Chapter 24
Claire dialed Marti.
“Jeel-Bear told me,” her voice boomed. “I’ve been worried sick. I was about to book a flight to come and get you. How are you feeling?”
Claire held the phone away from her ear. “Oh, Marti, I love you. I’m so sorry you were worried. I’m okay.”
“No, ‘okay’ is not the answer I am looking for. You jumped into an ice-cold river and saved your husband’s son! I’m not only worried about your physical health, but also your mental stability.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. Are you nuts? Weren’t there other people who could have gone in after him?”
“I knew Luca was going in after that dog before he did. He’s a little boy, a good-hearted little boy who loves animals, and he wanted to save that dog.”
“Where was Gilbert? I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t want to be rude.”
“He needed to use the restroom after the boat trip.”
“Boat trip? You hate boats! You hate the water!”
“I wanted to spend time with Luca, and he wanted to take a boat ride.”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeek! I’m tearing my hair out.”
“Take deep breaths. Come on, do it with me. Inhale…”
Marti’s laughter boomed. “You sound like a shrink.”
Claire laughed with her. Her laughter released the pressure and tension in her chest, and it felt so good. “Do your teenager patients give you this much grief?”
“No. And that’s saying a lot.”
“I’m so sorry. But please help me.”
“Gilbert sounds like he’s very concerned about you and very helpful. Is he as handsome as he sounds?”
“More than you think.”
Marti crowed. “Don’t sit facing the sun. Sit with your back to the sun when you’re across from Gilbert.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Sunlight shows your wrinkles.”
Claire laughed. “He saw me looking like a drowned rat. I don’t think it will matter.”
“Just sayin’.”
White freesia and red roses surrounded by pine boughs and silver pinecones, sitting in a white vase next to her bed, caught Claire’s eye. Had Gilbert brought them?
“You asked me to help you. What do you need me to help you with?”
Claire let out a long exhale and tilted her head to her right shoulder, then her left. “Marti, I don’t think I can swim.”
“Are you CRAZY?” Marti’s voice was like a buffeting wind. “You could’ve drowned!”
“Listen, I don’t know why I jumped in after Luca. I just—”
“Claire!” Her voice softened like butter. “You risked your life for him, just like any loving mother would.”
Claire pushed an exhale. “I’ve been wracking my mind trying to remember…what it is I want to remember, I don’t know…but I’ve got to remember because whatever is hiding in this dark place in me is what scared me from becoming a mother.”
“Oh boy, we’re in over our heads here. I know a psychiatrist, but she won’t work with you until she’s met you.”
“I don’t want a psychiatrist.” Claire tapped the speaker icon and placed the phone on her lap. “When I try to remember what happened, it’s like I’m in a dark tunnel and there is no light anywhere. I hear rushing water, and I’m cold, and I smell mud, but I keep walking.”
“Do it now and tell me what you feel.”
Claire rubbed her eyes. An ache weighed heavily in her heart.
“See Luca as you did by the river,” urged Marti.
“As he took a running start, I saw a life ring hanging on the wall, just beyond. After Luca jumped, I grabbed it.” Something squeezed her heart so hard, she gasped. “Oh my God, I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to Luca!” she cried.
“What happened to you, Claire? Can you see yourself?”
“The river…” Brightness glowed. Her vision grew fuzzy, like mist rolling through the room. “I don’t know. Everything’s gone dark again.”
“Luca might have drowned if you hadn’t jumped in after him,” Marti whispered.
Claire squeezed and opened her eyes. Her sweater hung from a hook on the wall. A jagged rip running down the sleeve proved Gilbert was right. The dog must have torn her sleeve as he dragged her to the surface.
“This means that you must have almost drowned. Do you remember anything like that?”
“What? No. My mother never took me to a beach.”
“That you remember.” Marti countered.
“Is that what’s hidden in the darkness?”
“Sometimes not remembering is the body’s method of self-preservation.”
“You mean the dark is protecting me the way David protected me by not telling me about Luca?”
“Possibly.”
“I want to know the truth.”
“Do you feel safe with Gilbert?”
Claire inhaled the scent of freesia and pine. “Yes.”
“Ask if he will help you. You shouldn’t be alone when you do remember.”
“Oh, great.” She fell back into the pillow.
“Do you recall what you said when I asked you why you were afraid of having kids?”
“That I’d be a bad mother.”
“Might that be because you had a bad mother?”
“She wasn’t bad, just cold.”
“Not if she nearly let you drown. She was neglectful. Remember your last Christmas with her, when she neglected to have food in the house? I hope you understand that by risking your own life, you did exactly what every good mother would have done for her own child.”
“I did?”
“You would have made a wonderful mother, Claire. But you need to learn how to swim. Gilbert said he performed CPR on you until the paramedics arrived. You weren’t breathing on your own.”
“He…didn’t tell me.” She rubbed her breastbone. “That’s why my chest hurts.”
“He cares deeply for you. I think the poor man was in tears when he told me, but I don’t know for sure because I was already crying, myself.”
“I care about them too.” She had cared about Luca since her first glimpse of his photo, and she’d cared about Gilbert the morning he’d taken her to the patisserie.
She inhaled calming breaths. But she didn’t know whether she should let them know she cared.
She didn’t know how to…behave. Did she trust them?
Did she love them? Yes. She loved and trusted them.
Both of them. Gilbert a little differently, but, underneath the obvious attraction, she loved him.
She didn’t want to leave them. She couldn’t leave Luca. How did David leave his son?
Her mind whirled. David had been a loving, caring, generous husband, but she wanted more than love and security. She craved…closeness. She had missed that opportunity with David—she’d built a wall between them that distanced them, probably because she hadn’t been close to knowing all of herself.
She wanted to truly know Luca and Gilbert. She knew some of Luca and Gilbert’s losses, their grief, and their happiness. She wanted to share all of it—disappointments, successes, failures, triumphs—everything.
She didn’t want to be protected from the dark ugliness that lurked inside of her, like a mythological Kraken.
She wanted to expose the giant octopus and release herself from its terrible tentacles.
That Kraken was a part of her, but it wasn’t who she was.
She was a loving and kind person, who was also frightened.
“Claire?” Marti’s voice brought her back to the hospital room. “I said, do you see the irony that you spent most of your career designing a swimsuit with a built-in life-preserver?”
“What?” Claire sat straight up. “I think I started that when I was at boarding school. While other girls were stuffing their bras with socks, I was stuffing bikini tops with inflated balloons and blocks of Styrofoam. Why did the irony never occur to me? Why was I so obsessed?”
“You wanted to save people, like you saved Luca…and like someone saved you when you were a child.” Marti hummed a lullaby, a bit of which Claire recognized, something having to do with pretty horses.
Claire rested back against the pillows, entranced by comfort, but she straightened.
How had she known that lullaby? All the pretty little horses.
Had a nun sung it to her? She pressed her fingers to her temples, but the image didn’t arrive.
“I love you, Marti. I need to think through a lot of stuff. Especially why David never told me about Luca, but I’m so tired. Okay if I call you tomorrow?”
“Of course. Call anytime and often, otherwise, I’m booking a flight, and they’re not cheap!”
Love flooded Claire as she said goodbye and put her phone away.
Darkness yawned before her. She searched for a thread that would lead her to a long-buried memory. The muddy scent of the Ill River had caused her to shiver, and the sound of rushing water had made her feel clammy. Whatever she wasn’t remembering happened at a river.
She had to build up her courage to ask Gilbert for his help. She knew whatever she was hiding was going to be painful when she finally dragged it into the light. Fighting the Kraken in her was going to be a terrible battle.
She ate one of Sister Georgette’s cookies. Ate another. And another. She wished she’d bought another box.