* * *
Finally finally finally. West Corp won the planning committee bid, the development project was go. Contracts issued, ground broken, construction under way. The weight lifted. Celia managed to delegate most of her West Corp duties until all she had left was facing the promise she’d made.
They went on vacation.
It hardly seemed fair, though, lying on a warm beach under a bright sun and feeling cold. She wore a hat and knit gloves, and held a blanket wrapped around her. More side effects of the chemotherapy—she was always cold, always shivering. But she had only one more treatment, and the blood tests looked promising. The end was in sight, the light at the end of the tunnel was bright, and it wasn’t the light of an oncoming train. They probably should have waited to take the holiday until treatment was finished entirely, but everyone was so tired, so worn out. Not just physically but also emotionally, from all the anxiety, the long nights, the uncertainty. Celia wasn’t going to make them wait on her account. She needed this as well, and if she was going to be sitting around bundled in blankets anyway, she might as well be someplace beautiful, like Cascade Beach.
She wouldn’t have missed this for anything.
The kids had found a volleyball net in the storage closet of the beach house and set it up in the stretch of sand out front. Bethy, Suzanne—wearing a leg brace and still limping from her injury but gamely hobbling through—Teia, Lew, and even Analise had joined the current rousing match, not following any particular rules, bumping and slamming the ball back and forth accompanied by much laughter. Celia wanted so much to join in. Soon, she would. When she’d recovered. This gave her something to work for. In the meantime, their laughter warmed her.
There was a lesson here, one she reveled in: Suffering and happiness weren’t incompatible. She was in pain, but somehow she was contented, lying in her lounge chair. Happy, even. Her family was here, they loved her, and they had survived. As soon as she got some energy back, she’d shout her triumph to the skies.
Even Arthur had relaxed—as much as he ever did. He’d abandoned his jacket and shoes, rolled up his trouser cuffs and sleeves, and walked on the beach, contemplative. Celia turned from the game to watch him. He’d followed the edge of the water to an outcrop of distant rocks and was returning now, hands in pockets, looking over the sea. She couldn’t read his expression from so far away, but she could mark the line of his jaw, watch his brown hair toss in the wind. His hair had thinned but was still brushed back from his face in scruffy waves. He was still handsome, in her eyes. He was hers, she’d never had to question it. From a hundred yards away he looked up, feeling her gaze and thoughts upon him. Raised a hand in a wave, and she smiled.
He wandered back, pulled up a chair beside her.
“You look happy,” she said.
“I like it here. It’s quiet. Not many people around.”
He could lower his defenses here. He looked ten years younger. She reached for him, and he gently took her hand. He always knew exactly how firmly he could squeeze before hurting her oversensitive skin. She rested lightly against him.
The door to the beach house opened and closed, and Anna came out. Long tan legs, shorts and tank top, pure lanky youth. She stood at the edge of the porch for a moment, looking out, pensive, before dragging over another lawn chair and sitting by her parents. She should be happy, Celia thought. I should tell her to be happy, but she remembered seventeen.
“Hey there,” Celia said, deciding to keep it simple. “You decided to come out.”
Anna screwed her face up, tapped her foot. “I knew that Dad was back. I wanted to talk.” She glanced at them both, tried to smile.
Celia looked at Arthur; this might have been a first, and she was afraid to move, in case the moment passed too quickly.
“We’ve been waiting for months for you to say that,” Arthur said gently.
“Years,” Celia corrected, then hunkered into her blanket, apologetic. Arthur rested his hand on her arm, a touch of comfort.
They remained quiet, waiting for their eldest daughter to find words.
“Dad, I can’t read people like you can. But I still feel it. I don’t think I can handle it. Mom, when I thought you were gone I didn’t know how I was going to handle it, and then it turns out you’re sick, and someday you’ll be gone. And…” She looked at Arthur. “How do you keep from hurting when you lose someone?”
“You don’t. It overwhelms you, and then you move on. You must mo
ve on or you die, and there’s too much to live for for that.”
She frowned. “You make it sound easy.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t easy. But the strength comes to you.” He brushed Celia’s cheek. “Though I would very much prefer it if you waited to leave until after I’m gone.”
It would be better that way. She wouldn’t have to sit there, watching his very mind fade. She would try to last long enough to save him from that. Sighing, she said, “I’m trying.”
Anna’s face had puckered, a young woman trying very hard not to cry. She’d asked how she would ever survive one of them dying, and what did they do? Gave her a picture of both of them leaving her. I’m a terrible parent. I had nothing to do with my daughters turning out so well.
Celia reached out her other hand, the one not claimed by Arthur. Anna might just as easily have walked away from it, but she didn’t. She took it maybe just a little too hard, but Celia wasn’t going to complain.
“What’s it like for you?” Celia asked. “Knowing where we are, being able to feel us?”
“It’s hard to explain. All I have to do is think of you and you’re there, in the back of my mind. It’s like the world is full, my brain is full. But that’s okay—it felt worse when it was empty.”
“The power means you’re never alone,” Arthur added.