Always (Spiral of Bliss #5) (33 page)

A campfire burns at the heart of the Twelve Oaks commune, the flames leaping and dancing. I sit beside North, who is whittling slowly at a piece of wood, long shavings falling at his feet. One of the other residents is playing the guitar, and the sweet strains filter through the smoky air.

Dean brushes his hand against the back of my neck as he sits next to me, his warm thigh pressing against mine.

“Both sound asleep,” he says. “They were out within five minutes. Must be the fresh air.”

“We have a booth at the farmers’ market tomorrow morning, if you want to join us,” North says. “Then you could take the kids down to the beach. Supposed to be a beautiful day. There are some inflatable rings in the shed you could take with you.”

“We’ll do that, thanks.” I imagine digging my toes into the sand and feeling the sun on my bare legs.

“Come on.” Dean tugs on my hand. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep so we can be up early.”

We return to the main building. I check on Nicholas and Bella before going into the adjoining bedroom where Dean and I are staying.

He’s standing on the other side of the room, unbuttoning his shirt, and I’m struck with a memory of watching him do exactly that the moment before I made the easiest and truest confession of my life—
“I love you.”

Oh, how I did. How I
do.

Dean glances up. Our eyes meet as if we’re both remembering the same thing. And then he holds out his arms.

Light and love flood through me, infusing me with strength. I run across the room and leap into Dean’s arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and burying my face in his shoulder.

Our bodies fit together beautifully, my thinner curves still yielding to the hard planes of his chest, his body heat flowing into my soul. His arms close around me, strong as steel and warm as sunlight.

“Ah, my beauty,” he whispers. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

“Don’t leave.”

“Never.”

We spend five days at Twelve Oaks, absorbing the sun and salt-laced air into our blood. We swim in the sea, work in the orchards and at the farmers’ market, explore downtown Santa Cruz, make s’mores on the campfire, and pick vegetables in the garden.

On the day of our departure, I watch Bella hug Asha, watch Nicholas laughing as he and North run after an escaped chicken. Dean loads Bella’s purple backpack into the trunk and slams it shut.

“Ready?” he asks me.

I turn to him, loving the way he moves closer, the way he knows without hesitation that I need him to touch me, that I want to touch him. He pulls me against his chest.

“There is no better present you could have given me.” I rub my cheek against his shirt, inhaling his scents of wind and shaving soap. “Thank you.”

“I see why you love it here.” He presses his lips to the top of my head. “And I knew you needed some time with your BFF.”

I squeeze him around the waist. “And my BHH.”

“What’s that?”

“Big Hot Husband.”

Dean’s chuckle brushes against my temple. We part slowly as North comes toward us with a box in his hands. He extends it to Dean.

“Practice,” he orders. “When you come back, I’ll challenge you to a game.”

“Deal.”

We say our goodbyes—bittersweet and happy at the same time. As Dean drives down the long road leading to the highway, we wave at the crowd of Twelve Oaks residents who gathered to see us off.

Dean turns the media player on. Jack Johnson’s “Better Together” comes through the speakers, and Bella soon joins in singing.

I roll down the window and take off my scarf to let the cool, sea-salted wind brush against my scalp, my face, my skin.

It’s in your name.
North’s words from years ago echo in my mind.
It’s both the easiest and hardest thing in the world.

Olivia… Liv… live.

Yes. I will.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

OLIVIA

THE VISIT TO TWELVE OAKS GIVES
our family a new surge of hope and energy. Nicholas and Bella chatter for days about the beach, the animals, the orchards, and North with the little red ribbon tied into his bushy beard.

“When can we go again?” Nicholas asks.

“North, east, south, west,” Bella says. “I go back too.”

“Oh, yes,” I promise, squeezing Dean’s arm. “We’ll go back.”

On my last day of chemo in late May, Dean brings several boxes of cookies and parfaits to the nurses who have seen me through months of treatment. I pull myself through the rough days following the infusion, which seem less severe this time. The
last
time. A week later, I’m back on my feet and anticipating the day when I’ll feel entirely like myself again.

After dropping Nicholas off at school one morning, I take my usual walk through downtown, enjoying being outside, the lightness in the air over the approach of summer. I have an established route that I’ve followed since the weather warmed, but today I find myself turning right on Emerald Street.

I stop across the street from the Wonderland Café. The sign above it has been repainted, the whimsical White Rabbit looking especially fresh and spiffy in his plaid waistcoat. The red rockers that we store during winter are back out on the front porch, and pots of colorful tulips line the railing.

A wave of both happiness and longing hits me hard, like I’m gazing at a long-lost friend with whom I share a thousand memories. I cross the street and walk up the porch steps. My nerves tighten with anxiety, but the instant I step inside, happiness floods me.

The café is filled with the familiar sounds of talking, laughter, and silverware clinking on plates. The smells of fresh-baked muffins and hot brewed tea and coffee drift through the air, and the servers are weaving between the tables, refilling water glasses and delivering plates of toast and jam.

Since it’s still the breakfast rush, a few people are waiting for tables. I slip behind them so as not to disturb the flow of service and simply enjoy the feeling of comfort and belonging.

As the family in front of me moves to be seated at a table, I notice two large poster boards sitting on easels by the front counter. The board on the right is marked by a calendar of every month, with most of the squares filled in with writing.

Printed along the top of the board on the left is a rainbow of monarch butterflies hovering over the words:

OPERATION BUTTERFLY

For a minute, I stare at the boards, feeling like this is something momentous but not understanding why. I move closer, reading the smaller words below the title.

Let’s brighten Liv West’s life with butterflies!

Sign up to deliver an anonymous butterfly gift of your choosing to give our friend Liv a boost as she battles cancer.

Contact Allie Lyons with questions and to sign up.

For every gift Liv receives, Allie and Brent will make a donation to the Cancer Fund at the Rainwood Children’s Hospital.

I blink, rereading the poster three times and still not certain I understand.

“Liv!”

I look up to find Sheryl hurrying toward me, her face breaking into a smile. “Well, fancy seeing you here,” she says warmly.

“Thanks, Sheryl.” I give her a hug, even though I just saw her a few days ago when she stopped by to deliver a stack of new paperbacks. Everyone from the café has called and come to visit me over the past few months.

Everyone except—

“It’s great to have you back,” Sheryl says. “Come on in. We should be done with the breakfast rush soon.”

She sees me look at the Operation Butterfly poster again.

“Isn’t that awesome?” she says. “Allie has done an amazing job running it. She’s had the sign-up board in different areas around town, like the library and the Historical Museum. The response from customers, the staff,
everyone
has been incredible. I hope you liked all the gifts.”

“Y-yes,” I stammer, though I’m still baffled.

“Liv.” One of the servers, Tucker, puts down his tray and comes to envelop me in a hug. “Lady, we have
missed
you.”

Sheryl brings me a cup of tea, and I sit at the counter, feeling like I’m in the middle of a celebration as word spreads of my arrival and the staff comes by to greet me with hugs and warm wishes. Everyone is happy to hear I’m finished with chemo, and they all ask when I plan to come back to work.

I hedge my answer with a “Hopefully soon” comment, but I need to talk to one person before I do anything else.

“Is Allie here yet?” I ask Sheryl, after the wait and kitchen staffs have returned to their duties.

“Yeah, she’s in the office.” Sheryl turns to pour a fresh pot of coffee into a silver carafe. “She and Brent have been great, though I’m sure she’s missed having you around too.”

Though I’m not so sure about that, I climb off the stool and head through the kitchen to the office. The door is half-open, and I knock before pushing it open farther.

Allie is working at the desk, her head bent and her long red ponytail falling over her shoulder. She glances up. Her eyes widen.

“Liv.”

“Hi, Allie. Can I come in?”

“Um, sure.” She stands, running her hands over the front of her purple apron. “I mean, of course. Come in.”

She waves for me to sit down. I close the door and lower myself onto the sofa.

“I didn’t know you were planning to stop by today,” she admits, her gaze touching briefly on the blue scarf wrapped around my head before she glances away.

“I didn’t either.” I twine my fingers together, my earlier anxiety returning full-force. “I… I saw the posters out in front. Operation Butterfly?”

“You found out.” Allie gives me a tentative smile. “I hadn’t yet figured out the big reveal, but I was thinking maybe we’d hang a bunch of paper butterflies from the ceiling and have a surprise party when you were done with the treatments.”

“You did all of that?” I ask. “Operation Butterfly was your idea?”

Allie nods, though a flash of shame passes across her face. “I wanted to do something for you, and I knew a lot of people had plans to bring you meals and were offering to help with the kids and stuff. But so many of our customers and other business owners were asking me what they could do to help, so I thought I’d recruit everyone to send you some happiness.”

A knot of emotion tightens in my throat. “So the butterfly gifts are…”

“From everyone.” Allie sits in the chair opposite me. “I had people sign up for delivery on certain days, so that you’d get the butterflies throughout the week. The only rule was that the gifts had to be anonymous to make the mystery of it fun for you and the kids. But I have been keeping track of who gave what, since I knew you’d want to send out thank-you cards once it was all over.”

I manage to smile through a sudden blur of tears. “Allie, I don’t know what to say. The butterfly gifts have been incredible. They’ve been such a bright spot in our week… Nicholas and Bella couldn’t wait to get home from school to see if one had been delivered. They’re all over the house now. It’s like being surrounded by
love
.”

“Good.” Allie looks pleased. “If it made things a little easier for you, then that’s the only thing that matters.”

“But it’s not the only thing that matters to me,” I tell her. “I love the gifts. I love what you’ve done, what everyone has done for us. But I also love
you.
And while I’ve missed so much about working at the café, I’ve missed you most of all.”

Intense sorrow fills Allie’s blue eyes. She pushes to her feet and turns away from me. When she speaks, her voice is choked with emotion.

“I’m sorry, Liv.”

“When I was first diagnosed, Brent told me you were having a tough time with it, but—”

“It’s not just that.” Allie turns to take a tissue from the box on the desk and wipes her eyes. “I mean, yes, I was in shock too. I couldn’t believe it when you told me. I still can’t, and yet, here you are, having gone through surgery and chemo and… oh, goddammit, Liv, why did it have to be
you
?”

An uncontrolled sob bursts from her, and then suddenly she’s crying so hard that tears stream in rivers down her face. She takes off her glasses and buries her face in her hands, huge sobs wrenching her with such force she can hardly catch her breath.

I bolt off the sofa and wrap my arms around her. Her body is shaking, her sobs ripping through her and into me. I manage to get us both onto the sofa, still holding her as tightly as I can as she presses her face into my shoulder and cries and cries.

We sit for so long that I don’t even realize my own face is streaked with tears until we finally separate. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and go to get the box of tissues from the desk. We mop up and catch our breath until we’re both able to speak again.

“I didn’t want to tell you this,” Allie says with a hiccup. “I couldn’t. I don’t talk about it much anyway, but especially… my mother died of breast cancer.”

My blood goes cold. While I’ve known Allie’s mother died when she was young, I’ve never known
how
she died.

“Allie, I’m sorry.”

“I was fourteen.” Allie stares at her hands, ripping the damp tissue into little pieces. “She’d been diagnosed six years before.”

“Six years?”

“First in her right breast, then they found a tumor in her left. She had a mastectomy, but a year later it spread to her spine. I can’t even remember how many times she went through chemo. Five maybe? Six? And surgery, drugs, radiation… but the cancer spread to her brain. Finally there was nothing anyone could do and… oh my God, this is exactly the problem, Liv. How can I be telling you this? It’s the last thing you need to hear.”

She presses her hand to her mouth. A heavy silence falls between us. I know—I have known, since the beginning, since Dean found the lump—the cancer inside me could spread even more.

It could also go away.

“You… you can tell me anything, Allie. Anything.”

“But not this.” She wipes at a stray tear. “I hated it when my mother was sick and people would tell us all these horror stories about other people who had died of cancer. I just wanted them to tell us something good, you know?

“And my mom… sometimes I can hardly remember her before the cancer. I mean, I remember the days when she was well, the times when she even felt good enough to take a trip with me and my dad, but then the doctors kept finding the fucking tumors and another course of treatment would begin.

“And I was so damned selfish because I was a teenager and I needed her to be well, to be able to do all the things the other girls’ mothers did, but she
couldn’t.
The chemo made her so sick she couldn’t get out of bed, and she lost her hair so many times…”

Allie shakes her head and rests her hands against her eyes.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of that happening to you,” she says. “I couldn’t… couldn’t watch it happen. Not again.”

I press my forehead against her temple. “It’s not happening to me, Allie.”

“I know. I know all the rational stuff. But I couldn’t tell you. And I was so scared that if you came to work, especially during chemo, I’d either lose it completely or make things worse for you.

“I couldn’t come to visit you for the same reason. I was afraid I’d just sit there sobbing uncontrollably and make you feel horrible or scare you more than you already were. And I didn’t want Brent or anyone else telling you because I knew I had to be the one to explain. So the only thing I could think of was just to try and stay away from you until you got better, and then pray you’d still want to be friends when it was all over.”

“Oh, Allie. I’d never
not
want to be friends. But I wish you’d told me so I wouldn’t have been so confused.”

“Telling you about my mother’s metastatic cancer right before you were about to start treatment…” Allie shakes her head again. “I can still barely talk about it when everything is normal. There was no way I could have told you when your world had just shattered. And I know how rough chemo is. You didn’t need to hear about my mother’s fight when you were in the middle of your own. Unfortunately, it was the only explanation I had.”