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‘mother’s tongue.’ ”
    She giggled. “Yes, I recognize the voice.”
    Next he took her to an artesian village where wood-carvers were busy shaping everything from small animals to large pieces of furniture from pieces of mahogany. April pronounced it “major cool.”
    Brandon bought her several hand-carved combs, which she immediately used to sweep up her hair and secure it off her neck. He also bought her a hand-carved necklace.
    “You shouldn’t buy me so much.”
    “You’re fun to buy for,” he said, remembering the many small gifts he’d bought for his mother in an effort to lift her spirits when dark depression overtook her. “Here, let me fasten it for you.”
    He stepped behind her and slipped the necklace around her neck. He was struggling with the clasp when he noticed the line of blue dots at the base of her neck. “Who’s been drawing on you?”
    She stiffened. “What do you mean?”
    “There’s this pattern of little blue specks on your skin. Sort of like blue freckles.”
    She jerked the combs from her hair and let it tumble down around her shoulders. She knew what he’d seen—the tiny tattoos the radiologist had made when she’d begun her radiation treatments the year before. But she couldn’t tell him; she couldn’t. “Birthmarks,” she fibbed. “Someone in the family was a blueblood.”
    He eyed her, uncertain as to his response. The dots were too orderly, too mathematical and precise to be a random pattern from birth. Yet her message in her attempt to make a joke about them was plain enough: Don’task. “Gee, I thought for a minute you’d been abducted by aliens.”
    “I was, but I escaped,” she said, glad he didn’t press her for a serious answer.
    “Now that I’ve seen your funny blue freckles, you may as well put your hair back up,” he told her. “It’s hot.”
    She complied, lifting her hair and fastening it with the wooden combs, careful to face him as she worked. “Now where?” she asked, pretending the previous conversation had never happened.
    “I know where there’s a waterfall, but we’ll have to hike to it. You want to go?”
    She did.
    She followed him along a partially hidden trail, the sound of falling water growing in intensity. “It’s not much farther,” Brandon said.
    Just when she was certain they’d never get there, Brandon moved aside overhanging brush and she saw a clearing. Beyond it she saw the waterfall tumbling from a height of rocks and into a stone-littered pool where the water was so clear that she could see all the way to the bottom. Where the falls hit, waterboiled up white and frothy, like a milk shake. The air felt cool and moist with water droplets.
    “Look,” April cried, pointing. “I see a rainbow.” Ribbons of color arched over the tumbling water.
    “It’s the way light hits water droplets,” Brandon said.
    “Is not. It’s fairy dust.”
    He laughed. “Come on. Take off your shoes, we’ll sit on that rock.”
    She followed him out onto a jutting rock shelf where water lapped against the cool stone. She dangled her feet and sucked in her breath. “It’s cold.”
    “It’s right out of a spring. Nice, huh?”
    “Very nice. Thanks for bringing me.”
    “I discovered it one day when I was hiking. I’ve never brought anybody here to see it with me.”
    April realized that in his way, he was telling her that she was special to him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about his veiled compliment, so she changed the subject. “You hike a lot, don’t you?”
    “The whole island is only twenty-three miles long, and when you’ve lived here aslong as I have, you get to know it pretty well.”
    “How long have you lived here? And why?”
    “I’ve been here since I was seven. My father’s in importing and exporting. He travels a lot, and this is a good jumping-off place to South America and the rest of the Caribbean.”
    “So you and your mom spent a lot of time by yourselves?”
    At the mention of his mother,