Susan Wiggs - Map of the Heart

The word please echoed over and over in her head. She begged for this to not be happening. Please. Please not this. Please not Julie.

Fourteen, smart, funny, quirky, she was Camille’s whole world. If something happened to her, the world would end. I would simply end, thought Camille with rock-solid certainty. I would cease to exist. My life would be kaput. Over . Sans espoir, as Papa would say.

The coast road bisected the flatlands embraced parenthetically between the teeming mystery of the Chesapeake Bay, and the endless, vast expanse of the Atlantic. Fringed by sand dunes filled with native bird rookeries, the bay curved inward, framing the crashing Atlantic and forming one of the best surf beaches on the eastern seaboard. It was there, on this stunningly beautiful sugar-sand beach that drew tourists every year, that Julie’s accident had occurred.

Camille accelerated yet again, on the home stretch. Five minutes later, she careened into the parking lot of the medical center. The place held both distant and recent memories for her. She leaped from the car, hitting the ground at a run.

“Julie Adams,” she said to the woman at the reception desk. “She was brought in from surf rescue.”

The receptionist consulted her screen. “Curtain area seven,” she said. “Around to the right.”

Camille knew where that was. She ran past the memorial wall—the Dr. Jace Adams Memorial Wall, which never failed to pierce her heart with remembrances.

She missed Julie’s father every single day, but never more sharply than when she was scared. Other women could turn to their husbands when disaster struck, but not Camille. She could turn only to the sweetest of memories. In the blink of an eye, she had found and lost the love of her life. Jace would remain forever in the shadows of her memory, too distant to comfort her when she was terrified.

Which was pretty much all the time.

She hastened over to the curtain area, desperate to see her daughter. She caught a glimpse of curly dark hair, a delicate hand lying limp. “Julie,” she said, rushing to the side of the wheeled bed.

The others present parted to let her near. It was a singular nightmare to see her daughter hooked up to monitors, with medical personnel surrounding her. Julie was sitting up, a C-spine collar around her neck, several printed bands on her wrist, an IV in her arm, and an annoyed expression on her face. “Mom,” she said. “I’m okay.”

That was all Camille needed to hear—her daughter’s voice, saying those words. Her insides melted as relief unfurled her nerves.

“Sweetheart, how do you feel? Tell me everything.” Camille devoured Julie with her eyes. Did she look paler than usual? Was she in pain? Not really, Camille observed. She was wearing her annoyed teenager face.

“Like I said, I’m okay.” Julie punctuated the statement with a classic roll of the eyes.

“Mrs. Adams.” A doctor in seafoam-green scrubs and a white lab coat approached her. “I’m Dr. Solvang. I’ve been taking care of Julie.”

Like a good ER doc, Solvang went calmly and methodically through the explanation. He looked her in the eye and offered short, clear statements. “Julie reports coming off her rescue board when she was trying to knee-paddle around a buoy during a speed drill. She got caught up in an undercurrent. Julie, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“You mean a riptide?” Camille glared at the coach, who hovered nearby. Hadn’t he been watching? Wasn’t avoiding riptides the first lesson of surf rescue?

“Apparently, yes,” said the doctor. “Coach Swanson was able to bring Julie to shore. At that point, she was unresponsive.”

“Oh my God.” Unresponsive . Camille could not abide the image in her head. “Julie … I don’t understand. How did this happen? You weren’t even supposed to be in surf rescue.” She took a breath. “Which we’ll talk about later.”

“Coach Swanson brought her in and performed CPR, and the water she’d aspirated came up. She came around immediately and was brought here for evaluation.”

“So you’re saying my daughter drowned.”

“I got knocked off my board, is all.”

“What? Knocked off? My God—”

“I mean, I fell …” Julie said, her eyes darting around the curtain area.

“The contusion should heal just fine on its own,” Dr. Solvang said.

“What contusion?” Camille wanted to grab the guy by his crisp white lapels and shake him. “She hit her head?” She touched Julie’s chin, looking for the injury amid Julie’s dark salt-encrusted curls. There was a knot at her hairline above one eye. “How did you hit your head?”

Julie’s glance skated away. She lightly touched the damp, saltencrusted hair above her temple.

“We’ve done a neural assessment every ten minutes,” said the nurse. “Everything is normal.”

“Weren’t you wearing a safety cap?” Camille asked. “How did you get a contusion?”

“Mom, I don’t know, okay? It all happened really fast. Do me a favor and stop freaking out.”

Surliness was a new thing with Julie. Camille had started noticing it earlier in the school year. At the moment, her surliness was a hopeful sign. It meant she was feeling normal. “Now what?” Camille asked the doctor. “Are you going to admit her?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No need. The discharge papers are already being prepared.”

She melted a little with relief. “I need a phone. I dashed out of the house without mine, and I need to call my mother.”

Julie indicated her Bethany Bay Barracudas team bag. “You can use mine to call Gram.”

Camille found it and dialed her mother.

“Hey, you,” said Cherisse Vandermeer. “Did school get out early today?”

“Mom, it’s me,” said Camille. “Using Julie’s phone.”

“I thought you would be buried in your darkroom all day.”

The darkroom. Camille had an “oh shit” moment, but thrust it away in favor of the more immediate matter.

“I’m at the hospital,” Camille told her. “Julie was brought to the ER.”

“Oh, dear heavenly days. Is she all right? What happened?”

“She’s okay. She had an accident in surf rescue class. Just got here myself.”

There was an audible gasp. “I’ll be right over.”

“I’m all right, Gram,” Julie said loudly. “Mom’s freaking out, though.”

Now Camille heard a deep, steadying breath on the other end of the line. “I’m sure it’s going to be all right. I’ll see you there in ten minutes. Did they say what—”

The call dropped. Cell-phone signals were iffy this low on the peninsula.

For the first time, Camille took a moment to look around the curtain area. Principal Drake Larson had shown up. Drake—her ex-boyfriend—looked utterly professional in a checked shirt and tie, knife pleats in his pants. But the rings of sweat in his armpits indicated he was anything but calm.

Drake should have been perfect for her, but not long ago, she’d admitted—first to herself, then to Drake—that their relationship was over. He still called her, though. He kept hinting that he wanted to see her again, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by turning him down.

She’d tried for months to find her way into loving Drake. He was a good guy, gentlemanly and kind, nice-looking, sincere. Yet despite her efforts, there was no spark, no heart-deep sense that they belonged together. With a sense of defeat, she realized she was never going to get there with him. She was ready to close that short and predictable chapter of her utterly uninteresting love life. Breaking it off with him had been an exercise in diplomacy, since he was the principal of her daughter’s high school.