Chapter 52
Gizelle was standing at the French doors, looking out over the deck towards the ocean. The sun was starting to set, making all of her edges golden and soft.
It was tricky light, difficult to lipread in, and Conall went to take Gizelle’s hand so he wouldn’t have to.
To his surprise, she skittered back from his touch, and her eyes, when she turned to him, gleamed suspiciously. She wouldn’t quite look at him, though she carefully tipped her face so he could easily see her.
“I want you to go back to Boston,” she said.
“I am going back,” Conall said, puzzled. Had he misunderstood? “But I’ll be gone less than a week. I’ve already got the lawyers drawing up the paperwork I’ll need to sign and... Gizelle?”
“I want you to stay in Boston. You shouldn’t come back.”
Conall stared at her mouth, willing it to different shapes.
“I don’t understand,” he said. When he reached again for her hand, she reluctantly gave it to him.
If the rush of sound was usually overwhelming, it was even worse this time, making him wince at the scale of intensity. He twined his fingers into hers, and when he concentrated, he could tune out the worst of it.
Gizelle raised tearful eyes to him. “I wish I could already write,” she said. “I would have written you a letter and gotten it all right and not have to think about how to say things when all I want to do is run.”
“Why do you want to run?” Conall had to ask. “What changed? Why do you want me to go away?” The obvious occurred to him. “My mother. My mother convinced you I’d be better off in Boston.”
Worse than that, he recognized now that Aideen taken the time to win Gizelle’s trust, to best betray it. At that moment, he would cheerfully have throttled his own mother. Maybe he could convince the Shifting Sands staff to make good on their myriad of threats and save him the trouble.
“You have a life in Boston,” Gizelle reminded him softly. “An important business. Important friends. Opportunity you shouldn’t waste. I... don’t want to keep you from better things.”
Those were his mother’s words all right.
His elk offered to drive his mother from their herd... and Conall was half-sure he was serious.
Conall was more than half-sure he would take the offer at that moment, looking at the raw pain in Gizelle’s face.
But she hadn’t run.
“My life is on this island,” he assured her. “And the most important opportunity I will ever have is right in front of me. As for friends...” he had to laugh dryly, thinking about the curious, quirky staff of Shifting Sands, and the way they had opened their arms to him.
There was no comparison to the callous, self-important dandies he’d thought were friends in the city. They had been his friends when he was a rising star, left him when his world came crashing down, and come crawling back for awkward favors when he rebuilt himself and clawed some success from the ashes of his career. The Deaf community of Boston had been welcoming, but he had been too bitter and angry to accept their offers of friendship.
Here, on this strange island, they didn’t care if he was famous, or if he was rich, or that he was deaf. As long as he loved Gizelle, they would accept him without judgment.
And Conall could imagine doing nothing else. “My friends are already here.”
“What if I never remember anything?” Gizelle cried. “What if I never find out where I came from?”
“None of that matters,” Conall said sincerely.
Her eyes were dark behind the tears: aching, ancient pools. “But I’m never going to be normal, Conall. I’m all mixed up in my head, and even if I learn everything, I am never going to be ordinary. I’m... broken. And I don’t think I will ever be fixed.”
“You aren’t broken,” Conall started.
“I am,” Gizelle interrupted, as fiercely as she’d ever said anything to him.
Just as fiercely, Conall replied, “You are not a thing to be fixed. You are person. A beautiful, clever, caring person who deserves to be loved. And I love you.”
He took a deep breath, and tucked a loose lock of her hair back from her face. “No, you may not ever be normal, but I hope I can make you happy, because you make me whole. Just the way you are.”
The tears welling in her dark eyes spilled over. “I cry too much,” she whimpered.