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“Nope. ”
Liam understood. Bret wanted to save that kiss for his mom. Trading it would make it feel as if she wasn’t ever coming home.
Bret looked up. Tears flooded his blue eyes. “I think about her all the time. ”
“I know, honey,” he said, pulling Bret close. “I know. ”
For a moment, perhaps no more than a heartbeat, life settled into a comfortable place. Liam smelled the sweet scent of his little boy’s hair, felt the soft twining of arms around his neck, and it was enough. A dozen treasured images came back to him, memories he’d collected over the years of their lives together. And in remembering what had been, he found the strength to pray for what could be.
Chapter Five
Rosa moved into the small cottage beside the main house, set her few personal items in the pink-tiled bathroom, and stocked the refrigerator with iced tea and a loaf of wheat bread. There was no point in doing more; she planned on spending all of her time with the children or Mikaela.
The next morning, after Liam left for the hospital, Rosa made the children a hot breakfast and tried to take them to school.
Not yet, Grandma, please …
She had not the heart to deny them. She granted their wish for one more day at the hospital—but after that, she said, they must go to school. The waiting room was no place for children, not hour upon hour, day upon day.
They drove the few miles to the medical center, and then Rosa settled the kids in the waiting room.
She hurried through the busy corridor, head down, purse tucked against her body, counting the three hundred and eleven steps to Mikaela’s room in the ICU.
The small, curtained room still frightened her—there were so many unfamiliar noises and machines. At the bedside, she gazed down at her beautiful, broken child. “I guess it does not matter how old we get, or that you have children of your own, you will always be my little girl, sí, mi hija?” She gently stroked Mikaela’s unbruised cheek. The skin was swollen and taut, but Rosa thought she could feel a little more softness in the flesh than had been there yesterday.
She picked up the brush from the bedside table and began brushing Mikaela’s short hair. “I will wash your hair today, hija. ”
She forced her lips into a smile and kept talking. “I am still not used to this short hair of yours, even though it has been many years like this. When I close my eyes, I still see my niña with hair streaming like spilled ink down her back. ”
Rosa’s thoughts turned to the bleak days when her daughter had been so unhappy that she’d chopped off her own hair with a pair of drugstore scissors. Mikaela had been waiting for him. Waiting and waiting for a man who never showed up, and when she realized that he had no intention of returning, she’d cut off her lovely hair. The thing he liked best about her.
You cannot make yourself ugly—that’s what Rosa had said when she’d seen what Mikaela had done, but what she’d meant was, He isn’t worth this broken heart of yours. She hadn’t said that; she was the last person in the world to devalue a woman’s love for the wrong man.
She had thought that Mikaela would get over him, and that when she got over him, she would one day grow her hair long again.
Yet still, Mikaela’s hair was as short as a boy’s.
“No,” Rosa said aloud, “I will not think about him. He was not worth our thoughts then and he is not worth my words now. I will think instead about my little girl. You were so bright and beautiful and funny. Always you make me laugh.
“You had such big dreams. Remember? You used to pin all those fotografías up on your bedroom wall, pictures of faraway places. You dreamed of going to London and France and China. I used to say to you, ‘Where do you get such big dreams, Mikita?’ And do you remember your answer?”
She stroked her daughter’s hair gently. “You told me, ‘I have to have big dreams, Mama … I have them for both of us. ’
“It broke my heart when you said that. ” Rosa’s hand stilled. She couldn’t help remembering how her daughter’s swollen dreams had shriveled beneath the hot California sun.
It had happened years ago, so many that the scent should not remain in the air, and yet here it was.
“I am the one with big dreams now, querida. I dream that you will sit up in this bed and open your eyes … that you will come back to us. ” Her voice cracked, fell to a throaty whisper. “I have a dream now. Just like you always wanted. I am the carrier of my dreams now … and yours, too, Mikita. I am dreaming for both of us. ”
Later that afternoon, Stephen called Liam and Rosa into his office.
“The good news is, she has stabilized. She’s off the ventilator and breathing on her own. We didn’t need to do a tracheotomy. She’s being fed intravenously. We’ve moved her out of the ICU—to a private room on Two West. ”
Liam barely heard the words. He knew that whenever a doctor started a sentence with “The good news is,” there was a hell of a right hook coming.
Rosa stood near the door. “She is breathing. This is life, sí?”
Stephen nodded. “Yes. The problem is, we don’t know why she isn’t waking up. She’s healthy, stable. Her brain activity is good. By all m
