Chapter Eighteen

Everything’s back to normal. Lucas is happy, Alice is happy, and I…

My work’s done. Time to go. My flight’s booked, my bags packed and loaded in the Jeep. Lucas insists on driving me to the airport while Alice stays with a babysitter.

Saying goodbye to Alice is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. We sit on the bench outside the sea horse door, her on my lap, and hug each other.

“Be a good girl. Look after Daddy, see?”

“And Buster.”

“Buster too.”

“You come back.”

“I’m going home now, sweetheart.”

“I miss you. You come back.”

I swallow. “I’d like that.”

She presses her face to mine. “I love you.”

“I love you too, darling.”

I unwind her arms from my neck and hand her to the sitter, and then navigate toward Lucas and the Jeep by staring at my feet, one in front of the other, through blurry eyes. He opens the passenger door, guides me in with a hand on my shoulder, pulls out the seatbelt and shuts me in. He gets in the drivers’ side and off we go, me waving and Alice waving back.

“You come back!” She waves. We blow kisses. I can’t see her any more. We’re through the gates and on the road. I clamp a hand over my mouth, but it’s an inadequate floodgate. By the time we pass Jay’s Automotive at the bottom of the road, my heart’s broken, and I’m howling.

Lucas doesn’t say a word. I’m in a bubble of grief, worlds away from him. Although, there is one sad connection—this is how he must feel every time he says goodbye to Alice. How can he bear it? Why does he do it? Whatever, it’s none of my concern now. That last fact inspires me to cry more and harder. I cry and Lucas drives, and this is how we eventually get to the airport.

“Thanks,” I manage, when we approach the terminal buildings. “Please, drop me off—” Oh. He’s in the parking garage already, swinging the Jeep into one of the few available spaces.

I release the seatbelt and reach for the door, but he puts out a hand to stop me. “Just a minute.”

The interior of the car is quiet, but for the panic-attack intensity of my heartbeat. I glance at Lucas, who’s taken something out of his pocket.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me and Alice.” He hands over a small carrier bag printed all over with turquoise and silver wavelets. I peep inside. There’s a small, flat box, a little bigger than a matchbox, wrapped in the same paper, tied with a silver chiffon bow.

“You’ve been incredibly generous to me as it is, Lucas. You really don’t have to—”

“Open it.”

“Now?”

“You have time.”

I do as he says.

Oh!

Two small diamond sea horses. Those ones. The earrings I lust after each time I pass Jewels of the Sea.

Open-mouthed, I turn in my seat to face him. “How did you know?”

“Alice took me straight there. The day we washed the Mustache.”

“But Lucas, I-I can’t accept these.” I thrust the box back into the bag and hold it out. “They’re diamonds, and…and…”

“And what?”

“Um, they’re expensive.”

“You’d have preferred moose-shaped ones, wouldn’t you?”

I have to smile, though I’m awash in tears. “Or maybe lobsters.”

He smiles too, closes a hand over mine and pushes the bag back to me. “I want, Alice wants, you to have these.”

“They’re too expens—”

He shuts me up by leaning close and touching my cheek. “You deserve them. At the very least.”

“No, Lucas, I—”

“You were, are, the best. You earned them. Does that sound better?”

“No. You paid me for what I did. You over-paid me. They’re too much.” I give them back. If he thinks diamonds will dry my tears, he’s very wrong. With fingertips pressed to my eyes and tears leaking everywhere, I crouch in the seat, utterly baffled by my despair and confusion. Quite apart from anything else, I’m an idiot for being so out of control of my emotions. It’s embarrassing. Lucas must be dying to get rid of me.

He drops his hand and moves back, holding the pretty little box loosely on his thigh. His chest heaves, up and down, in a mighty, silent sigh. “I can only do it this way, don’t you see?” Silence again for a heavy quarter of a minute, then he goes on. “I have,” he says, carefully, “money. And, most important of all, I have Alice. That is what I have. Everything else is…” He looks down at his hand, holding the box.

Is what?

“Is lost. Broken. Do you understand?”

The seconds tick away. It’s not appropriate to look at my watch, so I don’t. Another thing: right now, I don’t care if I miss my plane.

“I’m…I’m not sure I do, really.”

After a while he says, “It’s all to do with Bonny. Her death. All that.

We sit for a bit until I say, “I have to go.”

He doesn’t stop me. Is he relieved? He takes my hand, puts the box in it and closes my fingers around it, his hand covering mine. I look at the thin scars running across all four knuckles. “Either way,” I say, “yours is a pretty dangerous job for fingers.” He laughs, a brave attempt at normalcy. Our eyes meet, hold for a moment, and then we both move to get out of the car.

He gets my luggage from the boot and gives me a big ol’ hug, like he’s hugging his best mate. We exchange overly smackish cheek kisses.

I pick up my cabin bag, extend the handle of my case, and make ready to wheel it off. “Thanks for everything, Lucas, and—” swallow hard—“goodbye. Look after Alice, whatever you do.”

“Of course.” He nods, stands still and watches me walk away.

Before I get to the lifts, I turn around. “Remember,” I call, “if it’s lost, you can find it.”

“You suppose?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe.”

“Keep looking.”

“I do.” He raises a hand in farewell. “Enjoy your time back on the mothership.”

The lift arrives, the doors open, I get in, turn around and see him, standing there, staring after me, eyes dark. The doors close on my jolly little wave and that’s that. Seconds later the lift lurches upward and spews me out in the departure hall. I go straight to the ladies loo, to the basin at the very end of the long washroom and take the earrings out of my bag. I cry some more and put them away. I can’t wear them now. It’s all too much. Besides—and I don’t have to look in the mirror to confirm swollen eyes and red nose—my face is not worthy of diamonds.

I’m not sure life with Lucas would, or wouldn’t, have worked out. Either way, I’d like to have known, and now I never will. Whatever happens, I will never forget this man.