The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners by Luanne Rice Page A

another word. All the anger she might have once expected to see in Taylor’s face showed up in Alexander’s as he shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway. Lyra wondered why she didn’t feel triumphant, joyous—she was with the man she loved, not her mother’s Mr. Right.
    “You sent me a statue for the garden,” he said. “But there’s no garden without you. There never was. Please come home with me, Lyra. Marry me.”
    “What if it goes wrong?” she asked, looking up at Taylor.
    “And what if it doesn’t?” he asked, kissing her again.
    Now, sitting on the balcony of her house on Capri, she pictured Pell. The expression she’d seen in her eyes last night, that extraordinary seriousness, had come straight from Taylor. Two people who trusted themselves, who took charge of life, who knew a little rough weather couldn’t keep them from what needed to be done.
    Lyra stared at the stars over the Bay of Naples, closed her eyes, saw Taylor gazing back at her. In the end, he’d been the one to flinch. His steadiness hadn’t held. Everyone had a breaking point, even someone filled with as much love as Taylor Davis.

Seven

    S itting outside for breakfast, Lyra served fresh-squeezed orange juice to Pell. They both drank espresso. Lyra watched her daughter butter her toast, add some wild strawberry jam, take the first bite. It felt so simple and regular, so everyday, nothing momentous, but somehow the best summer morning Lyra had had in over ten years.
    “Did you have a good time last night?” Lyra asked.
    “It was great. I love Max,” Pell said.
    Pell finished her coffee, and Lyra went inside to make some more. She paused in the living room, watching Pell as she thought herself unobserved: sitting in the shade, staring out at the water, lost in a dream.
    “May I ask you something?” Pell asked when Lyra walked out, refilled their cups.
    “Of course,” Lyra said.
    “Is the reason you hate Rafe,” Pell asked, “because of how you felt about Christina?”
    “I don’t hate him,” Lyra said.
    “He told me what happened,” Pell said. “He said he let his grandmother die. What did he mean by that?”
    Lyra set down her coffee cup. A pair of hummingbirds darted into the bougainvillea cascading down the terrace wall. She watched them hover and feed. The morning had been so sweet; she didn’t want to upset it with this.
    “Max left him with Christina one day,” Lyra said. “Rafe was supposed to watch her, keep her safe. But he didn’t, and she wandered away.”
    “Where?”
    “Just into the yard,” Lyra said. She closed her eyes, remembering the day. “She was so frail. She fell in the garden, and broke her hip. And she never recovered. The doctor said the fall shortened her life.”
    “What was he doing when she fell?” Pell asked, her voice soft with shock.
    “He was high,” she said.
    “On what?”
    “Her medication, among other things. But other drugs too. He bought them from someone down at the marina. He’d been kicked out of school. That’s how he wound up here—his father couldn’t handle him anymore. David thought if he got out of New York, away from his friends there, things might get better.”
    Pell seemed to take that in. Lyra had a bucking feeling inside, just saying the words: his father couldn’t handle him anymore . Was Pell thinking of herself, that Lyra had done the same to her as Rafe’s father had to him? Lyra knew that was one reason she couldn’t stand even seeing the boy. He reminded her so much of her own failure.
    “What’s his father like?” Pell asked.
    “He’s got a very demanding job,” Lyra said. “High finance, Bank of Kensington, that kind of thing. He runs the New York office, flies back and forth to London a lot. Other countries too. He’s a director of the bank, and they have offices around the world.”
    Pell stared at her, so many things going on in her eyes. Lyra wished she could read her mind.
    “And Rafe’s mother died when he