She gazed at him, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I love you … Dad.”
He heard the tiny hesitation, the way her voice snagged on the hook of new information, before she called him Dad. “I love you, too, Jace.”
“We’re still a family,” he whispered. “You remember that. Your mom loves you and Bret—oh, shit, Bret.” He jerked back so hard his head hit the window.
“The reporters.” Jacey slid back into her seat and clamped the seat belt in place. “It’s three-thirty. He’s in music class.”
Bret was getting cranky. They’d been practicing for the Christmas assembly for more than an hour, and he, like most of the boys, hated standing still. They were all in rows, all the fourth and fifth graders, standing side by side on three risers. The music teacher, Mrs. Barnett, had organized them by height, which meant that the girls were next to the boys, and that was always a problem.
Mrs. B. rapped her wooden pointer on the metal music stand. “Come on, children, pay attention. Now, let’s try the last verse again.” Mrs. B. raised her poker and nodded at Mr. Adam, who was sitting at the piano in the corner. At the cue, he started playing “Silent Night.”
Bret couldn’t remember a single word.
Katie elbowed him, hard. “Sing.”
He hit her back. “Shut up.”
She pinched him, right in the fat part of his upper arm. “I’m gonna tell.”
“Bite me.”
Katie slammed her arms down and stomped one foot so hard the whole riser shuddered. “Mrs. Barnett,” she yelled in a shrill, gloating voice, “Bret Campbell isn’t singing.”
Mr. Adam’s fingers stumbled on the keys. There was a confused jangle of notes, and then silence.
Katie flashed Bret a satisfied smile.
He rolled his eyes. Like he cared.
Slowly Mrs. B. lowered her pointer. “Now, Katherine, that’s not really your concern, is it?”
“She thinks everything is her concern,” someone said, laughing.
Katie blushed. It was totally cool the way her whole face turned red. “B-But you said we all—”
Mrs. B. smiled at Bret, but it was a weird smile, sorta wiggly and sad. “Let’s not pick on Bret. We all know—”
Bret stuck his tongue out at Katie.
“—that his mom just woke up, and that it’s been a hard time for the family.”
We all know his mom woke up.
Bret couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t be true. Dad would have told him if Mommy woke up. But Mrs. B. said it …
He clutched Katie’s arm to steady himself.
She let out a little squeal, then opened her mouth to tell on him again. Only nothing came out. Instead, she frowned at Bret. “You look gross. Are you gonna puke?”
“My daddy wouldn’t do that,” he said to her.
Suddenly the door to the music room banged open and Jacey stood in the opening. Her face was all red and streaked, as if she’d been crying. “Mrs. Barnett,” she said, “I need to take Bret home now.”
Mrs. B. nodded. “Go along, Bret.”
Bret wrenched away from Katie so hard that four kids fell backward off the risers. He could hear everyone whispering, and he knew they were talking about him. Something else he didn’t care about.
He walked around the curious circle of his friends. Now he didn’t care if everyone saw that he was almost crying. He just wanted Mrs. B. to say that it was a mistake. Daddy would definitely have told Bret if Mom was awake.
He went to his sister. He felt very small all of a sudden, like a broken-legged action figure staring up at G.I. Joe, and his heart was beating so fast he felt dizzy. “Is Mommy—”
“Come on, Bretster.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the music room and down the hall. Outside, the Explorer was parked in the bus loading zone—a complete and total no-no at this time of day. The buses would be pulling up any minute. He saw that his dad was in the driver’s seat.
This is bad.
Bret allowed himself to be loaded into the backseat like a bag of grain. Jacey strapped him into his seat, then jumped into the front seat. Before Bret could even think of what to say, they were speeding through town. People were all over the streets, putting up decorations for the Glacier Days Festival this weekend, but Dad didn’t wave to a single person. And he was driving way too fast.
Bret wanted to ask something, to scream something, but it felt like Superman was squeezing his throat.
Dad pulled the car up to the back door of the hospital. He didn’t even look at Bret, just at Jacey. “Stay with your brother. Stay away from the lobby. I have to talk to Sam in Administration. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in ten minutes, okay?”
Jacey nodded.
Then Daddy was gone, running off ahead of them, and Jacey and Bret were walking down the empty hallway in the back of the hospital. Their footsteps echoed, and it was creepy. At every noise, Bret flinched.
She was dead. He was sure of it this time. When he got to his mommy’s room, the bed would be empty, and it would be too late for him to see her …
He yanked away from his sister and ran toward his mother’s room.
“Bret—come back!”
He ignored her and kept running. At his mom’s room, he skidded to a stop and pulled the door open.
There was Mommy, lying in that old bed just like always. Asleep.
He stumbled. It was only because he was clutching the doorknob that he didn’t fall.
He didn’t know which emotion was stronger: relief that Dad hadn’t lied, or disappointment that she wasn’t awake.
He shut the door quietly and went to Mommy’s bed.
It still scared him, to see her like this. Even though she was still pretty, and Daddy had shown Bret the important things—like the rosy pink on her cheeks and the way her chest rose and fell with every breath—
All good signs, Daddy always said.
But to Bret, she looked like she was dead. He had to keep telling himself that she was alive.
It’s still her, Bretster. You remember that.
He tried to take strength from Dad’s words. His dad, who wouldn’t lie, said Mommy was alive … somewhere.
Bret moved in closer and climbed up the bed rail, leaning over her. He was so close, he could feel the softness of her breath against his eyelashes. Then he closed his eyes and tried to think of a happy memory of her.
Well, I guess any boy big enough to saddle his own horse is old enough to go on an overnight ride … I’m proud of you, Bretster.
He knew the memory would make him cry, and it did. All he could think about was the way she’d dropped to her knees on the cold cement floor and hugged him. He missed her hugs most of all … maybe even more than her kisses.
He heard the door open behind him, then the soft sound of his sister’s footsteps. “Come on, Bret. Dad told us to meet him in the cafeteria.”
“Just a sec.” He leaned a little closer and gave her the Mommy Kiss, just exactly how she always did it to him: a quick kiss on the forehead, one on each cheek and a butterfly kiss on the chin, then a longer kiss on the right side of the nose. While his lips were brushed against her nose, he whispered the magic words: “No bad dreams.”
When he drew back, his heart was hurting. A tear leaked down his cheek and splashed on Mommy’s lip.
And, very slowly, she opened her eyes.
Bret almost fell off the bed.
She eased up to a sit and stared at him. He waited and waited, but she didn’t smile. “Well, hello, little boy.”
At last she smiled, but it was all wrong.
It wasn’t his mommy.
Bret opened his mouth; nothing came out. All this time, he’d waited and prayed, and in every dream he had, his mom said the same thing when she woke up. How’s my favorite boy in the whole world? And then she’d sweep him into her arms and hold him like she always did …
Tears burned his eyes.
The lady who wore his mommy’s face frowned. “Is something wrong?”
They were the wrong words. His real mommy would have said, Those can’t be tears in my big boy’s eyes …
No, he meant to say, even if it was a lie, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out except his own breath.
The fake mommy looked around the room. Her gaze caught on Jacey, who was standing by the door, hugging herself and crying. “How’s my favorite girl in the world?”
A tiny sound escaped Bret then. He couldn’t hold it all in. Those were his words, his, but she’d given them to Jacey.
RUN.
That was all he could think. He tore out of the building and plunged into the darkening afternoon.
By the time he got to the highway, he was freezing, but he didn’t care. He kept running.
Chapter Twenty-three
We call her Jacey now.
It was like looking in a mirror that reflected the past. Instinctively she wanted to reach out. She thought of all the things she’d forgotten. Her daughter’s first word—what had it been? What had she done on the first day of kindergarten—had Jacey climbed onto that big yellow bus all by herself and waved good-bye, or had she clung to her mother’s arm, crying, begging to stay home just one more day?
“Mom?”
The sweet fullness of that word made the memory loss almost unendurable. That she could be a stranger to this child of hers …
“Jacey,” she whispered, holding out her arms.
Jacey moved slowly toward her. Mikaela felt an odd reluctance in her daughter, but at last Jacey leaned over the bed rail. Mikaela wrapped her arms around Jacey, pulling her close. She breathed in the sweet, forgotten scent of her little girl—not the baby powder she remembered, but something citrusy and adolescent.
When she drew back, Jacey was crying.
Mikaela touched her cheek. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”
A tear slid down Jacey’s cheek. “How? How will it be okay?”
“I’ll get my memory back. You’ll see.”
Jacey’s eyes rounded. “You lost your memory? That’s why …” She glanced at the open door.
“I’m sorry. I have some gaps is all—”
“Why didn’t Dad tell me?”
“I think they asked Julian to hold off on that.”
“Juli—You don’t remember Dad?” Jacey’s voice was barely audible.
“Oh, I remember Julian … up to a point, anyway. Everything after I left him is kind of a blank. I think—”
“Oh, perfect!” Jacey stared at Mikaela as if she’d grown horns. “I can’t believe this.”
Mikaela frowned. “You’re mad at me.”
“My dad is Liam Campbell.” Jacey clutched Mikaela’s flimsy hospital gown. “We fell in love with him a long time ago, when I was only four years old. He’s been your husband for ten years. And you don’t remember him. You only remember Julian, who never, ever called me or sent a birthday card or wanted to see me.”
Mikaela was confused. “But Julian is your father …”
Jacey backed away. She seemed to be hanging on to composure by the thinnest thread. “Oh, he’s my father, all right. And thanks to your lies, I didn’t know that until today.”