Jacey’s voice was quiet as she spun out the legend their family had created long ago: “And the townspeople swear that on a night like this—in the snowiest, blackest winter, when a full moon rises into the cloudless sky—that they hear the screams of souls drowned long ago.”
Bret made a face. “She’s not saying it right—”
Jacey gave a spooky laugh and turned on a flashlight, holding it beneath her chin. “Ah, but there’s more … about the little boy who wandered away from his campsite and ended up on the banks of Piano Lake …”
Bret leaned forward. This was a new and interesting detail. “What happened to him?”
Liam closed his eyes. The room smelled of popcorn and wood smoke, of melting chocolate and oozing marshmallows. He imagined Mike beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm looped around his waist.
The sadness was like that. Sometimes he went whole minutes in blissful ignorance—a dad enjoying the sound of his children’s voices—then he’d remember Who are you? and the pain would hit so hard he couldn’t breathe. In those moments, he’d see his whole life stretching before him, an endless, lonely highway. At the end of it was the fear, however irrational, that he would lose her to Julian.
It was a buoyant fear; there was no way to drown it.
“Daddy. Daddy!” Bret was yelling now.
Liam pushed the thoughts aside and looked up—right into Rosa’s frowning, watchful brown eyes.
“Daddy, do the shooting of Dan McGrew. That’s my favorite.”
Liam scooted back and leaned against the sofa (now the dormant volcano, Mt. Mikaela), then opened his arms. Bret crawled through the broken graham cracker crumbs, spilled popcorn, and bunched-up goose-down sleeping bags, and cuddled beside Liam. Jacey and Rosa moved in closer, sitting side by side in front of the warm fire.
The poem, though he hadn’t recited it in years, came back to him with a surprising ease. It was the tale of men in the Yukon gold fields who’d—
Fought over a woman.
Liam bit back a curse. “Hey, Bretster, how about I do Sam McGee instead?”
“No way. Dan McGrew.”
Liam sighed. He closed his eyes and began quietly, “A bunch of the boys were whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon …”
It took concentration to keep going. When he finished the last sentence, he managed a smile.
“This is not a good story,” Rosa said, frowning.
Liam ignored her. “Come on, kids, go brush your teeth. It’s midnight.”
“On a camp-out? No way I’m brushing my teeth,” Bret whined.
“Come on, foot-breath,” Jacey said, taking her brother’s hand.
Within minutes, the kids were back, crawling into their sleeping bags. Liam gave them each a kiss good night, then he got to his feet.
Bret jackknifed upright. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to walk Grandma back to the cottage. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re gonna sleep down here, right?”
“Of course.”
Bret grinned. “’Night, Grandma.”
“’Night, Grandma,” Jacey added.
Rosa kissed them both, then followed Liam out of the room. At the mudroom, they put on their coats and boots. Liam hit the garage door opener and together they headed outside.
A beautiful moon glazed the snowy pastures and backlit the black trees. The whole farm held an ethereal glow, all blues and blacks and glistening whites.
“Mike would love this night,” Liam said. “If she were here right now, she’d be racing ahead of us, scooping snow up in her mittens to make snowballs … or she’d fall backward without warning to make an angel. I hope the snow is still here when she gets out of the hospital.”
They came to the cottage’s two-rail gate. Through the sparkling layer of new snow, you could just make out the knobby brown rose vines that, in the summer, were a wall of bright green and shocking pink.
The gate made a high-squeaking sound in the silence. Rosa went ahead and opened the front door, flicking on the kitchen light. She took off her coat and hung it up in the antique armoire by the door. Liam laid his over the back of a chair at the kitchen table.
Rosa turned to him. “What did she say, my Mikita, when you told her about your marriage?”
He was caught off guard. “We didn’t tell her.”
“What? This is madness not to tell her—”
“Steve thinks the truth might frighten her. We don’t want her to suffer a relapse.”
Rosa seemed to think about that for a minute, then she shook her head. “You men—you doctors—you do what you think is best. But I am her mama, no? I have always taken care of my Mikaela. I will not stop now. I will need the fotografías you found.”
Liam tried to imagine what it must be like to have a mother like this. What a power it must grant a person in life to have a place where you could always land softly, even after the hardest hit. “Rosa,” he said quietly, touching her hand. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know how I would have made it through this without you.”
Rosa grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “You are stronger than you think, Liam. This I have seen in you over these past weeks. Now you are thinking that Mikaela does not need you, that she has forgotten you because she does not love you, but you are wrong. Her eyes may be open, but mi hija is still asleep. Give her time.”
She woke easily this time. No floating at the bottom of a swimming pool, no black and angry sea slapping around her. She just … opened her eyes.
Strangers surrounded her bed. Some she’d seen before, some she hadn’t. They were talking to her and to one another. She could see their mouths opening and closing, opening and closing, but nothing made any sense.
Do you know where you are … who you are … what happened …
She wished they would shut up. One by one, their faces came into focus, and the questions they were asking began to make sense. Dr. Penn—the nice-looking man with the gray hair and white coat—smiled at her.
“Good morning, Mikaela. Do you remember me?”
“Penn,” she answered, her voice as cracked as old porcelain and nearly as fragile. Her throat still hurt. “What … happened me?”
“You fell off your horse and hit your head. You suffered quite a head injury. You’ve been in a coma.”
She wanted to ask questions, but she couldn’t remember any of the words she needed.
“Don’t worry, Mikaela. It’ll all come back to you.” Stephen turned to the strangers. “Let’s go. She needs to rest.”
Wait. She tried to sit up. It was hard; her right side felt weighted down, too weak to move easily. Her heart started beating too fast, her breathing broke into gasping bits. Before she could remember the right words to make them stay, they were gone.
The door to her room squeaked open, and a new stranger appeared. She was a heavyset woman in a blue polyester pantsuit. Her fleshy face was creased into a bright smile. “Good morning, Mikaela. How are we feeling today?”
She frowned. Her name was Kayla now. Everyone knew that. Everyone. So why did they all keep calling her Mikaela? She hadn’t used that name in years—not since Sunville.
She tried to push a question past her disobedient tongue. The word she was searching for—hello—was bouncing around in her mind, but it disappeared before reaching her mouth.
“We removed the catheter last night—do you remember that? I thought you might like to try going to the bathroom by yourself. Doctor will be here in a few minutes.”
Kayla gazed up at the woman, trying to make her mouth work. “Who … where?”
“I’m Sarah Fielding, honey,” she answered the unasked question. The nurse bustled around the bed and pulled the sheets back.
Kayla stared down at her skinny, hairy legs. They looked okay. So why wouldn’t they work right?
Sarah eased a plump arm behind Kayla’s head and gently tilted her upright. In spare, economical movements, she maneuvered Kayla to a sit, then helped her to a shaky stand. She clung to Sarah and tried to walk. She had to kind of drag her heavy right leg as they made their slow, shuffling way to the door across the room.
“Do you think you can use the toilet by yourself, honey?”
Toilet. The word fluttered around for a second, then landed on the white porcelain seat beside her. Toilet. “Yes,” she answered, gripping the counter unsteadily. She was shaking and breathing hard, but she could stand on her own.
“I’ll be just outside if you need me.” Sarah backed away and half-closed the door behind her.
Kayla sank onto the cold seat. It burned when she urinated, so badly that she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. When she was finished, she leaned forward and grabbed the counter again, dragging her reluctant body to an awkward stand.
That’s when she saw herself in the mirror. Her face was chalky pale. And her hair was short; it looked as if it had been cut with children’s scissors.
But her hair was long—down to her waist. Julian wouldn’t let her cut it.
Shaking, she leaned closer to the mirror, pressed her damp palms to the cold glass. There were tiny lines around her eyes and mouth. Lines she’d never seen before … the kind of lines that Mama had, and there were more than a few gray hairs threaded through all that black …
She screamed.
The door burst open and Sarah was there. “What happened?”
Kayla tottered around, her hands on her face. “I’m … old. Oh, God … what happened?”
“I’ll get the doctor.”
Kayla grabbed the woman’s sleeve. “I’m old … what happened?”
Sarah wrenched away. “I’ll be right back.” She ran from the room. The door slammed shut behind her.
Kayla grabbed a handful of her hair—so short now—and stared at the gray strands. She couldn’t breathe; her knees felt weak. “Oh … God …”
How long had she been lying in that bed? How long—
Dr. Penn rushed into the room. A breathless, flushed Sarah waddled along behind him.
Kayla looked at him and started to cry. “How old am I?” In her mind, she screamed the question, but in truth it came out as a hacked-up whisper.
Dr. Penn took her hand and held it. “Calm down, Mike.”
“I’m Kayla.” This time she did scream.
“Do you want a sedative, Doctor?” Sarah asked.
“No! Don’t put me back to sleep. I’ll … be quiet.” Kayla gulped in a great, wheezing breath of air. She clung to the doctor’s hand, staring at him through a stinging veil of tears. “I’m … scared …”
He touched her face gently, as if he were a friend, and she wondered how it was possible to sleep so long that you woke up old. “Remember what I told you? You’ve been in a coma, Mike. I thought with your nursing background you’d remember. I forgot that … oh, never mind.”
This time she remembered the word—coma. It came with a picture of that girl, Karen Ann Quinlan, curled into a ball, weighing nothing …