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“Why don’t you let me do that?” Sam sat down next to me.
I handed him my phone as Norman climbed in my lap, licked my chin. I put my arms around the little guy, rested my cheek on his head. “Thank you, Norman.”
“Dez is on his way.” Sam handed my phone back to me.
I gave him a sad smile and kept wiping the tears as they refilled.
“It’ll be okay, Ava.”
I wished I believed that, but I didn’t. This suddenly felt likean ending, and I didn’t know how I was possibly going to be able to say goodbye.
I drew in a shuddery breath, feeling shaky and weak. I’d pushed myself beyond my limits today, and I was paying for it.
Sam clipped the leash on Norman, then dropped his forearms on top of his knees. “I meant what I said earlier, about truth always being a good thing, even when it’s hard. I suppose I ought to practice what I preach.”
I glanced at him, my heart in my eyes, because I knew, Iknew,he was only trying to distract me from my pain.
“I know you’ve been curious about me,” he said. “My secret life. Well, I’m a songwriter. Started writing when I was in high school and had my first heartbreak. Sang the song at a school talent show and caught the eye of the prettiest girl around. Eventually, we fell in love, got married, and moved to a suburb of Nashville, looking to make it big.”
As he spoke, he faced the water, not me. I patted Norman’s head and listened.
“Took a few years of barely scraping by but I finally got a break. Then another. And another. Signed a nice publishing deal under the name Sam Finch, which is my middle name. Quite a few of my songs were hits. My songwriting demos started making waves and one thing led to another and I found myself touring as a warm-up act. After a while, I was doing gigs on my own, but I wasn’t happy. I loved the music but not the fame and all that came with it. The touring, especially, was brutal. The constant promotion was too much. I wanted quiet. Peace. I wanted a small house and a big family and beach lullabies.”
I ran a hand down Norman’s back. “That sounds pretty good to me, too.”
He faced me, and I saw great big melancholy in his eyes. “It turns out it was the opposite of what my wife wanted. She loved the fame. The parties. The social climbing. I tried—I really tried to make it work, but the longer I was on the road, the more my creativity suffered. I stopped hearing the songs. I stopped hearing the music. I stopped being me.”
The heartbreak in his voice made my eyes fill with tears once again. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’d been divorced for a year when she and her new boyfriend, a big-name singer, went to some fancy party where she partied a little too hard. She went home that night and collapsed. Norman was there with her. And he barked and barked and barked all night. Finally someone called the building manager, who did a well check and found her body. She’d been gone for a while at that point. Norman had barked so hard that night that he damaged his vocal cords and lost his voice, so to speak. He hasn’t barked with noise since. Only air comes out when he tries.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He has the sweetest bark. I call it aquabark. It’s a mix between a quack and a bark.”
Sam shook his head. “No sound comes out when he barks.”
As I let that sink in, Norman wagged his tail at me, and I took his face in my hands and booped his long nose with mine.
I blinked away tears and said, “He does make sound, but there’s a chance only I can hear him. I’ve had epilepsy since I was four years old. When I was nine, I had a particularly bad seizure. It’s what the medical world used to call a grand mal seizure. It almost killed me. When I came out of it, I was in the hospital, and I could hear things others couldn’t. A heartbeat from across the room. A conversation down the hall. And my sense of smell was heightened as well. The doctors ran many tests, but no one could tell me why it happened or if my senses would ever return to normal.”
The monarch with the odd coloring fluttered past us. Its fourth wing had started to turn white. Its flight pattern was smooth, even, as it glided through the air.
What did the changing wings mean?
Sam took hold of my hand, held it tightly. His skin was warm, his fingers callused. “Epilepsy? Why didn’t you tell me, Ava? Or anyone? Is that what’s been going on with you recently?”
I dug my heels into the sand. “I’m not sure what’s going on. I haven’t had any seizures here—I haven’t had any in years, actually. The doctors call it early remission. But having said that, Idon’t feel well. I have a doctor’s appointment for next week. If the epilepsy has reemerged, the sooner I restart medicine, the better.”
“But why didn’t you say anything after you nearly fainted?”
I shrugged. “I wanted to be normal. I spent most of my life being babied and secluded and left out because of my health issues. Here, I wanted to know what it was like just tolive,to be free.” I half laughed, half scoffed. “That didn’t quite go as planned. People are concerned about me here, too. I see it in their eyes. I see it in yours.”
“It’s only because we care about you. As for being normal, no you’re not. You’re anything but normal, and that’s a good thing. You’re—”
“Don’t you dare sayspecial.”
Different, I could accept. Special, though, still grated.
He laughed. “You’reamazing. Kind. Compassionate. Caring. Your smile lights up a room. The joy you feel at living life shines in your eyes. Your medical condition doesn’t define you. It’s just a small piece of the greater whole.”
