On Mystic Lake

She looked young and frail in the strange bed. It brought back a dozen painful memories of his son.



“When will she wake up?” he asked the doctor.



“It shouldn’t be long.”



Blake couldn’t seem to move. He stood in the center of the room, staring at his wife. He’d almost lost her. It was the thought that kept spinning through his head. He’d almost lost her.



He went to the bed and pulled up a chair. He sat there, staring at the woman who’d been his wife for almost twenty years. Dr. North said something—he didn’t know what—and then left the room.



After forever—he’d lost track of time—she opened her eyes. “Blake?”



His head snapped up. He saw her sitting up, looking at him. She looked scared and broken. “Annie,” he whispered, reaching for her hand.



“My baby,” she said. “How’s our little girl?”



Shit. He hadn’t even asked. “I’ll go find out.” He rushed away from her and hurried down the hall. He found Dr. North at the nurses’ station, and he dragged her back to Annie’s room.



At the doctor’s entrance, Annie straightened. She was trying desperately not to cry; Blake could see the effort she was making. “Hi, doctor,” she said, swallowing hard.



Dr. North went to Annie, touched her hand. “Your daughter is alive, Annie. She’s in neonatal intensive care. There were some complications; she was barely five pounds and developmentally that’s a problem. We’re worried about—”



“She’s alive?”



Dr. North nodded. “She still has a lot of hurdles to overcome, Annie, but she’s alive. Would you like to see her?”



Annie clamped a hand over her mouth and nodded. She was crying too hard to answer any other way.



Blake stood aside as the doctor helped Annie into the wheelchair stationed in the corner. Then, feeling left out, he followed them down the hallway and into the neonatal ICU.



Annie sat huddled beside the incubator. Inside the clear plastic sides, the baby lay as still as death, a dozen tubes and needles connected to her thin red arms.



Blake came up beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder.



She looked up at him. “I’d like to call her Kathleen Sarah. Is that okay?”



“Sure.” He glanced around—up, down, sideways, anywhere except at the incubator. “I’m going to get us something to eat.”



“Don’t you want to sit with us?”



He didn’t look at the baby. “I . . . can’t.”



Annie didn’t know why she was surprised, or why it hurt so deeply. Blake was no good with tragedy or fear; he never had been. If the emotions couldn’t fit in a neat little box, he pretended they didn’t exist. She would have to handle this in the way she’d handled every upset in her life: alone. Dully, she nodded. “Fine. Get yourself something. I’m not hungry. Oh, and call Natalie. She’ll want to know what’s happening.”



“Okay.”



After he left, she reached through the bagged opening in the incubator’s side and held her baby’s hand. Though she couldn’t feel the skin, she could still remember the velvety softness. She tried not to think about Adrian, and the four futile days she’d sat beside him in a room exactly like this one, mouthing the same useless prayers, crying the same wasted tears.



Katie’s hand was so damned small and fragile. Annie tucked her fingers around the minuscule wrist. For the next hour, she talked, hoping that the familiar sound of her voice would soothe her daughter, make her know that even in this brightly lit new world full of needles and breathing machines and strangers, she wasn’t alone.



She couldn’t have said later what she talked about, what she dredged up from her frightened soul to spill onto that austere, frightening plastic box.



But it didn’t take long for the words to dry up, taking the false optimism with them.



Finally, the nurses came and took her away. They reminded Annie that she needed to keep her strength up, that she needed to sleep and eat. Annie had tried to argue with them—didn’t they know that she couldn’t? Not while her precious newborn was struggling for every breath of life.



But of course, she went back to her room, climbed back into her narrow, uncomfortable bed, and stared at the blank walls. She called Stanford and talked to Natalie, who had booked a flight for Friday evening—right after her big Oceanography test. Then she’d called both Hank and Terri.



When the calls were done, Annie lost her strength. She kept thinking about those tiny red fists and the legs that looked like strands of spaghetti, and she closed her eyes. The pain in her chest was so great, she wondered if she could withstand it, or if this old heart of hers would simply seize up and die.



Somewhere, a phone rang. The sudden, blaring sound jarred her from her thoughts. Blinking, she glanced around, realized it was the phone beside her bed.



She picked up the phone and answered dully. “Hello?”



“Annie? It’s Nick. Your friend Terri called me . . .”



“Nick?” That’s all she said—just his name—and the floodgates opened. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Duhdid Terri tell you about the baby? My beautiful little girl . . . oh, Nick . . .” She sobbed into the telephone. “She only weighs five pounds. Her lungs aren’t fully developed. You should see all the needles and . . .” She cried until there were no more tears inside her, until she felt exhausted and drained and inexpressibly old.



“Where are you?”



“Beverly Hills Memorial, but—”



“I’ll come right down.”



She closed her eyes. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine, really . . . Blake’s here.”



There was a long, scratchy silence between them, then finally, Nick said, “You’re stronger than you think you are. You can get through this, whatever happens, you can get through it. Just don’t forget.”



She wiped her eyes. “Forget what?”



“The rain,” he said softly. “It’s an angel’s tears. And every glass you’ve ever seen is half full. Don’t let yourself forget that. I know what it does to a person . . . forgetting that hope is out there.”



She almost said, I love you, Nick, but she held the words back just in time. “Thanks.”



“I love you, Annie Bourne.”



It made her want to cry all over again, that soft, quiet reminder of something that was already leaking away. Colwater, she wanted to say. I’m Annie Colwater, and you love a woman who is fading every second. Instead, she forced a wan, tired smile, thankful that he couldn’t see it. “Thank you, Nick,” she whispered. “Thank you so much. Tell Izzy I’ll call her in a few days, when . . . when I know what’s happening.”



“We’ll be praying for . . . all of you,” he said finally.



She sighed, feeling the useless tears start all over again. “Good-bye, Nick.”



Chapter 27



It was the middle of the night, but Annie couldn’t sleep. Though she was no longer technically a patient, the hospital had given her a room so she could be near Katie. She’d tried reading and eating and writing, anything to take her mind off of Katie, but nothing worked.



She’d spent hours hunched alongside the incubator, reading, singing, praying. She’d expressed milk into a bottle, but when she looked at the creamy-colored liquid, she wondered if her baby would ever get a chance to drink it. Or a chance to grow strong and move out of this sterile world, a chance to grow and start school and snuggle with her mommy. . . .



We’ll get through this, she said to herself, straightening her spine, but every time a machine buzzed, Annie thought this is it, she’s stopped breathing.



Blake had tried to help, in his own way, but it hadn’t worked. He’d said, She’ll be okay, in a quiet voice, over and over again, but when he spoke, his eyes were blank and afraid.



In truth, Annie had been glad when he left the hospital.



I just can’t stay here, he’d said.



Okay. That was her answer, and even then, in the quiet darkness, the single word seemed coiled in sorrow and regret.



He’d tried to laugh it off. I don’t have to sleep in a chair to prove my love—do I?



Of course not, she’d answered, knowing that it was a lie. Go get Natalie. Her plane lands at nine o’clock.



He’d jumped on the opportunity, just as she’d known he would. He’d rather be anywhere than in this cold, unfamiliar world where his wife cried all day.



She climbed out of bed and moved slowly to the window. Her stitches hurt, but she welcomed the pain. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the window’s cold glass. Below, the parking lot was a huge gray square, dotted with a few shadowy black cars.



Finally, she turned away. She’d just gotten back into bed when the phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?”



“Annie? It’s me, Nick.”



“Nick.” His name came out on a whisper of longing.



“I thought you might need me.”



It sounded so simple, those few little words, but they wound around her heart and squeezed. She’d spent a lifetime going through crises alone, always being the strong one, always being in control, and she hadn’t realized until just now how much she yearned to be comforted.



“How is she doing?” he asked.



She ran a shaking hand through her short hair. “She’s holding on. The neonatologist says she’ll be okay if she can just . . . hold on another few weeks. . . .” Quietly, she began to cry again. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m tired and scared. All I seem to do is cry.”



“You want to hear a story?”



She wanted desperately to be whisked away from reality on the wings of his voice. “Yes, please . . .”



“It’s about a man who started life as poor white trash, a kid who ate out of Dumpsters and lived in the backseat of an old Impala. After his mom died, the world gave this young boy a singular chance, and he moved to a soggy little town he’d never heard of, where they didn’t know about his ugly past. He went to high school there, and he fell in love with two girls. One was the sun and the other was the moon. He was young, and he reached for the moon, figuring it was a safe, quiet place—and he knew that if you reached for the sun it could burn you away to nothing. When his wife died, he lost his soul. He turned his back on his child and his dreams and he crawled into a bottle of booze. All he wanted was to die, but he didn’t have the guts.”



“Nick, don’t . . .”



“So this drunk waited for someone to end his life for him. He waited for someone to take his child away. Then, he thought, then he’d have the guts to kill himself. Only none of that happened, because a fairy princess came into his life. He still remembers what it was like that day, the way the rain was just starting to fall and the lake was as still as glass. He remembers everything about the day she came into his life.”



“Nick, please . . .” She wanted him to stop, now, before the story spun its gossamer strands around her heart and romanced her beyond repair.