It was three o’clock. An hour until the kids would be here.
Mikaela lay in bed, staring dully at the television tucked up into the corner of the ceiling. In beautiful black-and-white images, It’s a Wonderful Life unfolded.
It was nearing the end now. George Bailey—Jimmy Stewart—had just realized what the world was without him, and everything he’d always wanted and longed for had changed. He was tearing into that drafty old house now, breaking off the banister …
As always, Mikaela was crying, but this time she wasn’t crying for Ge
orge Bailey; she was crying for herself. When the townspeople started showing up with their money to save the savings and loan, she automatically looked for Liam, to tell him that his favorite scene was on.
But there was no Liam beside her, no Christmas tree in the corner, no children rattling packages under the tree and whining that they’d seen this movie a billion times.
She threw the covers back, got up, and walked to the closet. There, sitting forlornly beneath a row of empty hangers, was a small brown leather suitcase. She reached down and picked it up with her left hand—the right one was still too weak to use—and dragged it to the bed, flipping it onto the mattress. Then she unlatched the small brass closures; the suitcase twanged open.
She ran her fingers across the clothing. It had to be Liam’s doing, this artful arrangement of her favorite things. A black broomstick skirt and white turtleneck, with a matching tapestry vest. The silver concho belt she always wore with the skirt. A pair of black riding boots. Bra and panties. He’d even remembered her favorite gold hoop earrings—the ones that dangled a pair of cherub angels. And all of her makeup, even her hairbrush and perfume.
She couldn’t help thinking how it must have been for him as he’d stood in her huge, walk-in closet, choosing clothing to go in a suitcase that might never be opened …
She would have grabbed anything to get out of that closet, stuffed mismatched clothing in a brown paper bag.
But not Liam. No matter how much it hurt, he would have stood there, thinking, choosing, touching. She imagined that if she looked closely enough, there would be tiny gray tear spots on the white cotton of the turtleneck.
She stripped out of the flimsy hospital gown and tossed it onto the molded pink chair. It was difficult to dress herself—her right hand was barely any help at all—but she kept at it, pulling and tugging and strapping and buttoning until it was done.
Then she went into the bathroom and wet down her hair, combing it back from her face. There was no way she could put on makeup with her left hand, so she settled for pinching her cheeks.
She walked down the hall, with no idea where she was going. When she ended up at the hospital chapel, she realized she must have been heading there all along.
Kneeling in front of the utilitarian Formica altar, she stared up at the brass cross, then closed her eyes and imagined the altar at St. Michael’s.
“Please, God, help me. Show me the way home. ”
At first there was only darkness. Then a small, yellow ray of piercing sunlight. She heard voices as if from far away, a child’s high-pitched giggle, a man speaking to her softly.
She saw herself at a funeral, standing back, away from the group of mourners at the grave site. Ian’s funeral. The melancholy strains of a lone bagpipe filled the cold winter’s air. Liam turned and saw her. She barely knew him, and yet she was moving toward him. She took his hand and walked him back to the car. They didn’t say a word. He got into the limousine, and she watched him drive away …
The image shifted, went in and out of focus. After that, the memories came one after another, unconnected by time or space, just the random moments of life. She and Liam dancing at last year’s Tex-Mex hoedown … him drying the dishes while she washed them … him driving her to the feed store in that rickety red truck they called “the heapster. ”
She’d remembered her marriage to Liam, but this was the first time she’d felt it.
She was afraid to open her eyes. “More,” she pleaded, “show me more …”
Midnight Mass. Last year. They were in the front row, all four of them wearing their Sunday best. Bret’s hair was still wet, and all through the service, he kept wiping droplets away from his cheeks. It made her smile, remembering that even then, on Christmas Eve, they’d fought about him taking a shower. He’d put it off until the last minute, and so he’d gone to church with wet hair.
She saw the four of them clearly, like strands of a rope, twisted together; they strengthened one another.
Slowly she opened her eyes. The cross blurred in front of her; the silk flowers on the altar became a smear of faded colors. She stared down at the wedding ring on her left hand.
“I hurt Liam,” she whispered, whether to herself or to God, she didn’t know. All she knew was that it was almost unbearable, this knowledge of how much she had hurt him over the years. How much she was hurting him at this very moment.
She closed her eyes again and bowed her head. This time she didn’t want a memory—each one seemed to cut clear through to her bones—but it came anyway. She and Liam were in this hospital, in the waiting room. Bret was in surgery. The doctors had spoken of screws and plates and a hand that might never be able to make a fist again.
She and Liam had stood apart from each other, he at the window, she by the sofa. The fear between them was so dense, it made the walls and furniture look black. She was desperate to find a way to comfort her husband, this quiet, loving man who asked for so little. Slowly she got up from her chair and went to him. When she touched his shoulder, he seemed to crumble. He turned and said, I shouldn’t have let him go. She took him in her arms and held him. All she said to him was, It’s not your fault. At those simple words, the strongest man she’d ever met buried his face in the crook of her neck and cried like a little boy.
She felt as if she were looking at the moment from far, far away, through another woman’s eyes. From a distance, she knew exactly what she was seeing. Love. Pure and simple.
See? You know what love is, Mikaela.
She heard the words as clearly as the ringing of a church bell. She opened her eyes and looked around. There was no one there.