“It's not because of that,” Rose said, her voice falling to a whisper as she dropped her fork on her plate. Her eyes got big, and tears pooled on the bottom rims. “It's just that I want to call him something else.”

“What do you want to call him?” Lily asked.

Liam already knew. Lily could tell, because she felt him squeeze her hand.

“Daddy,” Rose said.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Patrick Murphy went to the hospital as soon as he heard. When he first got there, Maeve was not in her room. They had taken her down for some tests, and then she had physical therapy. So he sat in the chair by the side of the bed where she had lain so long, waiting for her to return.

He thought of Marisa and Sam, the nursing sisters. He thought of how many people they had helped, and it stung him to think he'd been unable to bring them back together. As Patrick stared at Maeve's hospital bed, he knew that these were all casualties of the same man; he blamed Edward Hunter for all of it.

On the Major Crime Squad, he had investigated many comas. Blunt-force trauma, poisoning, falls from high places, the gamut. He had observed coma patients go through stages. When they got to the place of drawing inward, trying to move into a fetal position, Patrick had seen very few of them come back. So, waiting for Maeve, he knew that her waking up was a miracle. But he didn't know what she had lost, whether she'd still be the same Maeve he knew.

When he heard the wheels coming down the corridor, he jumped up. He expected to see her on a gurney. Honestly, he expected to see a shrunken old woman who had aged a lot, who had lost ground. When he saw her in a wheelchair, sitting up, her white hair neatly brushed and her blue eyes sharp and bright, he felt himself start to grin.

“Well, if you're not a sight for sore eyes,” he said, grinning wider.

“Patrick Murphy,” she said, smiling just as much.

He bent down to peck her cheek, but she put her arms around his neck and gave him a long hug. Good thing too. He buried his face in her shoulder for a few seconds, so she wouldn't see tears in his eyes.

“What was that for?” he asked when she stopped.

“You found her,” Maeve said.

“Mara?”

“Her name is Lily now,” Maeve said.

Patrick chuckled. “Maeve, Maeve, Maeve,” he said. “You sure do get with the program faster than any other eighty-three-year-old I know.”

“Well, she doesn't want to live in the past,” Maeve said. “Who can blame her? Have you met Rose?”

“I sure have. Your great-granddaughter.”

“She's beautiful. I can't wait to get home to Hubbard's Point, so I can watch her swimming and crabbing on the rocks. And Liam? You've met him?”