“Sirena…”
“Six, right?”
“You have to rest your leg or it’ll get worse.”
“You won’t let it.”
He looks at me curiously, but he doesn’t say it isn’t true.
Ellie and Mark stand by the car like nervous parents. Mark’s arms are crossed against his chest, his male body language, just like my dad. The resignation, the private expressions and little quirks that can’t hide what’s going on isn’t his idea.
“Stubborn as a goat,” Pilot says to Mark, when he reaches the car, but I see his rare smile.
Mark shakes his head.
Pilot helps me into the back seat, sliding his hand above my head as I’m about to bump it on the top of the door. He closes the door gently and waves at Mark. Mark starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, heading back to the hospital. He’s nervous that his cargo is out of its element, like a fresh fish that will start to stink if it’s not promptly refrigerated.
They’re going to object, but I don’t care.
“Let’s go back to the house. I can rest with mom and dad. It’s just that later I have to see Pilot—when he’s finished with his shift.”
Mark’s shoulders rise and fall and he exhales loudly. In silence, he turns and we head to the house, instead of the hospital. They have to be glad my parents are here now so they can deal with me, even though they haven’t seen me in weeks, and they’re walking on eggshells when it comes to their only daughter who they’re convinced is suicidal.
Only I’m not.
Call it “dis-ease.” Not disease. Fear, loneliness, rejection, and isolation all mix in your blood like a toxic cocktail. You take chances. You tempt fate.
What do you have to lose?
It wasn’t a death wish, just a test. Only I had no idea what I was up against. No idea.
But the stingray?
My parents are asleep when we get to the house. My dad is stretched out on the downstairs couch and my mom is asleep in my bed. So much for reconciliation.
As usual, Aunt Ellie effortlessly jumps in and takes care of us.
“Maybe lasagna?” she says, sliding a tin foil tray out of the freezer that holds enough for twenty. That’s followed by frozen baguettes. Soon she’s cutting up a salad. When my parents get up, a feast is on the table.
It’s not a stretch to pretend this is a holiday. Only the difference now is that despite everyone’s smiley face, we’re all slightly traumatized and feel thrown together by circumstances, not by will.
There’s an awkward silence as we get seated at the table. We’re all dealing with our own private thoughts about how the last seventy-two hours have shaken our lives. Mark jumps in and tries to come to the rescue by talking loudly to my dad about sports and locker room gossip.
“They were the only team ever in the majors with a 12–0 lead and then they blew it,” he says. He goes on about someone’s rotator cuff injury and how long he’d be out of the game. “That could kill their season,” he says, like that would ruin his life.
Mom, Aunt Ellie, and I stare at each other blankly. Like we care? Mom turns and asks Aunt Ellie about the house.
“It’s haunted,” I say, before Aunt Ellie can open her mouth.
Mom looks at me as though now she’s convinced this isn’t the daughter who flew to Rhode Island four weeks earlier.
“Haunted?”
“It is, really.”
My mom looks at Aunt Ellie, who shrugs and smiles slightly. “Well, yes, but they’re friendly ghosts at heart. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, right Sirena?”
“I’m living proof.” Then I think maybe I’m not such a good example. I’m about to describe the burned out faces, but catch myself. My mom would be out the door, heading to the nearest Motel 6, whether or not they kept the lights on for her.
“Dad knows. Right, Dad?”
He closes his eyes and nods exaggeratedly. He’d never admit it, but I don’t think he’d look forward to a stormy night in the attic either.
“But they only come out when there’s a storm,” I say. “So you’re lucky because the weather’s supposed to be great for the week.”
“Hooray,” my mom says.
Aunt Ellie changes the subject and tells us about her books. When she’s done and we’ve all seen the new cover of her newest one, she serves blueberry sorbet. Then I look at my watch. “I told Pilot I’d go back to the beach when his shift ends.”
“I’ll drive you,” Aunt Ellie says, before anyone can say different. “It’s fine.”
Maybe everyone is too worn out for a fight, or afraid to start one. For once, my mom and dad look like they’re happy to give up their authority. Staying home and doing the dishes looks good to Mark. He wants to avoid another scene.
When we’re in the front seat of the car together, I turn to Aunt Ellie. “Thanks.”
“Um hmm,” she singsongs lightly.
Points for not asking me why or telling me what I’m doing is stupid. She knows I have to.
She parks in the same spot that Mark did and gets the crutches out of the trunk. No wheelchair now. She knows I can go the extra couple of yards without it. She hands me the crutches and stands there, hands on hips.
“When do you want me to come back for you?”
“Pilot will take me home.”
“You sure?”
I nod and she gets back in the car.
She sits behind the wheel for a moment and slowly pulls out of the parking lot. I know she’s watching me in the rearview mirror. I start the trip across the sand, this time more experienced on the crutches, even though they are rubbing raw the blisters on my underarms. The sun is lower in the sky and I’m tempted to stop and sit in the sand. But I pause and then keep going, the marathon runner who gets a last burst of energy when the finish line is in view.
When I’m almost there I stop and watch as Pilot slides his tank top over his head. He grabs a white T-shirt and is about to pull it on when he turns and sees me. He stands there, frozen, his eyes widening.
I feel like I’m watching him strip and I can’t breathe.
He catches himself and pulls his shirt on quickly, throwing a towel around his neck. He lifts his backpack and walks toward me as I wait.
“I’ll take you back,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“We have to talk.”
He exhales and shakes his head. “Okay…I have the Jeep.”
He hoists me over his shoulder like he’s bringing home the catch of the day, and he heads for the parking lot. I can’t imagine what we look like, me holding the crutches out as if I’m bearing a divining rod.
I climb into the car and put on the seat belt. It closes with a loud click. He turns on the car and glances out his rearview mirror as he backs up and pulls out of the lot. I have no idea where we’re going. It doesn’t matter.
“There’s water in the cooler,” he says, pointing to an insulated bag at my feet.
I shake my head.
A few miles down the road, he pulls off the main road and heads down a narrow, unpaved path surrounded by tall beach grass.
“You’ll like this beach,” he says. “Very few people know about it.”
He goes to the back and takes out a blanket, then comes around to my side of the car and helps me out. “I can walk on my own, really.”
“It’s better if you don’t. Not yet. ” He carries me out to a beach with no one on it. The water is calm and the tide is low. I’m sorry that we can’t walk for miles together.
The beach is a sandy paradise that’s completely private and empty for us to share. It feels like he’s given me a gift. My own beach.
And then the anxious me rears her head. Does he bring other girls here? Is this where they hang out? I try to push those thoughts out of my head.
Pilot puts me down gently and shakes out the blanket. I sit down and he drops down next to me, propping himself up on his elbows. He stares at my leg where the gash was and then out at the water.
�
�What do you want to know?” he asks directly. He does not want to have this conversation.
“I want to know what you did. How you did it. They were going to amputate my leg and then miraculously, it got better.”
“It did,” he says, eyes wide.
I smirk and he smiles.
“You have to tell me. I have to know.”
“I learned things from my family, from my father and my grandfather,” he says, smoothing the sand between us.
“Your grandfather?”
“Tonio.”
“Who?”
“You know him,” he insists. “The painter.”
“Antonio…He’s your grandfather?”
“You honestly didn’t know?”
“He never told me anything.” I think of all the things I said to him about Pilot. Things I never would have admitted if I had known they were related. He knew I liked Pilot—enough to steal his painting of him—but he never mentioned that Pilot was his grandson to spare me the embarrassment. So now it’s clear why he was able to paint him more than once and how he knew his face so well that the picture almost spoke. They were flesh and blood.
Pilot shakes his head. “He never talks about himself,” he says, as though he knows what I’m thinking. “He never tells people what anyone tells him. He’s protective.”
“I love him.” I’m surprised by what I blurted out and more than that, that I’m telling his grandson.
“Everyone loves him.” He grins. “Especially women. No matter how old or young.”
“So what did he teach you?”
He narrows his eyes and looks at me curiously.
I feel my cheeks burn. “I mean about healing.”
He stares out at the water again. “It’s not so much what he taught me. It’s what he helped me discover… about myself…my family…” He hesitates. “Some people just have natural gifts, and our family…we have a kind of vision when it comes to seeing who needs help and drawing on powers inside us. It’s not something I can put into words. I don’t even understand it myself. I just know that sometimes…not always…I can help people heal.”
“Cody, too?”
“Cody, too.”
“I didn’t realize it at first, but after Cody got better when no one thought he would, and then the man on the beach started breathing again, I knew it was something you did.”
He stares ahead of him, lost in his thoughts.
“How did you know you could help me?”
He shakes his head and keeps staring. “I don’t always know and it’s so frustrating. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Or sometimes it doesn’t work as well as it should…I…I just don’t know all the time.”
“Yes, you do.”
He turns and looks at me challengingly. “How do you know that?”
“I can’t heal, but I can read your face.” I run my hand from the top of his forehead down over the side of his face like a blind person trying to understand what someone looks like. “And I know that you don’t give up.” A tiny muscle at the side of his jaw starts to quiver like a fine barometer, responding to the slightest change in the atmosphere.
“I want to know you. I want to know how you do it. You saved my life.” My face is so close I’m nearly kissing him.
“It’s something inside…I go outside myself to get help from the spirits.” He watches me to see how I react to his words. “You can’t put everything into words and make it knowable, Sirena…It’s a connection.”
“Antonio says when people get sick it’s because they lose their spirit.”
“That’s what he taught me,” he says. “Part of the soul escapes—the way people shut down to get away from pain or loss. Only sometimes part of the soul doesn’t come back. A healer works to make the person whole again.”
“And with me?”
“Your soul left your body,” he says. “You were almost dead.”
He turns to me and our lips accidentally touch. Instead of pulling back, I lean toward him, pressing my mouth against his. He kisses me back this time, his mouth deliciously sweet and salty. We seem molded to fit together. I fall back on the blanket and he comes with me, as eager for me as I am for him. Seconds go by and then something snaps. He sits up, abruptly.
“It’s harder to protect you if I’m close to you, Sirena.” His voice is hoarse and imploring. “That blinds me. I can’t let that happen again.”
“You have no choice.”
He drops down next to me, his arm resting over his forehead. I move toward him, leaning my head on his chest. His heartbeat is strong and rhythmic. I reach up and trace my finger along the side of his jaw. “I never met someone who performs miracles.”
“I just try to help people heal when things go wrong. It’s different. It has to do with infusing a spirit…”
“You said you hear my heartbeat—at least I think you did.”
“I can.”
“That scares me.”
“You wanted to know.”
“I’ve never heard anything like that before. Is it just me?”
“It’s with some people—people who I set my mind on knowing. I know it sounds strange. Abnormal. But it’s something I can pick up. When I heard you panicking, I swam out to get you.” He shakes his head. “But it was too late.”
I lean up on one hand and look at him, but he’s lost in his own thoughts, his face impassive, resolute.
“Why do you think you failed? I’m here, I’m still alive.”
“But you were in such pain, do you remember? “You lost so much blood. I swam out there too late. I didn’t see the stingray.” He bites at the corner of his lip. “It shouldn’t have even been there. Then after I pulled you out, you were almost dead.” He shakes his head. “Then the infection, what was going to happen to you. I couldn’t stand it. If I hadn’t pulled the power…”
“The power?”
“The power. The blackout.”
I sit up and stare at him. “I thought it was storm. The whole town lost power, they said.”
“The hospital has a generator. The hospital never blacks out. There was no other way for me to get you out of there. They were about to cut off your leg. I had no choice, so I turned it off.”
I stare at him and shake my head. “But what if someone had died? What if there was an operation going on?”
“There wasn’t. It’s a small hospital,” he says, reading my confusion. “What?”
“I sensed something…only I didn’t know quite what it was.”
“What what was?”
“I had this feeling of calm, of peace, even though my leg was killing me and I was burning up.”
“It was my nearness. That was part of it. I had to help you calm down or I couldn’t have focused. If you were in a panic, I wouldn’t have been able to connect with you…to heal you”
“But you did. That’s what matters.”
He turns away, staring out at the water, absentmindedly running his hand back and forth along the sand between us. I study his fingers, the shape of his hands.
Did I just see what I think I did? I lean closer. How is that possible? Tiny granules of sand rise up to his fingers as if he’s a lightning rod that draws the power of the earth to him.
He turns from the water and sees me watching. Quickly, he pulls his hand back.
“Did you just…?”
“Sshh,” he says.
He gets up and crouches over me. “Lie back,” he says. “Close your eyes.” He presses his hands on either side of my head. Immediately a flow of warmth spreads over me.
“This is how I do it,” he murmurs. “This is how I heal.”
I think he’s poured his heart into mine.
thirty-two
We have to get back,” he whispers. He brushes a strand of hair away from my face.
“What time is it?”
“Almost nine.”
It’s dark out. When did that happen? I rub my eyes, inhaling the scent of him on my skin. “I don’t want to go.”
/>
“They’ll be worried,” he says, getting to his feet. The look on his face says it’s settled in his mind. It’s useless to argue. He reaches his hands out and pulls me to my feet.
“Let me try to walk.” I start to hobble on one foot.
“The wound was deep. It’s not healed up inside.” He lifts me and carries me back to the car. I press my head against his shoulder to hide my smile.
His car is the only one in the lot. We climb in and drive off, leaving our secret hideaway. We ride back in silence, connected now. There’s no reason to speak.
I can only imagine what Ellie and Mark and my parents are thinking. Knowing my dad, he’s combing the beach now for my body. I’d never tell Pilot what he’s like. If I did, he’d never take me anywhere again. When he pulls up to the house, my dad is standing guard on the porch, but he’s on his best behavior, I can tell. My mom probably shouted out a warning before she let him go out.
“Missed dinner,” he says, flatly. He looks at us coolly.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll eat the leftovers, okay?”
His face is visibly relieved, though. I’m back and alive.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Pilot says. “I hope we didn’t worry you. It was a beautiful night so we were on the beach.”
He leaves it at that. Points for honesty.
My dad nods. He’s not about to lecture the lifeguard who saved the life of his only child.
As I walk into the house, I sense something is different. I feel renewed in some way. But how?
It only occurs to me after Pilot waves from the car and pulls out. And then it’s so clear. He didn’t help me out of the car this last time. He didn’t even walk around to help me. At the absolutely same moment I think of that, my dad stares at me as if he’s seen a ghost.
I’m walking perfectly on my own.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispers, under his breath.
thirty-three
Aunt Ellie drives my parents to the airport. They’re caught in the middle ground. They don’t want to stay or leave, and the hardest decision is what to do with me. Drag me back with them, going against my wishes? Or let me stay with the risk of something else happening that they could have prevented?
Lifeguard Page 14
