stumbled, then went still, her wide brown eyes focused on Mikaela’s face. “You remember? All of it?”
“How’s Bret … after yesterday?”
“A milagro.” Rosa moved again, taking shuffling steps toward the bed. Her smile was gentle. “He is fine. This boy of yours, he has a hardy heart. And, of course, Dr. Liam was there.”
Mikaela swallowed hard. “Can I see the kids now?”
“Bret is on a field trip today. His class went eagle watching at Rockport—it is the migration time. Jacey has a social studies presentation to give at noon. It is half of her grade.”
Mikaela sagged back, disappointed. “Oh. I guess life goes on, eh, Mama?”
“It is for a short time, only. I will bring them to your room this afternoon, sí?” Rosa handed Mikaela the big leather book she was holding. “This is for you.”
Mikaela touched the fine leather. “Muy caro, eh, Mama?”
“Sometimes it is good to spend the money. Myrtle—your friend at the drugstore—she told me that you have wanted this for a long time.”
That was something Mikaela couldn’t remember, but she did know that she’d been meaning to put together a family scrapbook for years. Another entry in her endless stack of somedays. “Gracias, Mama. It’s beautiful.”
“Ah, you did not used to be so stupido. Open it.”
Mikaela’s mouth fell open. “Stupido? Stupido?” Her mother never talked like that. “A little respect for the recently brain damaged, if you don’t mind.”
Rosa shrugged. “Lo siento. Lately I have spent much time with a little boy, and he has changed me. Yesterday I actually said that a cartoon was rad.”
“That’s my Bretster. Last year everything was either awesome or puke-o-rama. Now it’s rad.” Mikaela opened the book. The first page was a sheer piece of crinkled tissue, inset with dried violets. On a panel in the middle, in Rosa’s careful hand, were the words Mikaela Conchita Luna True Campbell.
It made her sound like she belonged on a throne. Slowly she turned the page, and there, alone against a sea of white paper, was a dog-earred old black-and-white Kodak print.
It was a picture of her and her mother. In the background was the shack they’d lived in during apple harvest, twelve to a room with no working bathroom.
The memories of that time were still buried in Mikaela’s heart, as jagged and sharp as bits of glass. Those were the days that had shaped Mikaela’s spirit, snipped the edges off her dreams.
For all of her life, Mikaela had been running away from these memories, as if with enough speed she could distance herself from the truth. Now, she was standing still at last and she saw the past for what it had been. She saw these photographs not as a child, rather as a mother. Rosa had had no choices. Without an education, a poor Hispanic woman who barely spoke the language had no way out, except—
She looked up at her mother. “I would have done it, too, Mama.”
“Done what?”
“William … the house … If Jacey had crawled into my arms and looked at me with sad, hungry eyes, I would have done it, too.”
It was the first time Mikaela had ever seen her mother cry. “I would give anything to have loved him less and myself more, but I cannot regret that my sin gave you a chance for something better.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to say.”
Impatiently, Rosa wiped her eyes. “Keep looking.”
Mikaela turned the next page, then the next, and saw the few photographs of her childhood.
Then came the wedding picture. Julian and Kayla.
Mikaela gasped. This she had hidden. She remembered that; this photograph had been in a pillowcase in her—
“Liam found these while I was in the coma,” she said in a dull voice.
Softly, sadly, “Sí.”
She could hardly imagine the pain it must have caused Liam to see her life in such vivid shots. She’d kept Julian hidden, both because no man could live up to such competition, and—if she was honest—because she couldn’t give up this secret obsession she called true love. She’d wanted the piece of herself that loved Julian to be hers alone. Not even Jacey was allowed to share him.
Maybe she’d been afraid that if she exposed her true feelings, if she talked about him as if he were someone ordinary, just a first husband, she’d fall out of love with him. And the thought of not loving Julian was more than she could bear. It had defined her for so long.
Mikaela turned the pages slowly, mesmerized by the images of the life