Angel Falls

Chapter Six


For four weeks, Mikaela had seen only darkness.
By the end of the first week, Liam and the children had learned the age-old truth that life went on. As much as they wanted the world to stop for them, it didn’t. Day by day, ordinary life pushed into their sterile, grieving circle, demanding, prodding. Amazingly, the sun still rose in a world without Mikaela, and hours later, it set. Thanksgiving came and went, and in the last week in November, the first snow fell.
Liam had learned that it was possible to appear to move forward when you were really standing still. As the coma dragged on, he’d had no choice. The kids went back to school; Rosa knit enough sweaters and blankets to cover everyone in town. Liam hired people to care for the horses; he paid the bills. And eventually he began seeing patients again. At first he’d only seen a few, but now he was up to a half-day schedule. He left the office at two o’clock every afternoon and sat by Mike’s bed until dinnertime. Some days Jacey showed up, some days she didn’t. Bret hadn’t yet found the courage to visit his mother, but Liam knew he would.
Liam’s patients kept him busy a few hours a day, and he thanked God for it. Because when he wasn’t working, he was waiting, watching his beautiful, cherished wife lie in a bed that had held someone else a month ago and would hold others again in the future.
He stood at his office window, staring out. Next door, the snow was beginning to stick to Mrs. Peterson’s picket fence.
In a few hours, the last elementary-school bell would ring; children would begin to gather at Turnagain Hill, dragging their sleds and inner tubes along the snow-slicked street, careening down the hill on their breathless journey to the lip of Mr. Robbin’s frog pond.
By tomorrow morning, Liam knew those same kids would wake early and race to their bedroom windows, hoping to find that their backyards were white. Parents would watch the morning news beside their shrieking children, praying silently that the buses could still make their routes. But their prayers would be drowned out by younger, more enthusiastic voices—and school would be canceled. By noon, Mrs. Sanman at the bakery would begin simmering pots of whole milk on her stove, offering free hot chocolate to anyone brave enough to venture to her street corner, and the firemen would blast water along the turnout at the end of Sasquatch Street, creating the best ice rink in the state.
Liam forgot for a second what his life had become. The urge swept through him to pick up the phone and call her, Hey, Mike, come quick, it’s snowing, but he caught himself just in time.
She loved the snow, his Mikaela, loved the crisp, pure taste of a single snowflake and the tiny spray of icy water that was left on her face when she came inside. She loved mittens with fake fur trim and black angora cowled hoods that turned an ordinary housewife into Grace Kelly. She loved watching her children eat Cup-A-Soup at the kitchen table while snow melted from their bangs and slid down their pinkened cheeks.
He closed the curtains, went back to his desk, and sat down, stacking the last of the charts in a neat pile. He knew that in a matter of minutes, his nurse, Carol Audleman, would come to tell him what time it was. As if he didn’t know, as if he hadn’t been waiting for and dreading this exact minute all day.
A knock at the door. “Doctor?” Carol pushed the partially open door and stepped into the small, darkened room. “It’s one o’clock. Marian was your last patient for the day. We scheduled a short day today, because …” She glanced away. “Well, you know why.”
He smiled tiredly, knowing she would see the weariness in his face, wishing he could change it.
“Midge called around noon. She left a lasagna and salad on your kitchen table.”
That was something else Liam had learned. People didn’t know how else to help—so they cooked. This town had banded together to help the Campbells through this terrible time, and they would remain at the ready for a long time. Liam was grateful for their help, but sometimes at night, as he wrote out thank-you notes, the pain was so flashing and deep that he had to put down his pen. Every baking dish and salad bowl reminded them all that Mikaela wasn’t home … that she couldn’t do the things she’d once done.
“Thanks, Carol.” He pushed back in his chair, got up, and reached for his down parka, grabbing it off the hook on the wall. Shrugging out of his white coat, he carefully laid it over the chair-back and followed Carol out of the office, past the empty waiting room. At the door, he patted her shoulder, then went out into the cold.
As he drove toward the hospital, he passed the hand-painted, hand-carved wooden sign that read: GOOD-BYE FROM LAST BEND. HOME OF THE GRIZZLIES, 1982 STATE B-8 FOOTBALL CHAMPS. A banner hung suspended across the road, advertising Glacier Days, the annual winter festival.
Coming soon … don’t forget …
He pulled into the hospital parking lot. The medical center was unusually quiet today. Snow covered everything now, turning the cars into white humps. He parked in his spot and reached under the seat for the two things he’d brought, a photo album and a small wrapped box. Without reaching for his coat, he flipped up the flannel collar of his shirt and headed for the hospital.
The center’s electronically monitored glass doors whooshed open. Inside, a few candy stripers were putting up the first Christmas decorations.
He paused at the threshold, then forced himself to plunge into the antiseptic environment that used to be as welcoming to him as his own living room, but now brought him instantly to despair.
He nodded hellos to the familiar faces but never stopped, never slowed. Too many of the doctors and nurses wouldn’t meet Liam’s eyes.
They no longer believed that Mikaela would wake up … or if she did, they thought, whispering among themselves late at night in the midst of a surprisingly quiet shift, she wouldn’t be Mikaela anymore. At best, they imagined a diminished imitation of what she had been, at worst … well, no one wanted to think about the worst possibilities.
He passed the nurses’ station and waved briefly at Sarah, the head nurse. She smiled back, and in her eyes he saw a hope that mirrored his own. Ragged, a little worn at the edges, but there all the same.
He paused at the closed door to Mikaela’s room, gathering his strength, then he turned the knob and went inside. The curtains were closed—no matter how often he opened them on his visits, he always found them closed when he returned. He walked past her bed and pulled back the blue fabric.
At last he turned to his wife. As always the first sight of her was difficult; it simultaneously made him breathe too hard and not at all. She lay as still as death on the metal-railed bed. A single strand of hair fell across one eye and stuck to her lip. Her chest rose and fell with deceptive regularity; she breathed. The only sign of life. He could see that her hair had been recently washed—it was still a little damp. The nurses took extra care of Mikaela; she’d been one of them. They’d even exchanged the utilitarian, hospital-issue gown for a soft, delicate, hand-sewn version.
He settled into the chair beside her bed. The hard, vomit-colored plastic had molded to his shape in the past weeks and was now almost comfortable.
“Heya, Mike,” he said, putting new potpourri in the dish beside her bed. Bayberry this week, to remind her of the passing of time. To let her know that Christmas was on its way.
Bit by bit, he carried out his daily ritual—the potpourri, the careful placement of one of the kids’ shirts on Mikaela’s chest, the music that seeped softly from the tape player in the corner. The Eagles’ Greatest Hits to remind her of high school. The Phantom of the Opera to remind her of the time they’d gone to Vancouver to see the show. Even the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack … just to make her smile. He did anything and everything he could think of to engage her senses and remind her that life was still here, that they were still here, her loving family, waiting for her to open her eyes and join them once again.
In the corner, the small electric pond he’d placed on a wooden box pumped the music of falling water into the room.
“Hey, Mike …” He took hold of her foot and began gently manipulating it the way the physical therapists had taught him. When he’d run through all the exercises on both legs, her ankles, and all ten toes, he reached for a bottle of expensive, perfumed body lotion and began smoothing it on her calves.
Then he set to work on her left hand, starting with the thumb. A careful, precise movement, bend … extend … bend … extend.
He set his actions to the music of his voice. “It was a quiet day at the office,” he said in a throaty voice, the only kind he seemed able to manage when he was beside her. “Jimmy McCracken came in again, this time with a marble stuck up his nose, and old Mrs. Jacobsen had another migraine. Of course, she really just wanted to talk. Since Robbie and Janine moved to Chelan, she’s lonely. But she brought me some of her excellent cranberry rum cake. Remember how fast you used to sell out of that at the school bake sales?”
Across the room, the tape player clicked and changed. It was Barbra Streisand now, singing about people who needed people.
He squeezed Mike’s hand. “Remember when we danced to this song, Mike? It was in the Center Hall at the Minors’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, with that local band playing? Remember how the lead singer mangled the words and sang about peepers needing other peepers? We were laughing so hard we were crying—and you said if he said that word again, you were going to peeper in your pants?
“You were so beautiful that night, in your jeans skirt and Western blouse. I think every man in the place wished you were his. At the end of the song, I kissed you and it went on so long, you smacked me on the back and said, ‘Jesus, Lee, we’re not teenagers,’ but I felt you shiver … and for a split second, we were kids again …”
This was how his evenings were spent now. In a gentle stream of words, he poured himself into her, his heart and soul. As if she were a dying flower that needed only a tiny taste of water to lend it the strength to reach again for the sun. He talked and talked and talked, all the while searching desperately for some movement, some blink of the eye or flutter in her hand that would tell him that the heat of his voice reached the cold darkness of her world.
“Heya, Mike, I’ll bet you thought I forgot our anniversary.” He started to reach for the photo album on the bedside table, but at the last second, he drew his hand back.
It was a collection of pictures from last year’s Christmas in Schweitzer. Mike had chosen each photograph carefully to represent their vacation.
He’d been a fool to think that he could open it and look through the picture trail. Now he saw the album for what it was, a wound that, once torn open, would only seep infection and cause more pain. Instead, he glanced down at the thin, flat box beside the album.
It had been wrapped for almost two months and hidden deep in the sample drawer in his office. He’d been so damned excited on the day he’d decided what to give her for their tenth anniversary. He and Carol had scheduled a half day at the office, so Liam could spend this special day alone with his wife.
“I got us tickets on the Concorde, Mike. Paris …” For New Year’s. His voice cracked. For years they’d talked about Paris, dreamed together about New Year’s at the Ritz. Why had he taken so long to get tickets? It wasn’t money, it wasn’t even time. Plenty of friends had offered to watch the kids for two weeks at winter break. It was … life. Mike’s saddle club activities and her horse training; Jacey’s volleyball, skiing, and violin recitals; Bret’s Little League and hockey practice; Liam’s patients.
Just life. They’d blithely thrown their line of dreams out again and again, reeling in nothing but lost chances and missed opportunities. Why hadn’t they realized how precious every moment was? Why hadn’t they seen that one fall from an ordinarily gentle horse could take their future away?
He stood and grabbed the bed rail, lowering it. The railing fell with a clattering whine and clunked into the bottom position. Slowly he climbed into bed with her. Tucking one arm behind her head, he drew her close, being careful not to pull out her IVs. Her body was limp and seemed frail, though she’d lost only a pound or two.
He held on to her lifeless hand, squeezing gently so that she would know he was here. “Help me, Mike. Squeeze my hand, blink your eyes. Do something. Show me how to reach you …”
He lay there for almost an hour. When he next tried to speak, nothing came out except the broken, rusty moan that held her name.
“Dad?”
For a second, Liam thought his wife had spoken, but her hand was limp as death and her eyes were sealed. Slowly he turned to see Jacey standing in the open doorway. She was holding a cake.
“Hi, honey.” He climbed awkwardly out of the bed and slumped into his chair.
She moved toward him, her long black hair swinging gently against the oversized flannel work shirt that swallowed her lithe, sixteen-year-old body. Her face was winter pale, and what little color her cheeks might have produced was sucked clean away by the sight of her mother. “It’s your tenth anniversary. You and Mom always made such a big deal out of it …” Her words fell away, and he knew she was looking to him for reinforcement.
It was difficult, but he nodded and smiled. “You’re right. She would have wanted us to celebrate.”
Jacey set the cake on the table by the bed. It was a round, two-layered affair with pink butter-cream frosting, the same cake that Suzie Sanman at the Lazy Susan Bake Shop had concocted for them every year. Only this year, instead of the normal Happy Anniversary Mike and Liam, it was blank on top. Liam wondered how long Suzie had spent trying to think of something festive and hopeful to write before she gave up.
Jacey moved closer to the bed and leaned over her mother. “Happy anniversary, Mom.” She reached out a shaking hand and brushed a lock of hair from Mikaela’s face. “Can you believe it has been ten years since we married Liam?”
She turned and smiled at him, and in that instant, she was six years old again, a gap-toothed first grader who’d fallen off the jungle gym and sprained her finger. He ached to make everything better for her, but no amount of colored Band-Aids or knock-knock jokes would make her smile now.
“How is she today?”
“The same.”
Jacey swiped a finger along the side of the cake, drawing up a big glob of pink frosting. She held it beneath Mikaela’s nose. “Can you smell the cake, Mom? It’s Suzie’s best vanilla cream, with real Grand Marnier in the frosting. Just the way you liked … like it.”
The tiny fissure in her voice was almost more than Liam could bear. “Here, pull up a chair. How was school today?”
Jacey tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “Good. I aced the math test.”
“Of course you did.”
She looked at him, then turned away. He noticed the quick, nervous way she bit down on her lip—a trait she’d inherited from her mother.
“What’s the matter, Jace?”
It was a minute before she answered. “The winter dance is coming up. Mark asked me if I wanted to go.”
“You know it’s okay. Whatever you want to do is fine.”
“I know, but …”
He turned to her. “But what?”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Mom and I talked a lot about this dance. We were going to go into Bellingham to get a dress. She …” Her voice snagged on emotion and fell to a whisper. “She said she’d never been to a prom, and she wanted me to look like a princess.”
Liam couldn’t imagine his beautiful wife sitting at home on prom night. How come he didn’t know that about her? It was another of his wife’s many secrets. “Come on, Jace. It’ll break her heart if she finds out you didn’t go.”
“No fair, Dad.” She looked away, then, very softly, she said, “If she wakes up.”
Liam wanted, just once, to hold Jacey and say, I’m scared, too. What if this is it … or what if she wakes up and doesn’t know us … or if she never wakes up at all? But those were his fears, and it was his job to keep the lights on for his family.
“Jacey, your mother is going to wake up. We have to keep believing that. She needs us to keep believing. This is no time to go soft on her. We’re a family of warriors, and we don’t run from a fight. Do we?”
“It’s getting … harder.”
“It wouldn’t be called a test of faith if it were easy.”
She looked at him. “I heard you last night. You were talking to Grandma about Mom. You said no one knew why she didn’t wake up. After Grandma left, I saw you go to the piano. I was going to say something, then I heard you crying.”
“Oh.” He sagged forward in his chair. There was no point in lying to her. It had been a bad night, the kind where his armor felt as if it were crafted of cellophane. Remembering their anniversary had done him in. He’d sat at the elegant Steinway in the living room, aching to play again, needing to recapture the music that had once lived inside him. But ever since the accident, he’d been empty; the music that had sustained him through so much of his life had simply vanished. Though he’d never said so to Jacey, she knew; perhaps she’d noticed even before he had. The house that once had been filled with Bach and Beethoven and Mozart was as silent these days as a hospital room.
Music had always been his release. In the Bronx, when he’d felt as if he was losing his soul, he’d played angry, pounding music that screamed that the world was unfair, and in the bleak days while his father was fading into a stranger, he’d played quiet, elegiac melodies that reminded him of the sweetness of life, of the fullness of promises made. But now, when he needed that solace most of all, there was only this aching emptiness inside him.
He gave Jacey the only truth he could. “Sometimes it catches up with me and grabs so hard I can’t remember how to breathe. I sort of … fall through the floorboards of my fear, but I always land here, at her bedside, holding her hand and loving her.”
Jacey looked at Liam with a sadness that wouldn’t have been possible just a few short weeks ago. “I want to tell her I’m sorry for all the times she looked sad and I didn’t care.”
“She loves you and Bret with all her heart and soul, Jacey. You know that. And when she wakes up, she’s going to want to see those dance photos. If you don’t go, we’ll be eating macaroni and cheese out of a box for months. No one can hold a grudge like your mother.” He smiled gently. “Now, I may not know much about shopping for girl stuff in Bellingham, but I know about style because Mike has bucketloads. Remember the dress your mom wore to the Policemen’s Ball last year? She went all the way to Seattle for that dress, and to be honest, it cost more than my first car. You’d look perfect in it.”
“The Richard Tyler. I forgot all about it.”
“She wore it with that pretty sparkly clip in her hair. You could do that. Grandma could help you. Or maybe Gertrude at the Sunny and Shear salon could help. I know I’m not as good at this as your mom, but—”
Jacey threw her arms around him. “She couldn’t have done any better, Daddy. Honest.”
He turned to his wife, forced a smile. “You see what’s happening, Mike? You’re forcing me to give fashion advice to our sixteen-year-old. Hell, the last time I picked out my own clothes, bell-bottoms were in fashion.”
“Dad, they’re in fashion again.”
“See? If you don’t wake up soon, honey, I might authorize that eyebrow piercing she’s been asking for.”
They sat together, talking to each other and to the woman lying motionless in the bed before them. They talked as if it were a normal day, hoping all the while that some snippet of their conversation, some word or sound or touch, would sneak through Mike’s darkness and remind her that she wasn’t alone.
At three o’clock, the bedside phone rang, jangling through one of Jacey’s stories.
Liam reached for the phone and answered, “Hello.”
“Hi, Liam. Sorry to bother you. It’s Dawn at the school.”
He listened for a minute, then said, “I’ll be right down,” and hung up. He turned to Jacey. “It’s Bret. He’s in trouble again. I’ve got to go down to the school. You want to come?”
“Nope. Grandma’s going to pick me up here after her errands.”
“Okay.” Liam scooted back in his chair, hating the fingernail-on-chalkboard sound of the metal legs scraping across linoleum. As he stood up, he leaned over his wife. “I’ve got to go, Mike, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you, honey.” He leaned closer and kissed her slack lips, whispering, “Forever.”
Life sucks.
That’s what Bret Campbell was thinking as he sat on the hard bench in the nurse’s room. His right eye, where Billy McAllister had punched him, hurt like crazy. He was doing his very best not to cry. Everyone knew that crying was for girls and for babies, and he wasn’t either one.
Mrs. DeNormandie tapped Bret on the hand. “Hey, bruiser, why don’t you lie down? I’ll give you an ice pack for that eye. Mrs. Town just called your daddy at the hospital. He’ll be right down.” She turned to the small white fridge beneath the window and took out an ice pack. It was all floppy like a bag of peas and was the same color as the fluoride Dr. Edwards put on Bret’s teeth at checkup time. “Here you go.”
Bret leaned cautiously against the bumpy wall. He wasn’t about to lie down. What if Miranda or Katie saw him? They’d be laughing at him forever, and they already made fun of him for eating ham sandwiches and carrying a Goosebumps lunchbox to school. This morning, he’d decided that the next time Katie said something about his sandwich, he was gonna pinch her right in the fat part of her arm. Of course, he’d decided that before the fight with Billy. Now Bret figured he was going to get such a talking-to from Daddy that he didn’t dare add a girl-pinch on top of everything else.
He closed his eyes and pressed the ice pack to his throbbing eye. He could hear Mrs. D. moving around the small room, reorganizing stuff and shutting and opening doors. It sounded just like when Mommy was getting ready for dinner.
DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT.
It wasn’t like Bret wanted to think about his mommy. When he did … when he accidentally remembered things like the way she used to scratch his back while they were watching TV or the way she yelled too loud when he caught a ball during Little League or how she cuddled with him every night for ten minutes before it was really bedtime … if he thought about those things too much, it was bad. He didn’t cry so much anymore—not until night, anyway. He just sorta … froze. Sometimes whole minutes would go by and he wouldn’t notice a thing until somebody smacked him on the back or yelled at him or something. Then he’d blink awake and feel totally stupid for spacing out.
That’s what had happened at recess today.
He’d stepped out into the snowy yard, and that was all it took. It happened like that sometimes, the remembering.
All he could think about was his mom and how much she loved the snow. The next thing he knew, Billy McAllister was standing in front of him, yelling, “What’s your damned problem, Brat?”
“Sorry, Billy,” he’d mumbled, not sure what it was he’d done that made Billy mad.
“Come on, Billy,” Sharie Lindley had said, “he didn’t do anything. Besides, Mrs. Kurek told us to be nice to Bret. Remember?”
Billy’s frown hadn’t faded. “Oh, yeah. I forgot. His mom’s a vegetable. Sorry, Brat.”
All Bret remembered was the way he screamed, My mom’s no carrot, and launched himself at Billy. The next thing he knew, Mr. Monie, the principal, was there, breaking up the fight, blowing his whistle. And now Bret was here, in the nurse’s room, feeling like a geekozoid and wondering how he’d face his friends again.
“Bretster?”
Bret flinched at the familiar voice and slowly turned. “Hi, Dad.”
Dad stood in the doorway. He was so tall, he had to kind of duck his head forward, and because of that he looked … bent. His silvery blond hair was too long now—Mommy used to cut it—and it fell across his wire-rimmed glasses a little. But Bret wasn’t fooled by those bits of glass. He’d learned long ago that his daddy’s green eyes saw everything.
Mrs. DeNormandie looked up from her work. She was organizing tongue depressors in a glass jar. “Oh. Hello, Dr. Campbell.”
In the old days, Dad would have smiled at Mrs. DeNormandie and she would have smiled back, but now neither one of them smiled. “Hey, Barb,” Dad said quietly, “could you give us a few minutes?”
“Of course.” She put the tongue depressors away and quickly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
Quiet fell, the icky kind that spelled big trouble.
“How’s the eye?” Dad said finally.
Bret turned to him, letting Daddy see for himself. He dropped the ice pack onto the floor. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Dad sat down beside Bret. “Really?” he said in that we-don’t-lie-in-this-family voice.
“Okay, okay. It hurts worse than when Jacey’s cow stepped on my foot at the fair.” At his dad’s soft look, Bret almost started to cry again. If Mommy were here—
DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT.
“I guess you’ve learned the first rule of fighting. It hurts. The second rule is: It doesn’t change anything. Who started it?”
“I did.”
Dad looked surprised. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I was mad.” Bret braced himself for the horrible words: I’m disappointed in you, son.
He felt like crying already, and Dad hadn’t said anything.
And he didn’t say anything. Instead, he put his arm around Bret’s shoulder and pulled him close. Bret climbed onto his dad’s big, comfortable lap. For once, he didn’t care if he looked like a baby.
Dad brushed the hair away from Bret’s face. “That’s going to be quite a shiner. Worse than the one Ian Allen got last Fourth of July. Why did you punch Billy?”
“He’s a bully.”
“But you’re not.”
Bret knew his dad would find out. Sharie’s aunt Georgia was best friends with Ida Mae at the diner, who served lunch every day to Carol, who worked in Dad’s office. In a town like Last Bend, it would be big news that Bret Campbell punched out Billy McAllister and broke his front tooth. The only question would be why. “Billy said Mom was a vegetable.”
It seemed to take Daddy a long time to answer. “We’ve talked and talked about this, Bret. Your mom is in a coma. She’s sleeping. If you’d come down and see her—”
“I don’t wanna see her!”
“I know.” Dad sighed. “Well, come on, sport, let’s go. They might need this bench for kids with serious injuries.” He helped Bret into his puffy winter coat, then lifted him up. Bret hung on, burying his face in the warm crook of his dad’s neck, as they headed out of the school and into the softly falling snow. At the car, Dad let Bret slide down to the icy sidewalk.
He stood next to the car, waiting for his daddy to get the car unlocked. His hands were cold, so he reached into his pockets for his gloves—but they weren’t there.
It was Mommy who used to tuck mittens in Bret’s pockets Just In Case, and now they were empty.
Dad got in his side of the car, then shoved the passenger door open, and Bret got inside. When the engine turned over, the radio came on. It was playing the first Christmas song of the season, “Silent Night.”
Dad clicked the radio off, fast.
Snow pattered against the windshield, blurring the outside world. The windshield wipers came on and made two big humps through the snow. Bret stared at them—anything was better than looking at his dad right now. Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-thump. The wipers moved right and left, right and left, making exactly the same sound as a heart beating.
Dad put the car in gear and drove slowly out of the school parking lot. He turned on Glacier Way, then again on Main Street, then again on Cascade Avenue. In silence they drove past the empty parking lot of the Bean There, Done That coffee shop, past the empty front window of the Sunny & Shear Beauty Salon, and past the crowded entrance to Zeke’s Feed and Seed.
“I’ll bet old Zeke is busier than a one-armed paper hanger right now,” Dad said.
It was one of his dad’s favorite expressions. No one could ever just be busy. They had to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger. Whatever that was. “Yep,” Bret said.
“Lots of folks’ll be caught by surprise with this weather. It’s early for snow.”
For the next few miles, Dad didn’t say a thing. As they edged out of town, the paved road turned into snow-covered gravel, and there weren’t any other tracks at all. Dad put the Explorer in four-wheel drive and lowered his speed.
Bret wished Daddy hadn’t mentioned visiting Mommy. Just the thought made Bret feel sick. Usually he pretended that she was out of town, at a horse show in Canada.
He hated it when he was reminded that she was in the hospital. It was bad enough that he remembered THE DAY. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the memories came anyway, the ones he hated, the ones that lived curled in the wheels of his Corvette bed and came at him every night as soon as Daddy turned off the lights and shut the door.
Wait, Mommy. The jump is in the wrong place. Someone musta moved it …
Bret turned to look at Dad. “Do you swear Mom’s gonna wake up?”
Dad didn’t answer right away. When he finally did, it was in a quiet voice. “I can’t swear she’ll be fine, son. I can’t even swear that she’ll wake up. But I believe it with all my heart and soul, and she needs you to believe it, too.”
“I believe it.”
He said it too fast; his daddy knew he was lying.
After that, Bret leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see his mom lying in that hospital bed. He liked it better when he pretended she was still alive. Sometimes he could close his eyes and imagine her standing beside his bed, with her hair short and spiky around her face and her arms crossed. She’d be smiling at him, and she looked like she used to—no bruises or cuts at all. And she always said the same thing: How’s my favorite boy in the whole world?
But it was just a silly old dream, and it didn’t mean a thing. Bret might be little, and maybe sometimes he didn’t know what to do with the remainder at the end of a long-division problem, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that fairy tales and cartoons weren’t real. Everybody knew that Wile E. Coyote couldn’t really fall from an airplane and live or that princesses who ate poisoned apples and slept in glass cases for years couldn’t wake up.
And mommies who fell off horses and cracked their heads against the wooden post at the end of the arena were really dead.