Luanne Rice (9 page)

“I never
thought of it that way,” Marisa said.

“Is that
one of the things that makes you lonely for him?” Lily asked. “Remembering how
you used to hold him and comfort him? Are you wondering how he’s surviving
without you?”

Marisa
nodded, and the smile was gone. “I’m a nurse,” she said. “He told me I was
healing him.”

“While he was destroying you?”

“He never
actually hit me.”

“No,
neither did mine,” Lily said. “There are worse ways to destroy a person. I’m
glad you got away. It had to be bad, for you to have come so far away.
Away from your friend.
I think what you’re actually missing
is not him.”

“But
there’s such a hole in my life,” Marisa whispered, her voice so hoarse, it
sounded like bark being torn from a tree.

“You miss
love,” Lily said. “You miss the dream. You miss the dream of love you thought
you had with him. That’s why I started the Nanouk Girls of the Frozen North.”

“The Frozen North.
Canada,” Marisa said.

“Oh,” Lily
said. “Did you think the name refers to geography? It doesn’t.
It’s
here—” She touched her own heart. “The Frozen North is
where we lived, loving them, for so long. You’re free now, Marisa. Welcome to
the thaw.”

On deck,
Rose believed she had never felt so happy. Her birthday party was a crazy
wonderful success—all her friends were having the time of their lives. Captain
Neill had showed them fin whales, humpbacks, minkes, one blue whale, and of
course, Nanny. He had told them how Nanny and other belugas are born light
brown, but molt every year, until turning white at age six.

He brought
all the girls into the wheelhouse and let them take turns holding the wheel,
reading the compass, watching the radar, and tuning in to Dr. Neill’s reports
on where Nanny and the other whales were.

“Would you
like to talk on the radio, birthday girl?” Captain Neill asked.

“Me?”
Jessica asked.

Rose
laughed at her friend’s joke, watching Jessica blush.

“I’m just
kidding,” Jessica said.

“You’re a
regular comedian,” the captain said. “My wife runs the inn, and we could use
you on Friday nights. We’re always looking for a good act. What’s your name?”

“Jessica
Taylor.”

“Ah. ‘
Jessica Taylor, the Birthday Girl,’ ” he
said. “Not!”

All the
girls laughed, as if he was the comedian. He was tall and ruddy, with dark
brown hair like his cousin, Dr. Neill. He had lots of lines in his sun-and
wind-weathered face, and a wide grin, as if he enjoyed joking and making people
laugh. He drove the boat over the waves here at the mouth of the bay, with a
sort of gentleness that Rose appreciated. Her chest hurt today. She felt
breakable—as if the impact of going over the open water could crack her open,
so everything inside would spill out. But somehow the salty air felt so fresh
and cool going into her lungs, it soothed her into forgetting.

“What is
your birthday, Jessica?” Allie asked. “Your real one, I mean.”

“Today,”
Jessica said, laughing.
“And tomorrow.
Oh—and the next day too!”

“Come on,
real birthday girl,” the captain said over the giggling, tapping Rose on the
shoulder. “Get on the radio and ask my cousin where the whales have gone.”

“I don’t
know how,” Rose said.

“You go
like this—” the captain said, showing her how to lift the mouthpiece and push
the button on the side. “Push to talk, and then say ‘over,’ and listen. All
twelve-year-olds should know how to talk on the radio.”

“But I’m
only nine!” she said.

“You’re
kidding.”

She shook
her head.

He rolled
his eyes and shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe it. “Well, you had me
fooled. I could have sworn you were twelve. You’re such a big kid.”

Rose liked
the way he made a half-circle with one arm, for her to stand in. She also felt
proud, listening to what he’d said about her age. She was so much smaller than
her friends—with her heart condition, she had never really grown right. Some
boys at school called her “midget” when she walked by. Captain Neill had just
made her feel both normal and special at the same time. And now she was getting
to use the radio.

“Dr.
Neill,” she said, pushing the button.
“Over.”

“Rose, is
that you?
Over.”

“It’s me.
Thank you,” she said.

Now,
looking out the wheelhouse window as she held the mike, she saw him in the
orange Zodiac, making wide circles.

“You saw
Nanny on your birthday,” he said.
“How about that?
She
knew, and came back just in time.”

“Do you
think she really knew?
Over.”

“I do. I
think she sensed that we wanted her here. Whales are very intelligent, Rose.
Especially Nanny.
She’s been around a long time, and I think
she knows the people who watch out for her.”

The people who watch out for her …
Rose heard
him say those words, and she saw him in the Zodiac, and then turned to look at
her mother in the main cabin, just through the wheelhouse door. The people who
watch out for her …

“I want
Nanny to watch out,” Rose said in the lowest voice imaginable, without pushing
the button, “for my mother.”

“What’s
that you say, sweetheart?” the captain asked. “You’ve got to speak up—and don’t
forget to press that little button there. That’s it. Talk into the mike—there
you go.”

“Thank you
again, Dr. Neill,” Rose said.

“Ask him
where the whales are now,” Captain Neill reminded her. “He’s the expert.”

“Where are
the whales now?” Rose asked.

“Just east,
a few hundred yards,” Dr. Neill said. He was holding the mike in his good hand,
so he pointed with his prosthesis. Rose followed with her eyes. She saw spouts,
the vapor iridescent in the sunlight.

Behind her,
Britney and Allie giggled and whispered; Rose felt a pang when she heard
someone squeal, “Captain Hook!”

It felt
like a punch in the chest.

She turned
around,
saw Britney imitating a person with a hook for a
hand. Her hand bent sharply at the wrist, fingers extended and held tightly
together, stiff as a paddle. Their eyes met, but instead of stopping, Britney
waved with her claw-hand. That made Allie shriek with laughter. Rose felt
Captain Neill’s eyes on her and her friends, and her shoulders pulled together
in front, with shame. She handed him the microphone, sure he wouldn’t want her
to use it anymore—not with friends who made fun of his cousin.

But the
captain just patted her head, told her she was doing a great job. He was saying
something about asking Liam where Nanny was, but just then Rose felt the leak
get bigger. It was like a bicycle tire that has a tiny pinprick … the air just
hisses out a little at a time, till the little hole becomes a tear, and then it
starts to rush.

Rose
swayed—bumping against the hard steel wheel, and then against the captain’s
arms. She heard Dr. Neill’s engine idling—such a comforting sound, to know he
was right there. She had to turn around, had to see Britney. Jessica stood
between them.

“What’s
wrong, Rose?” Jessica asked.

Rose opened
her mouth. She knew she didn’t have much time.

“Rose—it’s
like what happened on the way home from school, right?” Jessica asked, but she
didn’t even wait for Rose to answer. Rose knew she was running for her mother.

“Britney,”
Rose said, staring into her friend’s brown eyes. “Don’t call him that … please?
He’s my friend. He wanted me to see Nanny for my birthday.”

“I know,
I’m sorry,” Britney said, looking stricken—was it because of what Rose had
said, or the fact that she was turning blue? Rose had seen that look in the
eyes of so many of her friends when she started having a spell.

The
dizziness flooded up, surrounding her like waves, pulling her under the sea.
Her thoughts were crazy. She remembered her two wishes: one of them had come
true. Nanny was back, and Rose had seen her. But her other wish—even greater,
more urgent—came upon her now. She wanted it with such passion, she thought she
would die of it, and she knew she might. Rose had never been intimidated by
that thought—her heart was working so hard to keep her alive, but Rose knew it
might not forever.

“I want my
father to be,” Rose mumbled, her legs giving out. “I want him to be, I want him
to be …”

“What,
sweetheart?” Captain Neill asked, grabbing her hard, lifting her up in his
arms.

“I want my
father to be a good man,” Rose said. “A good daddy who loves me …”

And then
she went away.

Chapter 8

T
he first Liam noticed that there was some kind
of problem was when he saw that the
Tecumseh
II
had stopped and was drifting.

He had been
heading east, following the undersea ridge—he could see it on the sonar, the
geological phenomenon that created upwelling, attracting the whales with a rich
food source. He had several screens going at once—sonar, radar, and tracking.
There was MM122, dead ahead—right at the blue surface, glistening bright white
in the sun. That’s when Liam turned, to make sure Jude was steering in the
right direction.

But Jude
wasn’t steering at all. The
Tecumseh II
was definitely not under command.
Drifting slowly, sideways,
miles from any land, but alarming nonetheless.
Liam clicked on the
radio. He made a quick call.

“Calling
Tecumseh II
—Jude, you
there?”

The speaker
was silent. One hundred yards away, the seventy-four-foot whale boat rode the
current. Broadside to Liam, it reflected sunlight back at him. Squinting, he
lifted the binoculars to his eyes and saw everyone on deck rushing to the
wheelhouse. Without waiting for a reply, he pushed the throttle down and sped
across the water.

Liam’s
heart was pounding faster the closer he got. He knew it was something bad,
something terrible. From his own history, he knew that the worst cries for help
were the silent ones.
Rose’s birthday,
he thought. It was so sunny for her special day, her whale-watch cruise, and
Nanny had come back. Weren’t those signs? Didn’t they count?

Then he thought
of Connor. The warm water, the best swimming they’d had all summer … the
amazing number of whales, all swimming so close to the harbor … the fact that
Liam and Jude had counted twenty-five shooting stars the night before. How
could something go wrong on the day after two boys had seen twenty-five
shooting stars?
Or on a little girl’s ninth birthday?

Now he was
close, circling the bigger boat in his Zodiac, calling on the radio again.
“Pick up, Jude, someone, tell me what’s going on. Tell me, someone.
Who’s
with Lily and Rose? Is someone with them?” He wasn’t
getting an answer, and he wasn’t waiting. He backtracked in a half-circle to
the stern, and he looked up and wondered how he was going to climb aboard with
one arm and no ladder.

Lily knew
there was no time to blame herself, but that’s the first thing she did:
You shouldn’t have waited so long for the
surgery, you should have overridden the surgeon’s recommendations, you knew she
was having more blue spells, you knew a whale-watch boat trip was risky
… .

Everything
seemed to happen so fast.

Jude yelled
her name, and she knew. She had been drinking pink punch with Marisa—festive
bubbly punch, ginger ale mixed with raspberry juice, Rose’s favorite birthday
drink, dark pink like her favorite rambling roses—when she heard her name.

The look on
Anne’s face:
oh my God.

Jude’s
voice—it was the panic in his voice that got them both. Lily dropped the punch.
The glass tumbled from her hand, as if her bones had just turned to jelly,
couldn’t hold on for anything. But her legs worked. Her front covered with
Rose’s birthday punch, she ran through the main salon. The Nanouk Girls lined
her way—she had the fleeting impression of mouths open.
Spectators
on the marathon route, cheering their friend to the finish line.
Only
this wasn’t cheering.

Rose was in
Jude’s arms, against his chest. He was trying to lay her on the chart table,
but she was so blue and delicate, he hesitated, as if he was afraid that the
hard Plexiglas surface would bruise her or hurt her, as if he just didn’t know
what to do, where to go with her.

“Is she
breathing?” Anne asked, because Lily couldn’t. Lily was already with Rose,
nearly crawling into Jude’s arms herself, climbing aboard with her daughter,
ear to her small mouth, the blue lips, darker than the rest of her skin. Lily
prayed to feel the tiniest breath—just the small moist warmth of one
breath
. Her very skin was attuned to Rose’s life—the hairs
on her cheek were alive, alert for the exhalation.

“She’s
not,” Lily heard herself say, her voice high and raw.

“What do we
do?” Jude said.

“You’re the
captain, you know first aid,” Anne said. “Calm down, Jude.”

First aid?
Lily
thought. She nearly fell apart at the words.
After all her
baby had been through.
First aid had been given before the end of her
first week of life.
And so many times since.
Rose had
fought and fought …

“She has a
pulse,” Jude said, frowning as he felt Rose’s wrist.

“Okay,
that’s what we need to hear,” Anne said.

In the
background, from the main salon, Lily heard a ruckus. The girls were screaming,
and one of them cried, “It’s a pirate!”

The girls
felt Rose’s trauma, Lily knew—it was radiating through the party, and they all
picked up on it, and suddenly everyone was sobbing. Lily clung to her daughter,
grabbing her out of Jude’s arms. If he didn’t know first aid, well, Lily did,
and she’d do it herself. She was already breathing into Rose’s mouth, trying to
remember how to count, one, two, one, no … Tasting the salt of her own tears,
the sweetness of punch from Rose’s lips, hearing the girls cry, and scream the
name Captain Hook.

Oh, and
that name made Lily start to cry herself. The first tears had been nothing, but
now they turned into sobs. Liam was here, of course he was. She felt his good
hand on her shoulder. Jude was explaining, talking fast and sharply, describing
how Rose was steering the boat and then suddenly how she just collapsed. And
Anne was shushing him, saying the details didn’t matter but acting fast did.

Liam said,
“Drive, Jude.”

“But where?”

“Get us to
Port Blaise.”

“No!” Lily
said. “That’s too far! She won’t make it. Take us to the dock, call the
ambulance, we’ll go to the medical center—Dr. Mead knows her, that’s the best
thing—”

“Port
Blaise has a heliport, Lily. We can call the rescue helicopter right now.”

“The Coast
Guard,” Anne said. “I’m calling right now.”

Lily felt
the push of the engines, throwing her off-balance as the
Tecumseh II
picked up speed. She was the “fast cat” in the Neill
family fleet, and she was flying now, up on her plane, hydroplaning across the
bay.

“But in the
meantime,” Lily tried to say. These people loved her and Rose, she had no doubt
of that. But they hadn’t spent nine years raising a child with cardiac defects.
They didn’t understand that
now
was
what mattered—not getting to the heliport, flying to the medical center. Rose
was still and cold. Lily wept with panic.

Liam’s arm
was prying them apart.

“No!” Lily
shrieked.

“Come
here,” he said roughly. “Anne,” he said, asking for help.

Now Anne
was in on it—all the Nanouk Girls, pulling Lily away from Rose. Lily stretched
like elastic—her hands wouldn’t let go, her fingertips stuck to Rose’s skin
like the pads of a tree frog, suction cups holding tight with a death grip. She
heard Marlena’s voice, and Cindy’s, Doreen’s
… .

“Come on,
love,” Marlena said. “She’s in the best hands now—”

“She is,
sweetheart,” Anne said. “Let it happen.”

And that
made Lily look up and see—that Rose
was
in the best hands
… .

Marisa had
stepped forward. The pain in her eyes was gone. Her posture and attitude as a
wounded bird, abused woman, had disappeared. She stood tall and confident, one
hand resting gently on Rose’s chest, the other sliding down her frail left arm,
fingers finding the pulse. She nodded.

Beside
Marisa, Liam fumbled with the first-aid bag, the emergency oxygen tank, using
his one good hand to slide the green strap around Rose’s head, the clear
plastic mask over her mouth.

Held up by
the Nanouk Girls, Lily almost felt the oxygen flowing directly into her own mouth
and nose, into her bloodstream. Her lungs filled—the air was so clear and
clean, and it was bringing life back to all the dead parts. Lily felt Marlena
rubbing her back, Cindy holding her left hand, Anne clasping her right hand.
The other girls were there, fanned out like a team, like Lily and Rose’s team.
Mothers and daughters; while Marisa treated Rose, Jessica stood glued to Lily’s
right leg. All the Nanouk Girls were here, silently watching. They were
witnesses to this birthday, and this lifesaving. Lily shuddered with the terror
that comes with a certain kind of joy, too primal to name.

“She’s been
through so much already,” Lily cried.

“And she’ll
just keep going,” Anne said, almost sternly.

“What if …”

No one even
replied to the question Lily couldn’t bring herself to ask. Instead they all
just stood together as the boat went faster and faster.
All
these mothers and daughters, best friends in this cold climate, pulling
together for Lily and Rose.

“May the
sea cradle you, the angels protect you,” Jessica whispered.

“What’s
that?” Allie asked.

“My
father’s Irish prayer,” Jessica replied.

Marisa
ministered to the patient, gently and with strength. Like a seasoned pediatric
cardiac nurse, she turned her onto her side, helping her into the knees-to-chest
position. Bending over, whispering in Rose’s ear, counting the beats of her
heart as she took her pulse, eyes on her watch.

Now she put
her ear to Rose’s chest, and when she stood up, she was frowning. She palpated
Rose’s side, spending time. Liam held the oxygen mask, adjusting the flow. Jude
was talking on the SSB to the Coast Guard, but when he hit the big questions he
couldn’t answer, he handed the mike to Marisa, who said, “The patient is nine
years old, female … Tetralogy of Fallot … scheduled for reparative surgery, but
… yes … pulmonary stenosis … enlarged liver.
Kidneys.
The surgery was scheduled for Boston, but I don’t think …”

Lily heard
Marisa’s words, but suddenly they were lost to her, a blur. Because Liam had
turned—halfway around, to meet Lily’s eyes with a great big smile, nodding,
there at Rose, who had opened her eyes, her bright-green, alive, birthday-girl
eyes.
And Rose was looking around, and because Liam knew
there was only one person Rose wanted to see, he stepped aside—still holding
the mask—so Rose could look straight at her mother.