Angel Falls

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 accident

ally 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?”