The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
Jessica took a deep breath. She wished
Aslan could come out of the book and talk to her. She wished her father would
come down from heaven and tell her what to do. If Ted was “as generous as they
come,” Jessica wasn’t sure she should try to raise money for Rose. She didn’t
want to be anything like Ted.

The problem
was
,
she knew her father couldn’t talk to her anymore.
Not since that day, right after Ted had moved in. Jessica had come home from
school and gone to the closet—not because she was upset or anything about Ted.
Maybe just a little upset—but mainly, she just wanted to talk to her father the
way she always did. It was spring, and she had caught a fly ball in baseball.

She had the
baseball with her. Her mother and Ted were in the kitchen. She could have
showed it to them, but instead she ran by, up the stairs, to her father’s
closet. And she opened the door, and—

All his
suits were gone.

Instead,
Ted’s clothes were in there.
Suits and jackets and pants and
coats and his robe.
Even now, remembering that moment, Jessica felt her
chest cave in. She touched her heart and sat down on the bed. Staring at
Aslan’s face, she sobbed silently.
Mary,
Jesus, God …
Seeing Rose turn blue and fly away to the hospital had brought
it all back. People she loved going away. Her father, Rose … Her father had
never really gone away, not until the day Ted and her mother threw his suits
out.

“Tell me
what to do,” she whispered now, getting onto her knees.

Outside,
the owls were hunting and calling. She had heard them every night since the
snow melted. Sometimes she listened extra hard—as if she might be able to
understand what they were saying. She stared at the picture in her favorite
book, and listened for the owls, and she was sort of praying, but she was
really asking her father.

If ever
there was a day for him to come back to her, it was now: her real birthday.

Ted had
chased him away. And because of Ted, she now had a pretend name, a pretend
birthday, and a pretend story. Only her father knew who she really was. Only he
could handle her huge requests. Her mother had once been able to, but those
days had ended. Her mother was just a ghost now—a skinny, scared, scarred ghost
left behind by Ted. She and Jessica were just bones spit out by the wild animal
they had let into their lives.

Ted had
often seemed so angry. Then he had killed her puppy, Tally. Jessica had thought
he wanted to kill her and her mother too. He wasn’t generous at all. Her father
hadn’t been wrong about much, but he had been wrong about that. That was
Jessica’s first request tonight:

“Daddy, don’t
be mad, but you were wrong. Ted wasn’t generous. He came to hurt us;
that’s
all he wanted. He took everything we had. Well,
almost.”

An owl
called out in the woods, and Jessica smiled—her father answering her.

“Help me to
help Rose—please, Dad? I don’t want her to go to heaven yet. Help me, Dad. I
want to keep her with me. I want her to live.” She pictured her father standing
in heaven with Saint Agatha and Saint Agnes and Joan of Arc.

And the owl
screeched again, and a branch crashed to the ground, and Jessica knew: she had
her inspiration. When the sun came up, she would go into the woods. And she
would come out with secret treasure, to earn money for Rose.

Chapter 13

G
etting Rose stabilized enough to travel to
Boston was the goal, so that was all Lily could think of. Liam had gotten them
two rooms at the Holiday Inn on the harbor, just down the hill from the
hospital. She told him he should go back home, and he said he would as soon as
Rose was out of the ICU. Meanwhile, he had arranged with his friend to keep the
car indefinitely. And he could do his monitoring work on his laptop.

Lily
shrugged. She didn’t know what he was hanging around for. She barely even saw
him, and because he wasn’t a relative, he wasn’t allowed into the unit to see Rose.
She knew she should be appreciative of his support, but honestly—she was so
exhausted and ragged by the time she got to her room each night, she barely had
the energy to order soup from room service and eat it in front of the TV.

The first
four mornings, she found him in the hotel lobby, waiting to drive her up the
hill to Melbourne General. The weather was cool and foggy, with morning mist
hovering over the water and town. They took the five-minute ride in silence,
with Lily staring over the silver-coated harbor, thinking of questions for
Rose’s medical team.

On the
fifth morning, the fog had lifted, and the sun shone brightly. When Lily
entered the hotel lobby, Liam rose to greet her. She held up her hand.

“Look, this
is silly,” she said. “It’s nice out. No more fog. I’m going to walk up to the
hospital, and I think you should go back to Cape Hawk.”

“It is a
nice morning for a walk,” he agreed.

“I’m glad
you see it my way.”

“Good. I’ll
walk you,” he said.

“No! Liam,”
she said. “You have
work
to do, back home. The
commander needs his car back. Rose is improving.”

“She’s
still in the ICU,” he said.

“I think
they might release her to a regular pediatric floor today,” Lily said. “She’s
so much better—the fluid around her heart is almost gone, and her lungs are
nearly back to normal size.”

“The Lasix
is working,” he said.

“Yes,” Lily
said, a little surprised by the fact he knew the name of Rose’s diuretic, or
even that she was taking one. She hardly ever talked details with anyone not a
doctor.

“So, they
might move her to the floor today?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lily
said.

“Good,” he
said. He nodded, smiling. Lily thought she could see the relief in his eyes—his
self-imposed burden, whatever it was, had been lifted, and he could go back to
the sharks and whales of Cape Hawk. They grinned at each other easily, among
the hustle and bustle of the busy hotel lobby. He touched her arm as they
walked out into the sunlight.

“Okay
then,” she said. “Thank you—for everything. Will you thank Anne for sending me that
bag of my clothes? Tell her the laundry delivery guy was a brilliant idea—he
delivered it when he brought the tablecloths to the hotel.”

“Maybe you
should just call her yourself,” Liam said.

Huh?
Lily
thought. Was it really too much trouble for him to give his sister-in-law
Lily’s message? “No problem,” she said. “I just thought you’d probably see her
at the inn.”

“I will,
when I get there. But not today …”

“But you’re
heading home.”

Liam shook
his head. “No,” he said. “Not till Rose is okay.”

“Liam!”

“Don’t even
argue with me, Lily,” he said. “Like it or not, I’m staying. Come on—if you
don’t want a ride, I’ll walk you up to the hospital. Let’s go—I know you want
to catch the doctors on their morning rounds.”

Lily opened
her mouth to speak, but instead she just started walking up the steep hill that
led to Melbourne General. Liam walked silently by her side. Even in the city,
there was no doubt that they were in Nova Scotia. The scent of pine filled the
air, and the sound of ship traffic—bells, horns, engines—wafted up from the
harbor. Seagulls cried overhead. She thought back nine years, to her first days
in Nova Scotia. Liam had been with her then too.

“Why are
you doing this?” she asked.

“You know
why,” he said.

“It doesn’t
make sense. Not after all this time.”

“It does to
me.”

“Look—I
know what you said. I think your words are engraved on my heart. I’ll be
forever grateful. But that was a long time ago.”

“Do you
think time invalidates promises?” Liam asked.

And Lily
had no answer for that. At least, not one she felt like saying out loud. The
truth was, she did think time—and other things—invalidated promises. The world
was full of evidence supporting just that: broken marriages, broken vows,
changes of mind, changes of heart. It was easier to break promises than keep
them, that
was
for sure.

The hill
became so steep, her calves began to ache. They passed people walking down the
hill, to work. The city park crowned this crest, and they entered between two
stone gates. Traffic flowed into Melbourne through the park, coming from points
north. As they walked along, they passed a long row of cars. For years now,
Lily had been free of the habit of scanning—looking at every face and license
plate while trying to keep her own face hidden. She almost wished she’d be seen
sometimes—during certain sleepless nights, she actually longed, ached, for a
final confrontation.

They walked
briskly along a lane that led through the park’s rose gardens. The air smelled
sweetly of flowers and freshly tended earth. Lily thought of her own garden,
which was inspired by the roses of her childhood. Rose loved digging, planting,
pruning—and sometimes, when Rose was sick, unable to do more than lie in a
hospital bed, Lily took comfort in thinking of rosebushes—how they had to stay
dormant all winter, in order to bloom in summer. Rose would bloom again too.

Suddenly
she realized that Liam wasn’t walking beside her anymore. She stopped, turned,
saw him standing still. Her first instinct was to be impatient—she literally
didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses. The doctors were making their
rounds now, and she needed to catch them.

“What are
you doing?” she asked, walking back.

But Liam
didn’t reply. He was just standing there, gazing over the roses and through the
pine trees, to a pond in the woods. Lily tried to follow his gaze. She saw that
the pond was ringed with tall, green marsh grass. The water was dark and
appeared greenish-brown in the shadows of tall pines and oaks. At the other end
of the pond was the World War I monument. In fact, Lily realized that its
reflecting pool must be fed by this wilder, more rustic body of water.

“Liam, what
are you looking at?” she asked.

“There,” he
said, pointing. “You have to look carefully. She’s hiding in the shadows.”

It was a
blue heron, standing on the very edge of the pond. The bird was tall and almost
unimaginably still—it might have been a statue. The morning sun shone through
the trees and grass, silhouetting the long legs, long curved neck, sharp bill.
The heron’s posture was perfect and vigilant—as if waiting for something more
important than anything in the world.

“She’s so
camouflaged,” he said. “She wants to make sure no one sees her till she’s
ready.”

“Why do you
say ‘she’?” Lily asked.

“I don’t
know,” Liam said, looking her straight in the eye.

“It could
be a male.”

“I guess it
could.”

“Liam,
there are plenty of herons back home. What’s so special about this one?”

He gazed
down at her. He had dark blue eyes with lines around them that made him look tired
and worried. Yet the eyes themselves were bright as a young boy’s, especially
in this morning light. Lily blinked and frowned.

“She’s in
the middle of a city park,” he said. “Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

“A city
park in Nova Scotia,” she said, “is not the same as a city park somewhere else.
But you’re a scientist,” she continued, and shrugged. “I guess it’s your job to
catalogue natural phenomena.”

“When you
put it that way,” he said, staring at her even more intently, “I suppose you’re
right.”

“Come on,”
she said impatiently. “Can we hurry up, please?”

“Natural
phenomenon,” he said under his breath.

Lily felt a
breeze swirl up the hill from the harbor. It came across the pond, through the
trees, making the boughs and grasses rustle; it ruffled Lily’s hair, and
although it was warm, it made her shiver. The heron didn’t stir, and neither
did Liam. He was still staring at Lily, and he wouldn’t look away.

“Come on,”
she said again. “I’m late.”

“I know,”
he said.

And
something about the way he said those words, “I know,” made her shiver again.
And she began to run, the rest of the way through the park, to the front steps
of Melbourne General Hospital. She joined the flood of health care
workers—doctors, nurses, aides, therapists—streaming through the double doors.
There weren’t many patients’ parents in this flood—it was much too early for
visiting hours.

The
security guard noticed Lily, without an ID badge, and he signaled her to stop.
She had wasted too much time already, so she just waved at him and jumped into
the next elevator. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of
Liam—stopping to be grilled by the guard.

Oddly, as
the doors closed, Lily felt a pang.

She was
crushed in with twenty other people, and Liam wasn’t one of them. He had walked
her all the way up the steep hill, shown her the heron,
accepted
her slightly insulting comment about his cataloguing of natural phenomena. The
funny thing was
,
she felt that he was the one making
an inside joke. She didn’t get it.

And she
didn’t get why she felt so sorry that she’d gotten on the elevator without him.
He had come all this way with her. He was trying so hard to keep that stupid
promise she’d never wanted him to make in the first place. Maybe this would
give him the hint: he was off the hook. As far as she was concerned, she’d
never wanted him on it.

So why did
she feel so bad about the fact that he was no longer at her side? She shook the
feeling and stepped off on Rose’s floor, the Pediatric ICU.