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.