“Don’t worry about it. Gave them plenty to talk about.” He winked. “Not every day we head to an uninhabited island and find locals.”
I cracked a smile. It was what he expected. Even if it cost me everything.
Locals.
That was what we’d become.
And now, we’d been ripped from our home without a choice.
This wasn’t a rescue.
It was a kidnapping.
Achy tears bruised my eyes. I struggled to hide my sob-filled sigh. “Sir...please. I’m very grateful to you. And I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have medical assistance after so long. But...there’s something...someone—”
I couldn’t finish.
My knees gave out, and I pooled to the polished wooden floor of the bridge. The wood was so glossy it mirrored my large, aching eyes brimming with stupid, hurtful, angry, disbelieving tears.
He left me.
He left me.
I hadn’t had time to grieve.
I’d had to make a choice: stay with Galloway or save our daughters. He’d made me put him second best.
And because of that, I never got to say goodbye.
“I never...I never got to say goodbye!” I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t make eye contact with the milling crew in the operating tower. I couldn’t glance at Stefan, and I definitely couldn’t look at the captain.
If I did, I didn’t know if I’d die from the cracking, wrenching sorrow inside or kill him. I wanted to kill him for taking me from the man I loved.
I wanted to smite everyone with hurricanes and helicopter crashes for ever giving me a lover and then stealing him so swiftly.
I didn’t get to say goodbye!
I wasn't over Conner’s death.
And now, I had to deal with Galloway’s, too.
I...I couldn’t do it.
My torso fell forward, my arms wrapped around me, and my forehead bowed on the lacquered floor.
I sobbed.
I screamed.
I sounded like a typhoon.
The captain ducked to his haunches, patting my shoulder blades.
It only made me worse.
A strong but kind hand pulled my chin up, forcing me to look at him. Stefan shook his head. “That’s why you're so unhappy. That’s why you want to go back?”
I bared my teeth, wrenching my face from his hold. “Yes! He’s there. Just lying there. He’s dead and I didn’t bury him. The ants...God, the ants...they’ll take him from me. I can’t...I can’t let that happen! Don’t you see? He has to be with the turtles. He has to be set free. I didn’t set him free!”
My garbled nonsense interspersed with ugly, ugly tears.
But I didn’t care.
Just as I didn’t care about my physical self, I didn’t care how deranged I came across to these men. I knew what I meant. And Galloway, if his soul was chained to his dead body, he knew, too. He’d know I’d abandoned him. That I ran away without telling him I love him.
Oh, God!
My sobs became a wail.
I didn’t tell him I love him!
I clutched Stefan’s shirt. “Please! I have to go back. I can’t do this. I have to tell him how much I loved him. How much I do love him. Please! You can’t do this.”
The captain shared a worried look. “Is she unwell, Stefan? I thought we’d explained all of this last night.”
Unwillingly, I sank into Stefan’s embrace, hating the way he rocked me. I didn’t want his sympathy or attempts at compassion.
I want Galloway.
And unless I could have him, I didn’t want anything anymore. I didn’t want to live another day. I didn’t want to breathe another breath without him in my world.
“We did, sir. But the trauma has hidden much of what occurred yesterday. She needs to go on medication and high-strength vitamins to boost her deficiencies. But she refused. The kids behaved, but we couldn’t get her cooperation. No matter that we told her the truth. She didn’t believe us then. And she doesn’t believe us now.”
“Believe what?” My eyes narrowed through my tears. “What don’t I remember?”
“That I explained to you why you don’t have to return to the island.”
“Because he’s dead?”
“That’s what you think? Truly, think. Try to remember.”
I froze. Tears turned to stalactites on my cheeks. “What—what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you should be crying for life rather than death.”
My breathing stopped for an entirely different reason. Despicable hope rose like two hundred sunrises in my ribcage. “Tell me.”
Stefan let me go, handing me a wad of tissues from his pocket. “I think I’d better show you.” Standing, he held out a hand to help me up.
My knees shook.
My back ached.
My eyes burned.
But I couldn’t shake the thought I’d missed something. That all of this...this pain and suffering...
“Captain, we’ll come back tomorrow. We can go over the bases then.” Taking my elbow, Stefan guided me toward the exit.
The captain waved. “No problem. Oh, and, Miss. Please don’t worry about anything. The clothing, the food, the medical attention, even your room. Everything you require is at the pleasure of P&O cruise lines.” He lowered his head importantly. “Anything at all.”
I should thank him.
I should show gratitude for such a gift.
But I couldn’t.
Because somehow, somewhy, somewhat...my brain unlocked another memory.
Him.
He’d been here.
On this boat.
Galloway.
Chapter Sixty-Four
...............................................
E S T E L L E
......
“DO YOU BELIEVE me now?”
Stefan let me go the moment we entered the tiny room with beeping noises and a single cot pushed up against the wall.
We’d descended in the lift.
We’d walked along the corridors.
We’d entered the medical wing.
And with every step, my heart slowly stole back its existence from snarling tears, welcoming hope instead.
I didn’t know what I did first.
Laughed.
Cried.
Collapsed
Danced.
Perhaps, all four at once.
One moment, I stood beside Stefan in the doorway. The next, I was sprawled on his chest.
His.
The man I loved.
The man I’d left.
The man who’d died.
“Oh, my God.” I kissed him. Over and over and over.
He didn’t wake up.
Stefan came closer. He didn’t tell me to climb from the cot. He didn’t tell me I was crushing his patient.
He was wise.
Instead, he said, “His system is severely exhausted and the infection has stolen whatever reserves he had left. He’ll wake up when he’s ready. But he’s alive, and we’ll do everything we can to keep him that way.”
He’s alive.
I didn’t have to choose.
Galloway was here, with me, on the ship. He hadn’t gone to Conner. He hadn’t visited his mother.
He was my havoc, my harmony, my only chance at hope.
I clutched him harder, kissing his warm, lifeless lips, staring into his gaunt face and sunburned nose. His long hair spread out like a crown, a mixture of browns and bronzes on white perfection.
He looked regal.
He looked dead.
But I knew better now.
I’d left behind my phone, our videos, my notebooks, and three and a half years of carvings and creation.
But I hadn’t left behind my husband.
I could breathe again.
Chapter Sixty-Five
...............................................
G A L L O W A Y
......
IF
THIS WAS hell, then I pitied those who went to heaven.
I expected raging fires of doom and pitchforks and condemning judgements. Not the floating strange sensation of healing.
I’d said goodbye to Estelle.
I’d trusted she’d keep her promise.
I’d died the moment I lost sight of her.
Yet...noises kept interrupting my restless slumber. Pinpricks and beeping and touching, lots and lots of touching.
Fragments of dreams appeared of motorboats and rocking oceans. Which was odd as I hadn’t been on a boat since my father took me fishing for my sixteenth birthday.
Slowly, I became tethered to my body, feeling more pain and more heat than before. Wasn’t death the opposite? Weren’t you supposed to find freedom once you made the conscious decision to...let go?
The eerie sensation of being watched and discussed came and went, along with unknown voices.
Until suddenly, there was a voice I recognised.
A woman.
My woman.
My wife.
Desperation shoved aside hot sickness; I tried to swim to her.
She was on our island, surrounded by smashing waves and snapping sharks. All I had to do was get to her and then all would be well.
I would swim the gauntlet. I would fight every shark. I would do whatever it took to keep her.
But something anchored me down.
My eyes remained shut with lead lures on my eyelashes and limbs locked in a cage.
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.
We visited Galloway often, but he remained asleep. However, his lips twitched whenever I touched him, and his forehead smoothed when I whispered in his ear.
We were subjected to poking and prodding from the medical team. We were given tablets and vitamins and our vitals checked regularly to ensure we were improving.
For dinner, Stefan brought us cheeseburgers and French fries, roasted chicken and potatoes, braised beef and thick gravy.
For all my vegetarian ways, I sampled everything.
And I cried.
It seemed I cried and cried and cried.
I cried in happiness. In pain. In homesickness. I cried in confusion. In misery for Conner. In excitement.
So many things were changing, and we had no choice but to be swept away.
The cruise had set sail the moment we’d been found, authorities had been alerted, Morse code or telegrams (however boats transmitted messages) s
ent to our respective families.
The passengers had been informed of the change of schedule and given a choice to disembark at the nearest hotel in Nadi, and wait a few days for a replacement cruise, or return to Sydney with the promise of another voyage of their choosing.
To my surprise, the majority decided to return home with us. I had no idea why the captain wanted to personally escort us. He could’ve dumped us on a flight (gulp) or arranged other transportation.
But he wouldn’t hear of it.
Our reappearance was his personal accomplishment. He’d found us and would only leave us when we were on familiar soil.
Unbeknownst to him, Galloway wasn’t from Australia. Neither was Pippa. And Coco didn’t have a birth certificate. We were all going to the one place I knew because I was greedy and wanted to see Madeline. I wanted to hold my friend and tell her who I’d become. What I’d become. And let her protect me from what would come next.
Despite my nerves dealing with so many strangers, they gravitated toward us, drawn by our celebrity status thanks to the captain announcing our unforeseen arrival. If the limited audience was this obsessed with us, what would the city be like? How hectic would our future be now we were back from the dead?
I met with the captain again and apologised profusely for my dramatics. He’d hugged me (I was hugged a lot) and said he completely understood. He pried about our tale. Asked questions. Curious as to how we’d survived.
I was reluctant to share too much. What we’d endured was ours. It wasn’t a story to be told with gratuitous embellishment. It wasn’t something to gloat over and determine if the re-teller could’ve done better.
It was our life.
And I wanted no judgement.
So instead of answering his questions, I smiled and redirected. I learned more about the P&O renovation than I ever needed. He educated me on his nautical career and showed me pictures of his two boys in Taiwan.
The photos depicted twins aged sixteen.
I’d cried.
I’d tried not to but couldn’t help it.
Conner had been sixteen.
Conner had died before he could be found and now...now, we’d been taken away.
And soon...Pippa might be taken from me, too.
She was only eleven-years-old. But she acted like an adult. She knew how to fish, to cook, to build, to heal. She was more woman than any girl I’d ever met. And she was mine.