vacant chair at the dinner table, an empty place on the sofa.
He allowed himself a moment’s pause before he turned into the alcove beyond the nurses’ station.
The room was good sized—big enough for large families to gather in grief or celebration. It was antiseptic white, with brown Naugahyde chairs and fake wood-grain tables that held scattered magazines and a few carefully placed Bibles. Like all such rooms, it seemed to amplify the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Jacey stood at the window, with her back to him. She appeared to be intently studying the parking lot, but he doubted that she saw anything except the image of her mother, broken and bleeding on the arena’s dirt floor.
Bret was on the gold sofa, his small body curled into the fetal position, his eyes squeezed shut. God knew what he was seeing. Again today he was sucking his thumb.
Liam found just enough strength to remain where he was. Maybe that’s how it would be from now on; he would make it through on “just enough.”
“Hi, guys,” he said at last, his voice so soft he wasn’t sure for a second that he’d spoken aloud at all.
Jacey spun to face him. Her long black hair—normally manicured to teenaged perfection—hung limply along her arms. She was wearing a pair of baggy flannel drawstring pants and an oversized knit sweater. Silver tear marks streaked her pale cheeks. Her eyes were red and swollen, and in them he saw the agonizing question.
“She’s still alive,” he said.
Jacey brought a shaking hand to her mouth. He could see how hard she was trying not to cry in front of her younger brother. “Thank God.”
Liam went to the sofa and scooped Bret onto his lap. The little boy was so still he seemed to have stopped breathing. “Sit down, Jace,” he said.
She sat down on the chair beside them, reaching out for Liam’s hand.
Bret snuggled closer and opened his eyes. Tears rolled down the boy’s pink cheeks. “Can we see her today?”
Liam drew in a deep breath. “Not yet. Yesterday I told you that her head was hurt, but there’s … a little more to it than that. She’s in a very deep sleep. It’s called a coma, and it’s the body’s way of healing itself. You know how when you have a really bad case of the flu, you sleep all the time to get better? It’s like that.”
Jacey’s colorless lips trembled. “Will she wake up?”
Liam flinched. Any answer—every answer—felt like a lie. “We hope so.”
He looked at Jacey and saw the sad, desperate knowing in her eyes. She was a doctor’s kid; she knew that not everyone woke up from a coma.
God help him, Liam couldn’t say anything to save her from the truth. Hope was something he could offer, but it wasn’t a prescription he could fill. “She needs us to believe in her,” he said, “to keep our hope fresh and strong. When she’s ready, she’ll wake up.”
Bret wiped his eyes. “Fix her, Daddy.”
“The docs are doing everything they can right now, Bretster, but she’s asleep …”
“Like Sleeping Beauty,” Jacey said to her little brother.
Bret burst into tears. “Sleeping Beauty was asleep for a hundred years!”
Liam pulled Bret into his arms and held on to his son tightly. Jacey scooted closer and hugged them both.
When Liam felt Bret’s tiny shudder, and the warm, wet rush of his daughter’s tears, he buried his face in his son’s coarse, red hair.
And he prayed.
There were too many cars in the hospital parking lot. Absurdly, that was Rosa’s first thought as she drove into the Ian Campbell Medical Center that afternoon. It took her several minutes to find a vacant parking space. Finally, she pulled in between a battered Ford pickup truck and an old Impala, and turned off the engine.
She took a deep breath and released her grip on the steering wheel, one finger at a time. When she finished, she found that she was sweating, though the heater hadn’t worked in years and it couldn’t be more than forty degrees outside.
She gazed at the small figurine of the Virgin Mary anchored to the beige plastic dashboard. Then she got out of the car and walked toward the hospital.
The electronic doors whooshed open; the bitter, astringent smell of stale, medicated air assaulted her.
Rosa’s step faltered. She tucked her black vinyl purse against her narrow body and focused on the floor at her feet. It was an old habit, one she’d never been able to break. When she