Luanne Rice (21 page)

“How
awful,” Lily said.

“Everyone
gave up hope except his sweetheart—my great-grandmother,” Liam said. “She just
knew.”

Lily nodded
eagerly—she understood that.
The connection that was there,
even when you couldn’t see the other person.
She had never lost it, for
the woman in the garden that she loved so much. It glimmered, alive in her now.
And she had it for Rose, always.

“She knew
that he was alive?” Lily asked.

“Yes. She
was positive. But every day that went by without word was like torture. She
knew he was there, but she couldn’t get to him. She knew that he needed
her—just as she needed him.”

“Your
father told you, because you needed your mother,” Lily said.

“I did. And
I believed, in that three-year-old-boy way, that she needed me.”

“I’m sure
she did,” Lily said, thinking of Rose at three, of the hospitalization here,
and of how every second without her had been excruciating and almost impossible
to bear. “What happened to your great-grandfather?”

“He had
been badly injured behind enemy lines. He was taken to a field hospital, and it
took months for the word to get out. At first, it was just a rumor. Just a
hint, that maybe he was alive after all. My great-grandmother didn’t care about
the rumors—because she had something better. She knew for sure—in her
heart—that he was coming home. And he did, Lily. He spent time as a prisoner of
war, but eventually he came home to her.”

“She knew.”

“Yes, she
did. All that time.”

“She waited
for him.”

“It’s what
I want to say to you right now, Lily Malone,” Liam said. “People say Rose is a
fighter, and she is. Just like my great-grandfather. But as much as anyone, my
great-grandmother is the hero of the story.”

“She never
gave up on him.”

“No, she
didn’t. Some things are worth fighting for, Lily. And some things are worth
waiting for.”

Lily stared
up at him, the monument silhouetted behind his head, her heart pounding in her
chest. He was talking about his great-grandmother, so in love with her husband,
their connection so mysterious it didn’t need letters or telephone calls or
spoken words. And he was talking about three-year-old Liam Neill, waiting for
his brother to be born—so he could meet him for the first time, and see his
mother again. And he was talking about Rose, just about to have the final, and
most important, surgery of her life, replacing the old VSD patch once and for
all. But he hovered over Lily, his face just inches away, and she knew—he was
talking about something else too.

“You told
me once,” she whispered. “That Rose was a miracle girl. You told me you’d tell
me what that means. Will you tell me now?”

He nodded.
He put his arms around her—both arms, and the left one felt just as tender as
his right. She had the feeling her legs were dissolving; she leaned into him,
hoping her heart wouldn’t fly out of her chest.

“The night
I helped deliver Rose,” he said, “and watched you give birth … she brought me
back to life.”

Lily
couldn’t speak. She thought back, remembered the crashing pain—she had been
traumatized by what had driven her to Cape Hawk, so much so that she was in
hiding like a wild animal in a cave, not even daring to go to the hospital—for
fear that her husband would be looking, or that the news accounts would cause
doctors and nurses to recognize her, to call the police.

Liam had
been the only person she dared trust—and only by necessity.
Because
he was
there
.

“Brought
you back to life?” she asked finally.

He nodded,
brushed the hair from her eyes, and caressed the side of her face.

“The shark
that killed my brother,” he said, “killed my whole family as well.”

“He took
your arm,” Lily said.

“He took my
heart,” Liam said. “And you and Rose gave it back to me.”

“You hardly
knew us—”

“I know,”
Liam said. “I guess that’s what made it a miracle. A stranger I’d never even
met—you.
In a cabin, in the middle of the woods.
Giving birth to this beautiful, tiny little girl.
And trusting me enough to bring her into the world.”

“I did
trust you,” Lily whispered. And she knew that—given what she was running
from—that in itself was a miracle.

“There’s
something else I want to show you tonight,” Liam said.
“If
you wouldn’t mind taking a ride with me.”

“Anywhere,”
she whispered.

The
passenger seat of his truck was cluttered, so when Lily climbed in, she had to
push his laptop aside. He drove through the park, through the stone gates, and
down the hill toward town. Melbourne Harbor twinkled with lights—the business
district and hotels, restaurants and houses. Liam drove past the citadel—the
old battlements that had once guarded the harbor, dating back to when the land
was known to the French as Acadia.

They headed
southwest, along the south shore. Lily felt the tug of home—whenever she was in
a vehicle pointing toward New England, it overcame her. She wedged herself lower
in the seat, feeling the sea breeze through the open windows. She felt a
special tingle tonight, almost as if her grandmother was calling her name.

The sky was
filled with stars. They swung low on the horizon. The rock scree slanted down
to the Atlantic, and the constellations seemed to spring straight out of the
ocean.

They
rounded a bend, came upon the lighthouse at the outer edge of Melbourne Harbor.
Its beam flashed across the sky. Liam turned left, taking an unpaved road out
to the farthest reaches of the lighthouse’s promontory. Now he reached across
for his laptop; he balanced it on his knee, turned it on. Lily saw the screen
light up with green and purple dots of light.

“What are
they?” she asked.

“Sharks and
whales,” he said.

“How can
you see them?” she asked, fascinated.

“I run a
catch-and-release program,” he said.
“To research migratory
and predatory patterns.”

Predatory.
The word had old associations, and made Lily
shiver.

“Which ones
are sharks?” she asked.

“The purple
ones,” he said.

“Where are
they?”

“This
screen represents this coastline right here,” he said. “See the darkest
section? That is the landmass—southern Nova Scotia, from Melbourne to Halifax.”

“I never
really noticed before how Nova Scotia is shaped like a lobster,” Lily said,
staring at the computer screen and the island’s silhouette against the lighter,
slate-colored sea—filled, alarmingly, with purple dots.

She glanced
up at Liam’s face. He looked so content and gentle—how was it possible,
considering that the sea was filled with sharks just like the one that had
killed Connor?

“Why do you
do it?” she asked. “Dedicate your life to studying something so evil?”

“Sharks?”

“Yes.”

“They’re
not evil, Lily. They’re dangerous, though. There’s a difference.”

“What is it?”
she asked, thinking of another predator.

“Sharks
don’t kill to inflict pain or suffering. They kill to eat. It’s just their
instinct—the way they stay alive. I had to learn that about them, so I could
stop hating them.”

Lily
thought of her broken heart, and Rose’s. She knew that a human shark had caused
the hurt and stress that had nearly ripped her apart, driven her from her home,
caused
Rose to be born with four heart defects. “How
can you stop hating something that did such damage?”

“You have
to,” Liam said. “Or it will kill you too.”

Lily stared
at the purple lights on the screen. Then she looked out the truck window. They
were facing south. A few hundred miles away, straight across the water, was
Boston; beyond that was her old home. She wondered how many sharks were
swimming between her and the place she loved so much.

“I know
about hatred,” she said.

“I know you
do,” Liam said. “It’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring you here tonight.”

“How do you
know? Does it show?”

He paused,
staring out at the dark sea. The lighthouse swung its beam across the smooth
water, illuminating it in four-second flashes. Then he turned to her. “It does
show,” he said. “You let some of your friends in—Anne, the Nanouk Girls. But
you’ve kept yourself and Rose hidden from everyone else.”

“You should
talk,” Lily said, smiling.

“I
know—that’s why I recognize it in you. I’ve got this computer program, to help
me learn about the thing I hated most.”

“I’ve done
my best to study him,” Lily said. “But he’s not like a shark—he inflicts hurt
on purpose. I know a little about the dynamic.”

“You can
get lost in it,” Liam said, turning the computer screen to face Lily. “If
you’re not careful, all you see are the purple lights. You forget to look for
the green ones.”

“The green ones?”

“Whales,”
he said. “The most gentle animals in the ocean.”

Lily
studied the screen. “There aren’t many whales on here,” she said. “Look at all
those purple lights—and only three green ones.”

“Whales are
harder to tag,” he said. “We don’t like to crowd them.”

“So you’re
saying there might be lots of undercover whales?” She smiled.

“Yes,” he
said.
“Along with one very visible one.”
He tapped the
screen with his finger.
“This one right here.”
He hit
a few keys, and the whale’s ID showed up in a window. Lily read out loud.

“MM122,”
she said.

“That whale
was in Cape Hawk just a week ago,” he said. “She disappeared for a few days,
but that was only because I had narrowed the program to track her in familiar
waters—the area I always expect to find her in the summer months.”

“The whale
swam down to the southern shore?” Lily asked, feeling a shiver run down her
spine. She knew but didn’t know.

“Specifically,
to Melbourne,” Liam said.
“The waters closest to Melbourne.”

“Is that
surprising? Unusual?”

“Very.”

“Why?”

“She’s a
beluga,” Liam said. “Belugas rarely travel south of Cape Hawk. They are
northern whales.”

“But why
would this one be here?” Lily whispered. Liam lowered the laptop and reached
across the console between them. He held her hand. She felt a new shiver go
down the backs of her legs. Liam held her hand only rarely. His palm and
fingertips were rough, from all the work he did on boats. Lily felt a chill,
and she was afraid he had taken her hand because he was about to tell her something
that was going to scare her.

“To be near
Rose, I think,” he said.

“What do
you mean?”

“It’s
Nanny,” he said.

Lily stared
at the blinking green light marked “MM122.” Then she lifted her eyes to look
out at the endless black sea. The lighthouse beam spread across the water,
highlighting whitecaps of small waves. Liam took a pair of binoculars from his
door pocket. He scanned the surface,
then
stopped.

“It’s too
dark to see,” he said, “but she’s there.”

“She can’t
possibly be here because of Rose,” Lily said.

“Why not?”
Liam asked. “Why isn’t it possible?”

“Because
she’s a whale—she can’t feel emotion. She can’t know how much Rose needs her
and loves her.”

“Why can’t
she?” Liam whispered, touching Lily’s face. His hand was warm, and she leaned into
it.

“Could it
be like a bat, sending out signals, just like in Rose’s report? Or like sound
waves, in her echocardiograms?” Lily asked. “Could Nanny feel how much Rose
loves her? No …”

Liam didn’t
reply—at least not with words. He pulled Lily tenderly close, leaning across
the console, to kiss her. His mouth was hot, and she melted into him. Waves
beat against the rocky shore, wearing it down, smoothing the edges. Lily heard
the waves, and she felt the earthquake. It trembled inside her chest, and she
reached up to caress Liam’s cheek.

Lily heard
her own question, reverberating in her ears. And she knew—yes, Nanny could feel
Rose’s love. Lily had been frozen solid for so long, she had forgotten that
love came in waves—mysterious, long-reaching, never-ending waves. If you waited
long enough, they eventually touched the distant shore. The waves never gave
up.

She reached
up both arms, put them around Liam’s neck, and kissed him with nine years’
worth of passion. He wrapped his good arm around her waist. Outside the truck,
the sea splashed against the granite. One wave flew up, and the fine spray
misted their faces. Lily tasted salt water, blinked it away.