B0079G5GMK EBOK (17 page)

“Marie,” Tiamhaidh sighed rapturously and I was sure he had lost his mind.

I went c
loser and gently took his hand i
n mine. His eyes were so brilliantly blue and they
were glittering
with hope.

“Tiamhaid, mo caraid, you have to let her go,” I whispered and pressed his hand softly against my cheek.

“But Marie...
” Tiamhaidh continued and smiled his familiar slanting smile.

“Leig rach,” I said and sadness filled me.

Tiamhaidh looked at me weirdly and the smil
e died on his face. He backed away
and shook his hand away from mine.

“Sofia, pull yourself together! I heard her sigh. Look what she's doing,” Tiamhaidh snapped frustrated at our lack of understanding.

I moved my gaze to Marie and saw how tightly she had circled her fingers around Tiamhaidh's leather straps. I glanced at David and he too stared at Marie's hand. I rushed to push the alarm button next to Marie's bed and in a few minutes Doctor Milton came into the room with two nurses. After our mingled explanations, they searched Marie properly, which was not easy to do as her grip didn't loosen from Tiam for a second. The nurses tried to release Marie's grip, but in spite of the fact that she had been lying unconsciously for more than two weeks, she was unbelievably strong and they decided to let her maintain her grip. As Tiamhaidh
was observing
them darkly, they were too scared anyway to force her to loosen her grip. Milton wrote something on her notebook and left the room. We stared at each other, unsure of what was going to happen.

After a while Milton came back with two other doctors. One of them was the same anesthesia doctor that had helped Marie years ago. He was as good as he was nine years ago and I was happy to have him on our team. He put the medicine tube in Marie's arm and I watched as he strained some bright-colored liquid. He glanced at me and nodded, then continued his work, looking as hard as a rock. I held my breath. David held my fingers tightly and pressed my hand with his white knuckles. Milton lifted her eyes from her papers and smiled.

“Don't worry, it's only a nourishing liquid, so she can recover better,” Milton said and continued writing in her notebook.

The anesthesia doctor did
his work and the liquid
started to drop
from the small bag next to Marie's bed at a reasonable speed. He mumbled something that sound
ed
like gibberish and looked at me quickly. He nodded again and slipped away from the room. Milton talked to the other doctor silently and we could only wait to hear some information about Marie's recovery. Finally the other doctor left too, and we all looked hopefully at Joan Milton. She smiled carefully at us.

“I think you have the best Christmas present ever.”

“What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked carefully and tried not to smile. I couldn't help it though. A smile kept crawling on
to
my face and lit up my eyes.

“Well, it's obvious that Marie is recovering,” Milton said politically.

“And?” Tiamhaidh asked impatiently.

“And that's all. I can't promise you more, I
'm sorry,” Milton smiled softly
. However, I saw the light in her eyes and ventured to ask her
for
some more details.

“So could Marie come home for Christmas?”

“It's too early to promise anything like that, but if she recovers well, I can't see any reason why not.”

“A week,” I sighed and wiped a few happy tears from my eyes. “Tiamhaidh, think of that! After a week, we might take her home.”

Tiamhaidh smiled artificially and tried to push the feeling of relief away. It was too soon to rejoice for Marie and he wanted to hide his true feelings for a while. When he saw with his own eyes that she was recovering, he would breathe again and he would have plenty of time to be happy then. David crushed me into his arms and danced around the room. Milton was already smiling openly.

“Tiamhaidh, your job is to stay close to her,” Milton said.

“That's what I've been doing for the past few weeks,” he grunted.

“No, I mean really stay close to her. I want her to feel your body temperature all the time,” Milton said strictly.

Tiamhaidh was surprised and looked at me in distress.

I laughed and nodded at him
supportively. Even David urged him with his eyes to climb into bed with Marie.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Scrabble back to bed!” I ordered with my eyes twinkling.

Tiamhaidh did as I said and Milton left us alone, laughing. She shouted from the door that she would check on Marie every two hours.

Marie seemed to recover faster than anyone
could've thought. First, she
opened her eyes and cried when she noticed that she couldn't speak yet. Luckily it took only a couple of days before her throat was healed from the respirator, and then she could speak a little, but in a quiet voice. Her mind was still mixed with medicine and she hung onto
Tiamhaidh like a bug
. Tiamhaidh spoke to her as
if speaking
to a small child and I could feel how thrilled he was. David agreed to come home with me and we started to prepare it for Christmas. Matt and Ciall had don
e their best to fill our cupboards
with Christmas food but with my brothers around, you needed to hide every edible thing. Well, it was a mission impossible. I was excited. I was sure this was going to be the best Christmas ever and I didn't care in the slightest about the mess at our home. I just enjoyed the cleaning and baking. I knew I had a lot to do before everything was ready for Marie, but I didn't mind doing it. It was good to be home and I could hardly wait to see Marie here again.

On Christmas morning, the thermometer outside of the bedroom window showed that the temperature had lowered to minus twenty degrees. Our yard was covered with at least ten centimeters of snow, and the sun
was shining
from the bright-blue winter sky. The four meter tall Christmas tree had invaded our living room and under it was a huge mass of presents. Bruun and Flow lay next to the presents, keeping an eye on them and making sure no
one would have a peek before
evening. I sneaked downstairs, trying not to wake the others up, but stopped on the lowest step and looked around, mesmerized. Clarissa was already awake and she was decorating the Christmas tree, humming to herself. Her blond hair curled from the top and ended down her back in a m
essy cloud. She was wearing a pair of
blue pyjama trousers with monkey figures and a tiny white top, and yet she looked like an angel. She also had blue fluffy slippers on
. W
hen she sensed me, she kicked her slippers off and turned, sighing. Her face was lit up with a happy smile as she came to hug me.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.”

“Merry Christmas, my love,” I sighed and hid my face in her hair.

I breathed and inhaled her scent
, enjoying
her slim body in my arms. I could feel how relaxed she was. Marie was at home, sleeping safely in Tiamhaidh's strong arms, and David and the pack
was
sl
eeping
peacefully. She had only this Christmas to enjoy her freedom and then she had to tell the others who
m
she would choose. I think the others already knew who it would be, but as long as she hadn't said anything, Joshua had some hope. And somehow I was sure that Joshua seriously thought that a miracle would happen and
that
when the time came, Clarissa would choose him instead of Adam.

I lifted my gaze and got chills on my sp
ine. I felt Adam's burning eyes
staring at me from the woods. I had ordered him to stay in his human form and yet here he was. A big black wolf that couldn't get enough of Clarissa. I knew he needed to see Clarissa. It was Christmas and he just wanted to have a glimpse of her. I also knew this was not the first time he had disobeyed me, so I wasn't going to make a fuss. I had noticed a big male-wolf's paw-prints around our house before and when I had checked, I had recognized them as Adam's.

I sighed and felt his mind. He was as humble as he could be, and that was not much, but at least he tried. I shared his loneliness and his envy as he wanted to be with us in our house full of warmth. He truly didn't want anything more than to see Clarissa and now he was ready to leave. The wolf turned, dropped his head, and jogged slowly to the thickets of the woods. I pressed my lips tightly together and shook my head. I was sure they were all going to hate me, but I had to do something. I just couldn't let him go, looking so lonely and abandoned. I hoped I wouldn't have to regret this, but I sent a silent invitation to the wolf and he stopped and turned. His eyes were full of qu
estions and
hope. I shrugged helplessly and the wolf grinned wildly. He was so full of joy that he chased his tail and jumped like a little puppy. I was sure he was going to shift back to his human form right away and run to our home. But the wolf didn't change his form. Instead, he howled with pleasure and disappeared to the snowy woods.

Somehow, Adam had managed to sneak into my heart and as much as I hated seeing him with Clarissa, I
couldn't let him be alone on
Christmas Eve. I didn't trust him, and I was going to keep my eye on him, but Christmas was not a time to be alone. I truly believed that it was a time for giving and peace. A celebration of joy, when no one should be left alone, not even your worst enemy. My problem was how to explain to my pack that we were going to have an extra guest at our dinner table. An unwanted and even hated one. I just wished my softened heart wouldn't make trouble for the others and that in spite of everything we could enjoy a peaceful Christmas. We really needed that now. Especially when Marie was finally home where she belonged.

Clarissa sensed my change of mood and looked at me questioningly. I shook my head and smiled
at her gently
. She shrugged and continued to decorate our Christmas tree. I dragged myself to the kitchen table and started to make a giant portion of Christmas porridge.

Within an hour, our house was full of life. Tiamhaidh had carried Marie to the livin
g room sofa where she was staring
lazily out the window. At times she was still upside
down from the medicines and had
both small and big seizures several times during the day. The doctors had given her a lot of extra medicine, but none of them helped. She had
seizures continuously. Her movement
and speech were slow and she didn't seem to follow or participate in our conversations. Her mind was a total mess and if someone asked her about something, she hid herself in Tiamhaidh's arms. Her eyes were glassy and followed Tiamhaidh whenever he moved or when she wasn't staring fixedly in front of her. Sometimes when I looked deep inside her eyes, I was sure she was begging us to help her. Tiamhaidh was quiet these days and didn't listen to us. He was sure Marie was going to be okay if he just kept holding her near him and carrying her around our house. I wasn't sure that his weird lap therapy was going to help, but I loved him too much to interfere. Marie was like a small child and we were all worried about her, so what harm would it do if she spent all of her days in Tiam's arms?

We all tried to remember that one week ago she had been lying in the hospital almost in a coma. So we tried to make ourselves believe that this was a major progress. And it was, really. She just
wasn’t
show
ing
any signs of a full recovery and I had started to believe she would never be the same girl she used to be. I turned my eyes from Marie and saw Matt, Ciall and Blake putt
ing their outerwear on. It was the
perfect weather for cross-country skiing and even though there wasn't enough snow in the woods, the frozen creek offered a splendid place for skiing. David
was
focused on reading the newspaper and Clarissa
was lounging
on the floor playing cards with Jonas and Joshua. I tried to figure out when
was
the best time to tell them about Adam. I looked at them and cowa
rdly decided to share my news
later.

The twilight came like a thief and I was terrified when I glanced at the watch. It was almost four. I hadn't said a word about Adam yet and in a few hours we
would gather at
the Christmas table. I started to set the table speechlessly. Clarissa and Ciall helped me and as the last plate was set I looked at my relaxed pack and coughed. No one noticed me and I felt like my back was on fire.  Finally, when I had twisted the cor
ners of the tablecloth into several
desperate knots, I decided to take the bull by the horns and looked at Clarissa.

“We're going to need one more plate,” I said and smiled at her.

“I think I can count,” Clarissa answered indignantly and started to count the plates on the table theatrically.

“Twelve!” Clarissa yelled triumphantly.