Luanne Rice (19 page)

She thought
of Scott Peterson, the case that had so recently dominated the news, of how
even Laci’s family had supported him at first. Lily believed that even Laci
didn’t know she was going to be murdered until she looked up and saw her
husband with his hands around her neck. How could Lily make everyone understand
that she would have done anything, anything, to protect herself and Rose from
becoming like Laci and her baby, Conner?

Shaking
those feelings away, she gazed down at her half-finished canvas and thought of
Liam, wondered where he was, why he hadn’t gotten back yet. He was picking up
all the stuff she’d need for Boston—she couldn’t leave without it. She told
herself that’s all it was; she wasn’t missing him, didn’t need his or anyone’s
support. The Nanouk Girls were there for her, and Liam had certainly pitched in
more than his share. But other than that, it was just Lily and Rose, the way it
had always been.

With Rose
fast asleep, Lily put her needlework down and reached over to touch her chest.
Light fingertips, wanting to feel the heartbeat. She remembered when Rose was
just a few days old. The birth had gone so smoothly; Lily had had her at home.
All had been fine. She was overjoyed, relieved that they were safe, but so sad
to know her grandmother couldn’t meet the baby, not yet, and she didn’t know
when she would.

Rose’s first
bath …

Lily had
filled the sink, tested the water with her elbow, just as her grandmother had
told her in the early months of her pregnancy, when everything was a lesson,
when the idea of having a baby was so incredible and new. It was as if her
grandmother were right there with her, telling her she was doing a good job.

Holding
Rose, regarding her with total love, she had touched her tiny chest. What was
that feeling beneath her fingertips? Not just the reassuring thump, thump of
the heart, but more like a trembling, like the purring of a cat. But the timing
felt different; while cats purr along with their breath, this sensation seemed
to follow each heartbeat. Rose gazed up at Lily, immersed in the warm water,
seeming to love her first bath, so Lily tried to dismiss it. But it bothered
her, and she kept checking.

Rose’s
first blue spell didn’t occur till a few days later.

Liam had
come back—as he had every day since Rose’s birth. Lily had felt shy with him,
knowing what he’d seen and heard that night, but she secretly welcomed his
visits.

The days
were long, so it was still light when he arrived after his day’s work on the
research vessel. He was administering shark studies down on the surfing beaches
east of Halifax, but he’d rush back to Cape Hawk to check on Rose and Lily.

The sun was
setting behind the pines, and the cottage was filled with long shadows and
golden light. Lily was too content to turn on a lamp; she rocked Rose,
breastfeeding her in the dim light. When Liam’s truck rattled down the stony
drive, she wrapped Rose in a blanket and waited for his footsteps on the porch.

Liam came
in, bearing groceries. Lily felt uncomfortable—he refused to take money for
them, and she really wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. After she had moved
out of the inn, they had met in town—when he saw her, a pregnant stranger, he’d
realized instantly she was the woman he’d heard crying in the inn room. He told
her that she had left some of her books there, and asked if he could bring them
to her new place. It had been a complete accident that he’d stopped by to drop
them off the night Rose was born—and discovered her in labor.

He never
really left after that. He came by every day. He told Lily she could have the
lease on the store beside his office, for any kind of shop she wanted. And he
brought food and diapers—told her she could start paying him after she got her
feet on the ground.

While Lily
was putting away the groceries, she handed Rose to Liam to hold. It seemed like
the least she could do—he cared about this baby he’d helped bring into the
world. But when she glanced over, saw him holding her against his chest with
his one
arm,
her eyes had filled with tears. That kind
of tenderness should be reserved for a baby’s father—but Rose’s father would
never know her, never see her,
never
even learn of her
existence if Lily had anything to do with it.

“Lily?”
Liam called.

His voice
was calm, but there was something that made Lily
drop
the bag on the floor and walk right over.

“What’s
wrong?” she asked.

Rose’s
expression was anxious; she was breathing at twice her normal rate. The shadows
falling through the window, from the pines, had masked it at first—the room was
violet, slate,
purple
—but when Lily flipped on the
lamp, and the room was light, she saw that Rose was blue.

“What
should I do?” Lily asked, panicked.

“Stay
calm,” Liam said. “She’s breathing … she’s not choking or anything. Let’s call
the pediatrician.”

Lily’s
hands were shaking, so he found the number of the doctor in Port
Blaise—recommended by Anne. Lily had taken Rose in for her checkup, and
everything had been fine. But now, on the phone, Dr. Durance was asking
questions that made Lily worry.

“Is Rose
anxious? Has she been fussing? Does she feed eagerly? Does she sweat during or
after feeding? Skin is bluish?”

“Yes,” Lily
answered to all the questions, denial falling away, everything suddenly
pointing back to that strange feeling under her fingertips. Yes, yes, yes … She
told the doctor about that sensation, and he said, “Sounds like a heart
murmur.”

Were heart
murmurs serious? No, they weren’t—were they? Lily remembered a girl from school
who
had one. She had used it to get excused from
gym—that was all. Didn’t kids outgrow them? She asked Dr. Durance, and he said,
“Usually.”

They called,
and were told to bring Rose in. That was the first time Liam insisted on going
along—and Lily was too worried to decline. He drove, and Lily held Rose in her
lap.

Dr. Durance
did a standard exam, found a heart murmur, and immediately referred Rose for further
tests at the regional medical center. There, they did a Doppler echocardiogram.
Several views were obtained: Rose’s heart was observed beating in her tiny
chest, the thickness of the heart wall was measured, and the valves were
counted.

Lily knew the
test was similar to the many ultrasounds she had had during her pregnancy, home
in New England. She knew the doctor would hold a transducer against Rose’s
chest wall, and Lily hoped he would remember to warm it. She knew that
high-frequency sound waves sent into the chest would return with images of the
heart and other structures.

Now, nine
years later, she kept her hand on Rose’s chest while her daughter slept. She
thought of how intrigued Rose had become with ultrasound—she loved to collect
the pictures the doctors printed out for her, and she had done a school project
on how ultrasound works the same way bats see in the dark—through sound waves
bouncing off objects. At night in Cape Hawk, when Lily and Rose heard bats
screeching through the woods, they felt comforted by the tiny creatures,
instead of scared.

Still
touching Rose, Lily thought of how those first ultrasounds had led to the
diagnosis of Tetralogy of Fallot: four complex heart defects. She learned that
Rose’s bluish skin tone was due to cyanosis—reduced blood flow to the lungs. It
was called Blue Baby Syndrome. But that was just a symptom—the Tetralogy of
Fallot was the cause. It sounded like a monster to her, and was one: a
four-headed creature, brutally dangerous, fatal if ignored. It required
open-heart surgery, so Lily had flown her infant daughter to Boston, one of the
best heart centers in the country. And Liam had paid.

“I can’t
accept,” Lily had said, panicked.

“You will,”
Liam had said. “It’s not for you. It’s for Rose.”

And he had
surprised her, showing up at the hospital just before Rose went under sedation.
“I have to see my girl,” he said.

Lily tried
to hold it together.
My girl
…
That’s
what Rose’s father
should be saying; emotions seething just below the surface began to pour out.
Lily had to run out of the room, sobbing.

“What’s
wrong, what did I say?” Liam asked, coming to find her.

“You’re not
her father,” she sobbed. “What do you care, why are you here?”

“Of course
I care, Lily. I helped deliver her.”

“It never
should have happened,” Lily wept, standing in a corner of the hospital
corridor, people rushing by without paying any attention—it was the pediatric
cardiac care unit, and mothers losing it were a common sight.

“What never
should have?
My being there?”

Lily
sobbed, thinking she might break apart. When she went into labor, the night
Rose was born, Liam had been like an angel sent by God. Lily was all alone, in
the rocky wilds of the northernmost part of Nova Scotia, on the run from a man
who wanted to kill her, the father of her baby. She was lying on the kitchen
floor, wracked by hard labor, screaming out loud because she knew she was safe
enough—for no one to hear her.

And Liam
had walked in, dropped the books he’d been carrying on the floor, come to her,
crouched by her side—a
total stranger, at her greatest hour
of need.

“What does
it mean, that I felt safer having my baby alone than asking anyone for help?”
she said.

“You had no
one to trust,” he said.

“I didn’t
know anyone; I didn’t know whether he might have been looking for me, asking
around
… .
I was afraid someone would tell him.”

“You were
all alone, Lily.”

Lily had
looked up into his eyes—no one but Liam knew how alone she really was. He knew,
because he was too.

She
couldn’t tell him about the dreams she had about him—beautiful dreams of a
one-armed man leaning over her with tears rolling down his cheeks, holding her,
supporting her as she gave birth on her kitchen floor, as he caught Rose as she
came out, nestling her and handing her to Lily with his good hand.

Since
leaving her husband just weeks earlier, Lily had had dreams of monsters.
Frightening, shape-shifting monsters that wanted to eat her alive.
Lily had married a handsome, charming man. He could sell anybody anything. His
smile was perfect—his teeth so white and straight. But in her dreams, he used
those perfect teeth to bite her flesh, drain her blood—just as he’d drained her
bank accounts in real life.

He had
broken Lily’s heart. She thought of all the lies he’d told her. All the ways he
had made her feel their problems were all her fault. She was too demanding,
possessive, questioning, he had told her. Any time she suspected him of
cheating on her, or being somewhere other than where he said he was, he turned
it on her. By the time she found out the truth, her heart was shattered.

In Lily’s
dreams, her handsome husband was grotesque, and the shark-ravaged Liam was
gentle, beautiful. Life painted such pictures of confusion.

That day in
the hospital, Lily had cried in the corner, feeling Liam’s breath warm on the
back of her neck.

“Don’t cry,
Lily,” he whispered. “The doctors here are the best. She’s in good hands
… .”

“I think I
brought her heart condition on,” she whispered.

“How?
That’s not possible.”

“You don’t
know,” she said, pacing. “I was so
anxious,
all the
time I was with him, Rose’s father. I felt such tightness in my chest—I used to
think I was having a heart attack. I was afraid, and I felt turned inside out.
The baby was inside me all that time, being affected.”

“By your emotions?
No.”

“I should
have left him sooner,” Lily cried.

“Lily—I
don’t know what happened, why you left. I wish you would tell me.”

“I can’t,”
she said, upset she’d said as much as she had. Her husband had always been so
careful to do everything in secret. He had never hit her—not once. He’d never
left even one bruise. She had never called the police—because the things he did
weren’t illegal. They were murderous, but not illegal. No one would believe
Lily, that her husband was a killer.

“You can,”
Liam pressed. “I’ll do anything I can to help you
… .
You already got away from him. I’ll help make sure he never hurts you again.”

“You don’t
understand,” Lily said. “The law isn’t on my side. If you’re not a victim of
domestic violence, you don’t understand. He was a predator.”

“I believe
you.”

“And do you
also believe that Rose is here because of what happened to us before she was
born?
Because it’s true.
We both have broken hearts.”

“If you say
so,” Liam said solemnly, touching her face. “I do believe you.”

“Thank
you.”

“Then
listen to me, Lily. Whatever he did to you, I want you to know this. You and
Rose can count on me—forever. No matter what you need, I’ll give it to you.”