Angel Falls

Dad’s voice.

Bret’s cheeks burned. Slowly he turned.

Dad was standing there, holding a bucket and a sponge. He set the bucket down and crossed the room in a few big steps, then he sat down on the coffee table in front of Bret.

“I know, Daddy. ” He tried not to cry, but he couldn’t help himself. Every time he sucked in a breath, he tasted his tears. “I’m sorry. ”

Dad wiped Bret’s tears away. “I’m sorry we left you alone, Bretster. There’s so much going on … I’m sorry. ”

Bret drew in a great, gulping breath. “I shouldn’t’ve written on the walls, Daddy. I’m sorry. ”

Dad almost smiled. “I know you want to see your mom, kiddo. It’s just … she doesn’t look good. Her face is pretty bruised up. I thought it would give you bad dreams. ”

Bret thought about how she’d looked, with her eye open, staring at him, and he shuddered. He wiped his eyes and whispered, “When dead people have their eyes open, can they see you, Daddy?”

“She’s not dead, Bret. I swear to you. ” He sighed heavily. “Do you want to see her?”

“The rules won’t let me. ”

“We could break the rules. If you want. ”

Bret sniffed and wiped the snot away from his upper lip. That image of Mommy flashed through his mind again, and when he saw it, his heart did a little ka-thump. “No,” he said quietly, “I don’t wanna see her. ”

Dad pulled him into a hug, and Bret felt himself slowly, slowly relaxing. The hug felt so good. He felt almost safe. He clung to his dad for a long, long time.

Then, finally, Daddy said, “Well, pal, I guess you’d better start washing that wall. I don’t think it’s fair to make the custodians do it. ”

Bret scooted back. On wobbly legs, he got to his feet and went over to the bucket. When he picked it up, soapy water splashed over the rim and hit his pant legs. Holding on to the metal handle with both hands, he carried the bucket to the wall and set it down. He plunged the sponge into the water, squeezed it almost dry, and started cleaning up his mess.

It wasn’t even a minute later that Dad was beside him, crouching down. He grabbed a second sponge, dunked it into the water, and wrung it out.

Dad smiled at him, right at eye level. “I guess this is sort of a family mess, don’t you think?”

At dinnertime Rosa took the children home. Liam knew he should have gone with them, but he couldn’t leave Mikaela. It was as simple as that.

He stared down at his wife. She was lying on her side now; the nurses had turned her. “I hired Judy Monk to take care of your horses,” he told her. “They all seem to be doing great. Even that whacko mare—what’s her name, Sweetpea? She’s eaten through the top rail of the corral, but other than that, she’s okay. And the vet said Scotty’s colic is completely cleared up. ”

He reached for the box he’d brought from home. “I brought you a few things. ” He lifted the cardboard box from the chair and brought it to the bedside table. He pulled out a beribboned bag of scented potpourri. “Myrtle down at the drugstore told me this brand was your favorite. ” He poured the multicolored clippings into a small glass bowl. The soft scent of vanilla wafted upward. Then he pulled out a collection of family photographs and layered them along the windowsill—just in case she opened her eyes when none of them were here.

He set a tape player on another table and popped a cassette in. Madonna’s “Crazy for You”—to remind her of the old days. The last item was a sweater of Bret’s, one he’d outgrown long ago. Liam smoothed it over her shoulders, tucking the tiny Shetland wool arms around her. If anything could reach her, it would be the never-to-be-forgotten smell of her little boy.

Memories tiptoed into this quiet room. He remembered the first time he’d seen Mikaela. It had been here, in this very hospital. He’d come home for his mother’s funeral and found his father—the great Ian Campbell—suffering from Alzheimer’s. The disease had slowly and methodically erased every larger-than-life aspect of Ian’s personality.

When the inevitable slide to death began, Ian had been moved into the medical center that bore his name.

That was when Liam met Mikaela. She’d been young then—only twenty-five—and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Did you know how much I longed to talk to you?” he said softly, leaning toward her. “You were sitting by my dad’s bedside. Do you remember that day? I didn’t say anything. I just stood in the doorway, listening to the way you talked to my father. ”

He sat down in the chair by the bed and took her left hand in his, coiled his fingers around hers. “I still remember the first time you looked at me. You’d seen me, of course, but you never really noticed me until I told you that he was my father.

“It was springtime … remember that? You’d opened his window and brought him a small azalea plant that was a riot of pink flowers. I saw the sadness in you right away. Was it so close to the surface? I wonder about that now. Then, I thought I was special to see it, like we were soldiers of a similar war. The walking wounded. All I could think was how it would feel to be the one to make you smile. Do you remember what you said to me?

“‘Do you talk to him?’ you asked me. I was so embarrassed. I said, ‘No one really talks to my dad anymore. ’

“And you said, ‘Then you should. It doesn’t matter what you say, just that you’re here. He needs to know you care. ’”

Care. It was such a little word. Like love or hate. There was so much packed into those four letters. Up until that moment, Liam and his father hadn’t spent much time caring.