“Mo … mmmy … Mo … mmmy …”
“Where are you?” she screamed.
Only silence.
She started to run, but this time there were no doors, no windows … just the child’s cry.
She ran and ran, until the hallway ended in a blank wall.
“Where are you?”
She spun around. There was no hallway behind her anymore. When she looked down, she saw that she was standing on a tiny patch of carpet.
A door appeared in front of her.
Her hand was shaking as she reached for the brass knob. It turned easily. Inch by inch, she pushed the door open. Behind it lay a box of perfect blackness.
And the quiet sound of a child crying.
She touched the rough-hewn wall and a light came on.
The child was tucked in the corner, his skinny white legs bent at an awkward angle. He was wearing flannel boxers—like Daddy’s—and a Seattle Super-Sonics T-shirt.
He looked up at her, his pale face streaked with tears, his blue eyes magnified into pools of watery pain.
The boy from the hospital.
“Mommy?” he said.
“Bret,” she cried out, falling to her knees and taking him into her arms.
Then she woke up. Memories washed over and through and around her.
She said that one simple name over and over again.
Bret. Bret. Bret. The child she’d turned away from, said nothing to when he leaned down and kissed her forehead with all the gentleness of a butterfly’s landing.
Her baby boy.
She reached for the phone, but before she dialed a number, she noticed the wall clock. It was three o’clock in the morning.
She couldn’t call yet. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows, letting the memories come again.
Mikaela woke with a start. She glanced at the clock. Nine-thirty.
“Damn it. ” The kids were already at school.
She saw the tray of food by her bed. It looked disgusting. She couldn’t imagine how anyone was supposed to actually recuperate if they ate this garbage.
With a sigh, she pushed the tray away.
She closed her eyes and thought of all the things she’d remembered last night.
Bret. Jacey. Her precious children. She couldn’t remember every single thing, but she remembered most of it.
Julian. She remembered all the days and nights she’d waited by the phone for his call, the countless times she’d cried herself to sleep, waiting. Waiting …
And Liam. She remembered the hows and whys of her love for him … and how it had never been enough for her.