Page 8 of Love Conquers All

“I do not,” Graham said although he was pretty sure she was right.

Chapter Five

April 1998

Sylvie was thirteen years old when her father shattered a vase across the floor. They were in the dining room of The House on Nantucket, the bed-and-breakfast he ran from next door, and the shards of the vase glinted from all corners, reflecting a father and daughter who simply couldn’t get along. But what was Sylvie’s crime this time? Oh, Sylvie was sick and didn’t want to go to school, and James just could not deal with that. So the vase. So the volatility. Sylvie burst into tears and ran out of the inn, sniffling the entire way.

She really was so sick. She hated that she couldn’t control that.

Maybe if her father wasn’t so nervous about what the neighbors would think, James might have come out on the front porch and screamed at Sylvie to come back. But Sylvie knew how wary Nantucketers were of island gossip. The sound of a broken vase was something easily explained. Something had fallen, and it was an accident. Nobody would have to know. Evenif they suspected that James was like that, they would never have official proof.

Sylvie should have known better than to ask her father if she could stay home. But her cough had turned rather horribly into what felt like the flu, and she was smack-dab in the middle of puberty, and—worst of all—her best friend Caitlin had just decided to be best friends with someone else. She’d ditched Sylvie pretty publicly, moving from Sylvie’s lunch table over to Tiffany’s, where they’d giggled together for the rest of the half hour. Sylvie felt more alone than she ever had, including the era immediately following her mother’s death. At least she’d had Caitlin back then.

Sylvie ran from the inn all the way to the combined middle school-high school about a half mile away. When she reached it, she gasped for breath that didn’t come. It turned out running like that hadn’t been a good idea when she was this sick. She staggered to a halt and coughed until it felt like her lungs were going to fly out of her throat.

When she pulled her head up, she found the gym teacher a few strides away. He pointed at the front door. “I think it’s time for the nurse?” His eyes showed no kindness, but kindness was a rare thing at school. All the teachers were paid too little and stretched thin.

Sylvie inched down the hallway. The first bell rang, and everyone scattered to their classrooms, clutching books. Sylvie spotted Caitlin far down the hall, throwing her head back at a joke some guy told her. That was another thing Caitlin seemed to do now: date boys or at least know them. When they’d been close, Caitlin and Sylvie had regarded boys as another species, one they weren’t particularly interested in. Sylvie didn’t feel so much betrayed by this as mystified.

At thirteen, she was sure she’d have to wade through the devastating reality of high school on her own.

But in the nurse’s office, she found she wasn’t the only student ill that day. As she lay on one of the long white beds, she heard a sniffling and coughing on the opposite side of a sheet between them. The nurse told whoever it was to lie down and get comfortable. “I’ll call your mom,” she said.

Sylvie’s heart surged with longing. How she wished that the nurse could call her mom. How she wished her mother were alive to come pick her up.

Sometimes she caught herself wishing her father had died instead—and then hating herself for having that thought. She didn’t want anyone to be dead. She just wanted things to go back to how they’d been.

The nurse disappeared to contact whoever’s mom, then returned to talk to Sylvie about her flu-like symptoms. “We really shouldn’t keep you here,” she said.

Sylvie swallowed the lump in her throat. “My dad’s too busy today. He can’t, like, pick me up.”And I really don’t want to go home. Please, don’t make me go home.

The nurse scrutinized her and took a step back. “Let’s hold off on calling him for now. Maybe you’ll feel better in an hour or so?”

“Yes,” Sylvie said, her heartbeat quickening. It was like the nurse could read her mind.

Sylvie guessed that reading minds was a part of the job description of being a school nurse. At thirteen, kids didn’t know how to express themselves.

Sylvie lay back and closed her eyes. Her fever made the room spin.

The nurse left the office. Sylvie could hear whoever was behind the sheet breathing heavily. Then they coughed. Sylvie echoed the cough, then put her hand over her mouth.

“Who is it?” a boy’s voice called out to her. “Who else is dying in here with me?”

At first, Sylvie couldn’t place it. At first, she wanted to pretend to be asleep.

“I can hear you breathing,” the boy said.

“It’s Sylvie Bruckson,” she said, embarrassment filling her chest.

“Ah. Hi.” There was a calm energy to the boy’s voice. It reminded Sylvie of lying on the grass in the summertime.

“And you?” Sylvie asked.

“You can’t tell?”

Sylvie felt a game coming on. Her lips wiggled into a smile. “Um. Michael Jordan?”

“Close,” he said. “Keep trying.”

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