Unseen Messages(170)

But she understood my trial because she touched me. It wasn’t a stranger or fleeting phantom.

It was real.

Having her touch me (when I was so sure I’d never enjoy it again), gave me peace for the first time since the splinter sentenced me to death.

I relaxed.

I stopped fighting.

My body and immunity took over, and I finally began to heal.





Chapter Sixty-Six


...............................................

E S T E L L E

......

Who do you thank when life gives you your deepest wishes? Who do you curse when it takes away your greatest triumphs? Who do you beg when nothing you want works out? Who do you pray to when the impossible comes true?

I don’t have the answer.

I doubt anyone does.

Taken from a P&O Napkin, Pacific Pearl.

...

THREE HUGELY IMPORTANT things happened.

One, I was united with Pippa and Coco amongst tears and wide-eyed glances at our foreign new world.

Two, we never moved apart, chaining our emotions together, staying vigil at Galloway’s side.

Three, Galloway slept for two days, slowly growing healthier.

The doctors said he could wake up when he wanted. But his system was so badly depleted; it might take time for such a feat to happen. He said every energy was directed at helping the intravenous antibiotics fight septicaemia. He said G was aware and listening. That he knew I was there, touching him, talking to him, telling him secrets...singing to him.

And I believed him.

I also believed just how lucky we were to be found. How kind the crew had been to overlook my inhospitable welcome. How they’d listened to Pippa when she’d cried there was someone else to rescue as they’d bundled my unconscious form on the boat.

Two people actually.

Three.

No, four.

Pippa led the scouts to Galloway, and they’d carried his lifeless body to the adventure craft. She’d returned and scooped up the memorial shrine for her parents and Conner and stole Puffin from his shelf in our pantry.

She was the reason why Galloway was here with us. She was the reason Coco was tended to while I broke down. She was the reason my family was still together.

She’d had so much heartache that I doubted she’d laugh again. Love again. Live again. But she was young. Tragedy could never be erased, but it could be cushioned. And I would adore her as my daughter for the rest of her life.

As Galloway healed, Dr. Finnegan explained what’d happened. The tiny splinter blighted him with a bacterial condition called cellulitis. As his immune system was undernourished, the infection spread rapidly, chewing through his final reserves.

My tourniquet didn’t work.

Nothing on the island would’ve worked.

Cellulitis was life-threatening, but in a city with penicillin, a mere annoyance. However, in the wilderness with no drugs...it was the checkered flag on the finish line.

G was moments from succumbing when the crew had placed us side by side in the rescue boat. We’d lay almost touching, bouncing over whitecaps, whizzing toward doctors.

We were tended to in the same medical room (a single ward for ship guests if they fell ill or needed emergency care). All of this, I’d known...apparently. I’d even thrown myself on Galloway’s white-dead form, the moment I woke from my fainting episode.

I’d seen him.

I’d touched him.

Yet my exhausted, grief-stricken mind had forgotten him.

And now...as the monitors recorded a racing heart and the antibiotics cleared his blood, I managed a small smile as Pippa and Coco inched closer to his cot.

Last night, we’d spent it together. We’d been given separate rooms, but after so long living in house only feet away from each other, I couldn’t sleep without the sounds of their breathing.

I missed Conner’s breath. His vibrant energy and boundless youth.

Unfortunately, the bed we’d been given was too spongy, and after hours of restless discomfort, we’d all camped on the floor. We only took the pillows (which were the best invention ever) and snuggled close.

Coco had cried for the newness of it all.

Pippa had cried for the loss of it all.

And I’d hugged both of them. Finally strong enough to comfort them, knowing Galloway hadn’t gone.

The next morning, I had my first hot shower in almost four years.

I cried.

The overwhelming sensation of flowing water, of turning on a tap and being able to drink made gratitude pour.

Unwrapping a new toothbrush and tasting minty paste for the first time in so long.

I cried.

The simple things.

Things I’d used every day without thinking were now the most incredible novelties.

Once we were clean, Pippa, Coco, and I joined the other cruise guests at the buffet. There were too many voices, too many bodies, too many of everything.

We couldn’t do it after so long in solitary.

However, Stefan was our personal shadow. He instructed us to find a relaxing spot on the promenade surrounded by potted palm trees and cushioned wicker furniture while he gathered us plates groaning with waffles and maple syrup, crispy bacon, fresh mango, fluffy eggs, and the largest plate of miniature muffins I’d ever seen.

That first taste of sugar.

I cried.

My tears mingled with blueberry dough, and Pippa’s moans of pleasure threaded with mine until we sounded like rabid savages.