Angel Falls

“You gave him back to me, you know. I never really knew him when he was strong and bold and sucking up all the sunlight, but when he was old and shrunken and afraid, he finally became mine. You taught me to talk to him, and in those last weeks, there were moments when he saw me, moments when he knew who I was and why I was there. The day before he died, he held my hand and told me he loved me for the first and only time in my life. You gave me that, Mikaela, and I don’t know if I ever thanked you for it. ”

He stood and leaned over the bed rail. He slowly released her hand and touched her swollen cheek. “I love you, Mike, with everything inside me. I’ll be here, waiting for you, for the rest of our lives. The kids and I … Come back to us, baby. ” His voice broke. He gave himself a minute, then k

issed her forehead, whispering, “Forever,” against her skin.

Then he sat back down in the chair, still holding her hand.

Part Two

Still do the stars impart their light

To those that travel in the night. —WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT

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.