Chapter 10
It had been an awful night. Groggy, her mouth tasting vaguely of strawberries and bad coffee, Helena felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her very, very gently awake.
When she opened her eyes, she found the doctor from last night before her.
Bethany Sutton. The one who’d wanted to take her back into the belly of the hospital and stick her with IVs and tell her more bad news and take all her money.
It wasn’t that Bethany was necessarily the enemy, Helena knew. Bethany was part of a larger, sinister system. Just now, Bethany looked bad, maybe even worse than Helena. But doctors had to stay up all night, sometimes. They had to be human lighthouses, guiding the lost through the darkness.
“The patient is awake,” Bethany said. “He’s asking to see you. Are you ready for that?”
Helena got to her feet as quickly as she could, careful not to move too fast and crash to the ground again. She touched her lips, hoping it wasn’t stained with strawberries. She could do nothing but nod. Bethany led her down a white hallway, then another.
“I guess you still can’t tell me how he is?” Helena asked when she found her voice again.
“He can,” Bethany said simply. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.” Bethany gave Helena a knowing look, as though she wanted to apologize for everything—for all the things she couldn’t offer Helena. Did she know that Helena was dying? Was that something Bethany could see clear as day?
When they reached the stranger’s room, Helena stopped short in the doorway.
The man she’d seen on that sailboat, that little blip on the horizon, now sat up in bed, waiting for her.
Apparently, he’d asked to see her when he’d learned that she was still here.
That, above everything, boggled her mind.
The air in the room intensified. Helena took a deep breath and told herself to remain upright, to look stronger than she felt.
Bethany glanced from Helena to the patient and back again before saying, “I have to head out. Take care of yourself, you two.” She then swept past Helena, leaving them alone for the first time since their frantic drive to the hospital.
Helena still didn’t know his name. But goodness, he was just as handsome as she’d thought he was yesterday, with thick eyebrows and dark, wavy hair.
Her heart pounded. Slowly, she sat in the chair beside his bed, rubbed her knees, and asked, “How are you feeling?” She guessed she looked even worse than he did, given the fact that he was so good-looking and she looked the way she looked.
“Better than ever.” The man smiled. “I guess you saved my life? Does that sound hokey to say?”
Helena laughed. “I don’t think so. But I didn’t do anything. Not really. That was the doctor. And, well. You wouldn’t have stepped in the glass if I’d just warned you to watch out.”
“I think the correct story is that I snuck onto your property without your permission, got myself hurt, and then basically demanded that you drive me to the hospital,” the man said.
Helena laughed, despite herself, despite everything. “So you remember everything?”
“Up until I passed out,” he said. “I must have been a sight to see!”
Helena had a passing thought that she was grateful to herself for having slept over at the hospital, if only so she could share this moment with this beautiful man.
Probably, he’d be out of her life soon. But she could reflect on this moment.
She could remind herself of this time when she’d felt alive.
“What were you doing out there in the storm?” Helena asked.
The man shook his head, embarrassed. “I’m a relatively new sailor.
I checked the weather earlier in the week and decided to spend all day on the boat.
At first, the clouds didn’t scare me, and they brought a nice, sturdy wind for me to practice on.
But all at once, things got dire. I was trying to work my way back to the port so that I could tie up on Nantucket and grab a hotel on the island or something.
But I really thought it was going to be the end, there in front of your place.
I decided I had to trespass, or else.” He grimaced.
“You don’t live in Nantucket?” Helena asked. She was a little disappointed.
He shook his head. “I just moved to a little town near Hyannis. I’m from the Midwest, but I thought I’d give the East Coast a chance. I figured, you know, I’m forty-six. I’m not getting any younger. And I’ve always wanted to live by the water.”
Helena smiled. “I just moved to Nantucket. Yesterday, actually.”
The man’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. I trespassed on your very first day?”
Helena laughed, then felt her smile dim as exhaustion came over her.
“I feel awful,” the man said, rubbing his chest.
“How could you have known?” Helena forced her smile, not wanting to show her hand in front of this man. “By the way,” she said. “I don’t know your name.”
“I don’t know yours, either,” the man said.
Helena watched as his smile widened. She wondered if he wanted to tell her. She wondered if, somewhere on the mainland, he had a girlfriend or responsibilities he needed to tend to. She didn’t want to pressure him into giving her anything more of himself.
Suddenly, it occurred to her that it was very strange to have stayed at the hospital overnight—that it probably made her some kind of freak. Her cheeks were hot. Nervously, she got to her feet.
“Where are you going?” The man asked, laughing.
“I’ve already taken up so much of your time,” Helena said.
“What are you talking about?” The man beckoned for her to sit again. “Will knowing my name keep you here? I’m Matteo.”
Helena caught her breath. “That’s a great name.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged. “But it’s not as good as yours. Which is…?”
“Helena,” she said, sitting back down again. She wet her lips. “Is there someone you want me to reach out to? Someone you want to call?”
Matteo considered this, rubbing his thighs. “Honestly, it’s just me, mostly,” he said. “My parents live back in the Midwest, and I don’t have many new friends in my new town.”
He was lonely, like she was, maybe. What were the chances? Helena had thought she was the loneliest person in the world.
Not long after that, a nurse came in to tell Matteo he could leave whenever he wanted. “You’ve been cleared.” Helena left the room so that Matteo could get dressed. When she returned, she found him laughing with the nurse about how his shoe had been ripped apart and cut off during the surgery.
“I can take you back to my place,” Helena said. “Or drive you to the mainland?” What was she thinking? She was exhausted. She needed to sleep. She probably wouldn’t be able to make it.
“You don’t have to do that, Helena,” Matteo said, smiling. “They’re giving me some crutches. If the water’s clear, I can just sail the boat away from your place today.”
“You be careful,” the nurse told him flirtatiously.
Matteo laughed. “I’ll be more careful than I’ve ever been.”
“I don’t think that’s saying much,” the nurse said.
With her hands around the wheelchair handles, pushing Matteo out into the gorgeous June morning, Helena felt a sense of belonging that frightened her.
For more than a year, she’d been her parents’ caregiver; she’d been behind wheelchairs; she’d smelled all the smells of hospitals and worked hard never to be panicked by anything body-related.
But now that Matteo looked at her like his savior, she felt better than she had in ages.
Maybe she’d been the perfect person to be around for Matteo’s accident.
Maybe this was how they were meant to meet?
Oh, but that was ridiculous. She reminded herself that she was sick and dying. That she’d come to Nantucket to be invisible on the beach. She’d come to Nantucket so that the rest of the world could stop dealing with her.
Helena helped Matteo into the passenger seat of her Chevy, upon which she’d spread a plastic bag so that Matteo didn’t have to sit on his own dried blood stains.
“I’ll pay for the cleanup,” he told her.
Helena smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just keep the bag on it.” It wasn’t like anyone would ride around with her for the foreseeable future.
“I’d really like to be the one to pay for it,” Matteo pushed it. “Will you let me?”
“We’ll see,” Helena said. She hated how much she was beginning to like him. She hated how he wanted to help her with things. She knew she couldn’t get used to anything like that.
She reminded herself of Elliott—the man who’d promised both legally and emotionally to love and support her forever. You couldn’t trust anyone.
Helena drove through the blue-skied morning, back to the house she’d rented on the beach.
Once there, she opened the garage door, then hurried to grab Matteo’s cane and help him back into the house.
Once inside, she assessed the state of the wet carpet and the mounds of glass.
They shone like jewels. “I have to get this cleaned up,” she said under her breath.
“Help yourself to whatever you can find. There’s wine and cheesecake. ”
Matteo laughed. “Breakfast of champions.”
Helena went to the spare bedroom, then to the hall closet to see if a vacuum cleaner was included at the property. But there was nothing. When she returned to the living room, she found Matteo on the sofa, assessing the damage. “I could have stepped on a much bigger piece,” he said.
“Thank goodness you didn’t!” Exhausted, she sat down beside him. “I need to buy a vacuum cleaner.”
“Let me buy that for you,” he said.
“Stop trying to buy me everything,” Helena teased.
Matteo turned to the left. “The sailboat’s all tied up, still.
Thank goodness I tied the right knots! Or at least, I tied knots that stayed during the storm.
” He sighed and collapsed back on the cushions.
“I’m starting to feel like I didn’t sleep enough, which is crazy.
Wasn’t I asleep all night?” He turned to look at Helena. “You probably need to rest, too.”
Helena felt crushed with exhaustion.
Matteo touched his chest. “I can’t believe you stayed.”
Helena couldn’t look at him. “You don’t have to sail back immediately,” she said. “You can take the day to rest. Take the bed, if you want to.”
“You need the bed,” Matteo told her sternly.
“I can sleep almost anywhere,” Helena said.
“So can I.” Matteo set the cane aside. “I’ll take a power nap on the couch.”
Helena felt called to the bed with a sudden urgency. But she was worried that, once she was unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to wake up again. She was worried that Matteo would let himself out and sail away without saying goodbye.
“I have an idea,” Matteo said, pulling out his cell, which the hospital staff had charged for him.
“I’m going to have a vacuum cleaner delivered this afternoon.
We’ll take a few hours to rest, and when the vacuum arrives, we’ll clean up and discuss next steps.
Maybe it’s dinner. Maybe it’s goodbye. No pressure, either way. ”
Helena’s heart pumped. She searched his face for some sign that he was lying to her. But what good would that bring him?
“Rest up,” he ordered, pointing down the hallway, toward her bedroom.
Helena couldn’t say anything else. She got to her feet and moved down the hall to the bed she’d made up yesterday.
She thanked herself for having done that when she’d arrived.
Now, she took off the clothes she’d been in all night, clothes that reeked of the hospital and bad coffee, and burrowed under the blankets. Within seconds, she fell asleep.
It was the most restful sleep she’d had in years.