Home Again

He knew where he belonged and what he had to do. For once in his life, he knew. How had he missed it? How had he not seen that for the first time in years, everything that mattered to him was at home—Madelaine, Lina, Angel? He could bring them together, and now, all these years later, they could be the family they should have been all along.

Believe in the road….

With the thought, it came again, the sense of having been touched at last by the hand of the God he’d prayed to and believed in for all his life. The faith he’d thought he’d lost filled him to overflowing, warming the dark, cold corners of his soul with searing bright light.

Grinning, he glanced again at the clock. It was seven-thirty. He could be in Seattle by eleven-thirty and back here in time for the Monday morning breakfast.

Perfect.

He looked dead.

Madelaine’s gaze shot to the cardiac monitor. The intermittent green line peaked and dipped in sharp, erratic beats across the blank screen, clicking along on its uneven rhythm. The pink line slid along beneath it.

She released a heavy sigh and shoved a hand through her hair again, leaning closer to the bed. Her chair screeched across the linoleum floor. Beside her, a tray of cold mashed potatoes and gravy sat congealing into the rolled white flaps of pressed turkey.

She knew it had been brought in by mistake, that sickening high-fat meal, but no one had come by to reclaim it yet. She guessed it was because no one thought there was any rush. Angel DeMarco, it was well known, hadn’t noticed anything like a bad smell in almost a week.

He’d been in and out of consciousness briefly, here and there, bits of time when his eyes were open and his fingers trembled and she knew he wanted to speak. But by the time she got the tube from his throat, he was usually gone again, drifting, babbling, laughing and crying.

As always, she stopped by and sat with him for an hour after her shift was over. She kept coming back, urging him to fight harder, to believe in a surgery she found she couldn’t believe in much herself anymore.

She brushed the damp hair away from his warm forehead. “Lina and I watched one of your movies together last night. It was … interesting. Well, since you’re unconscious, I guess I can be honest. It was dreadful, actually—too much blood and violence and sex. But Lina liked it, and your acting was incredible. She thought you were totally cool—not, of course, that she said this to me. She hasn’t spoken to me in days.”

Madelaine stroked his cheek absentmindedly, staring out the room’s small window. The wind was driving against the glass in shuddering little spurts. Rain blurred the view into a wavering sheet of gray and black. It was the beginning of a powerhouse rainstorm, she could tell.

Madelaine went on talking to him, hoping against hope that somewhere inside all that feverish sleep, he could hear her. Maybe even that her voice could be a lifeline he could follow back to consciousness. “I don’t know what to do about her, Angel. She’s quiet one minute and furious the next. Nothing I do is right. She’s in trouble. I… I need your help.”

She realized suddenly that she was telling him the truth, not just some words made up to appease or communicate with him, but the truth. Her truth.

She jerked her hand back and stared down at it, seeing the tiny trembling in her fingers. Oh, God…

When had she done it, started to believe in him again?

She tried to think about it, to rationalize it all away, but sometime in the last week—she didn’t know exactly when or how—she’d begun to think of Angel as Lina’s father. Not in some abstract biological/genetic way that was clearly factual, but in a more insidious way. A dad. Someone to help out, be there, share the load. Someone who meant that Madelaine wouldn’t always be alone in parenting.

It was ridiculous to expect that of him. Ridiculous and terrifying.

She couldn’t count on Angel DeMarco—hadn’t she learned that lesson well enough the first time?

“Maybe I’m the one in the coma,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

Before she could say anything else, she heard her name paged over the hospital’s intercom. She picked up the bedside phone and punched in the operator, who transferred a call to the room.

Madelaine answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Maddy?” The voice was broken by static, but she would have recognized it anywhere.

“Francis! Where are you?”

“I’m leaving Portland now. Can I meet you at your house?”

&n

bsp; She glanced at the darkness outside, then at the wall clock. “It’s seven forty-five. Why don’t you wait—”

“Tonight.”

“All right, Francis. I’ll stay up. See you about what, eleven-thirty?”