Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(57)

Yet it was impossible to not think of the first time Tom said he loved me. It had been early for him, too—just months after we began dating. “You’re wonderful, Libby,” he whispered to me, just after he had leaned over the gearshift of his old hooptie and kissed me goodnight. “I’m in love with you. No—it’s not just that.” He touched my cheek. “I love you.” I was so astounded that I couldn’t respond, but in my head I was thinking: I love you, too, Tom Miller. I have loved you since the day I laid eyes on you, and I will love you forever and beyond.

What I felt for Shiloh was different from that, and maybe that’s why I continued to let myself indulge in it. Because in spite of the whirlwind way we’d come together, and the instant attraction I had toward him, I didn’t have the same crazy, intense feeling that I’d had for Tom. Instead, my affection felt calm and right and . . . like something that just was.

After we made love that night, I lay in Shiloh’s arms, bereft yet content. Through the open window, lapping waves competed with nothing but the sound of his heartbeat in my ear. The breeze was cool against my cheek, but the heat of our skin warmed us beneath the thin duvet. His leg still slung over mine, Shiloh began to snore. After a minute or so, he roused and turned toward me. “Night, cutie. Love you.”

“I love you, too,” I whispered back.





TWENTY-NINE


I rose just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Shiloh was facedown on the bed, fast asleep. The sight of his bare back was still a minor shock. I knew Tom’s every freckle and facial expression, exactly where to touch him—just below his left shoulder blade—to make him dissolve into laughter. I had no idea whether Shiloh was ticklish, and while he had freckles, I couldn’t say with certainty where a single spot was located.

I would never learn.

I tried to push this idea into a cobwebbed corner of my mind as I quietly opened the back door. Still in the T-shirt and underwear I’d slept in, I walked out to the empty beach and went directly into the sea. It was cold—far colder already than when I’d arrived—but it was my last chance to feel the Caribbean on my skin, so I waded in anyway. The waves rose past my knees to my waist, enveloping the incision that throbbed but no longer stung, and finally covering my chest, so that my T-shirt bubbled and floated around me like a jellyfish. As I bobbed in place, staring out at the beach and the house from the sea, I considered how easy it would be to let myself be carried off by the tide.

The thought no longer tempted me. Not even a little.

The fear had not subsided. I did not feel like a brave woman warrior ready to take on the literal fight of my life. But I no longer welcomed the idea of being in command of my own death.



When I returned, Shiloh was making coffee. “You ready for today?” he called from the espresso machine.

I finished toweling off, then walked into the kitchen and kissed him. “Not even a little.”

“As much as I want you to stay . . .”

“Yeah.” I accepted the coffee cup he handed me and took a sip. “I know.”

“Libby. Don’t—” He stopped abruptly.

“Don’t what?”

He shook his head: nothing.

“Don’t what?” I pressed.

“Please don’t change your mind about treatment,” he said quietly.

I cocked my head, thinking of how I’d been unable to channel my inner Ophelia in the sea not ten minutes before. “Now why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, actually. But I just worry . . . you haven’t talked about it once since Paul left.”

“I’m going to deal with it when I get to Chicago.” Or New York, I thought; at this point, it wouldn’t much matter either way.

Shiloh put his arms around my waist and pulled me close to him, burying his face in my hair. “You promise?”

The word sat heavy on my tongue. I swallowed hard, then let it roll out. “Promise.”



After the sheets had been stripped and the surfaces had been wiped clean and I’d made one last walk around the beach house, Shiloh and I locked the door behind us.

Milagros was waiting in the courtyard. “Mija,” she said, her arms outstretched.

I hugged her tight, even though it made my stomach hurt a little.

“Old Milly will be here when you’re ready to come back to Vieques,” she told me.

I attempted a laugh, knowing that if I did see her again, it would likely be at a location several light-years north of Puerto Rico.

She misunderstood my halfhearted response. “Verdad,” she insisted. “I may be wrinkled, but I’m healthy as an old thoroughbred.”

“Oh, I know you are,” I assured her. “Believe me, I know.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Where do you go from here, Libby?”

“First Chicago, then to New York, to be with my brother.”

“And what will you do after you’re done with the doctors?”

“I’m going to put one foot in front of the next, take each day as it comes, and try not to focus on Tom or my diagnosis. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

She stared past me for a second, then met my eyes again. “Smart girl. Don’t look back too much, you know? You’re not going that way.”