Angel Falls

Liam looked away. His sandy blond hair was clumpy and tousled, as if he’d forgotten to wash it. “I wish …”

His voice, always quiet and carefully modulated, was now as thin as a strand of silk thread. The whispery tenor of it sent a chill down her back.

“I wish I could spare you this, Rosa,” he finished, and when he was done, he tried to smile. It was a desperate failure that frightened Rosa more than his words.

“Let us go,” was all she could say.

They walked down one hallway after another. All the way, Rosa kept her head down, counting every step. Liam’s body beside her was like a guardrail, keeping her on course.

Finally Liam stopped at a closed door.

Then he did the most remarkable thing—he touched her shoulder. It was a brief, comforting touch, and it surprised her. They were not that free with each other. She couldn’t remember him ever touching her.

That he wanted to comfort her now, in the midst of his own pain, moved her deeply.

She wanted to smile up at him, or better yet, touch him in return, but her fingers were trembling and her throat was dry.

“She doesn’t look good, Rosa. Do you want to go in alone?”

She meant to say yes, thought she’d said yes, but she heard herself say no. Liam nodded in understanding and followed her into the room.

When she saw her daughter, Rosa stopped and drew in a sharp breath. “Dios mio. ”

Mikaela lay in a narrow bed—a child’s bed, with silver railings. All around her, machines hissed and beeped. The room was dim; thank God. Rosa didn’t know if she could stand to see this under harsh fluorescent lighting.

Nine steps. That’s how many it took to get to her daughter’s bedside.

Mikaela’s beautiful face was scratched and bruised and swollen, her eyes hidden beneath puffy black folds of flesh.

Rosa leaned over the railing and touched her daughter’s cheek. The skin felt bloated, hard to the touch, like a balloon overfilled with air. She was silent for many minutes. “My little girl,” she said at last, “I have seen you looking better, sí? That must have been quite a fall you took. ” She drew back. Her hand was shaking so badly, she was afraid Mikaela would hear the rattling of her fingers against the bed rail.

“We don’t know how much she can hear … or if she can hear at all,” Liam said. “We don’t know … if she’ll wake up. ”

Rosa looked up at him. At first she was stung by his words, but then she realized it was the doctor in him speaking. He couldn’t change himself any more than she could. He was a man of science; he believed in evidence. Rosa was a woman of faith, and a long, hard life had taught her that truth almost never revealed itself to the human eye. “Do you remember when you all went to Hawaii last summer?”

He frowned. “Of course. ”

“When you got home, Jacey called me. She had been surfing, sí?”

“Yes. ”

“And she got into trouble. The board, it hit her on the head, and when she was underwater, she was scared. She did not know up from down. ” She noticed the way Liam’s fingers tightened around the bed rail, and she understood. “Do not be afraid, Dr. Liam. Mikaela is like Jacey. She is lost in a place she cannot understand. She will need us to guide her home. All we have is our voices, our memories. We must use these as … flashlights to show her the way. ”

Liam’s gaze softened. “I’m glad you’re here, Rosa. ”

“Sí. It is hard to be alone for something like this. ”

He flinched at the word alone, and she knew what he was thinking, that without his wife, there would be a lifetime of alone. He had his children, sí, whom he loved, but still there was a kind of loneliness that only a lover could ease. This, Rosa knew too well.

And one thing Rosa knew about Liam—she’d known it from the first time she saw him, almost twelve years ago—he loved his Mikaela. Loved her in the bone-deep way that most women long for and only a handful ever find.

Rosa couldn’t help wondering if Mikaela knew this, if she understood her good fortune. Or if, in some dark, forbidden corner of her heart, there grew the untamed remains of an old, bad love.

Rosa knew how deep the roots of that love had gone into her daughter’s heart, and she knew, too, that sometimes a first love went to seed, growing in wild disarray until there was no room for anything—or anyone—else.

Rosa spent almost an hour with her daughter, then she left Liam at Mikaela’s bedside and went in search of her grandchildren.

Jacey and Bret were in the waiting room, sitting together on the sofa, their arms wrapped around each other.