Angel Falls

Chapter Twenty-two


Please let me get to her in time.
Liam glanced at the clock on the Explorer’s dashboard: 3:05. Cheerleader practice ended five minutes ago …
He pressed harder on the gas. At the entrance to the high school, he knew he was going too fast. When he turned the wheel, the tires skidded sideways. For a split second, he lost control of the car. Then the tires grabbed hold. The car hurtled down the driveway and into the parking lot.
He was too late. Already there was a crowd of reporters outside the school’s front doors. Klieg lights stood on their perimeter like black insects. They were all talking at once; their combined voices sounded like the start-up of a buzz saw.
Liam lurched out of the car and ran toward them. The ground was slick and mushy with old snow, and twice he almost fell. By the time he reached the sidewalk, his heart was hammering.
“Jacey!” His voice was lost in the din.
Reporters circled the small group of cheerleaders like a pack of wolves, jockeying for position, making it impossible for Liam to get through. They were shouting out questions, one after another.
“Which one of you is Juliana?”
He heard Mrs. Kurek, the cheerleader adviser, answer, “There’s no Juliana here, now go away.”
Liam tried to see above the crowd, but there were lights and cameras everywhere, and the reporters knew how to close access.
He screamed his daughter’s name, trying to push through the sardine-packed bodies. It was impossible.
“Which one of you has a mother in a coma?”
He knew that all it would take is a look at Jacey …
“There she is!”
The mob shifted, separated, and came back together around Jacey, cutting her off from everyone else with practiced ease. Wolves separating a baby lamb from the herd.
“Are you Kayla’s daughter?”
“Are you Juliana?”
He could see that Jacey was breathing heavily. She was afraid. “I’m Jacey,” she answered softly. “My mom’s in a coma….”
A microphone flew at her face, almost hit her in the nose. “How does it feel to be his daughter?”
Liam screamed her name. He grabbed hold of the cameraman in front of him and shoved. The camera fell to the ground, the man stumbled sideways.
Liam surged through the opening. “Jace—come here!”
Above the crowd, their gazes met. Liam saw the fear in his daughter’s eyes. He saw when she gave way to panic; not all at once, but in little breaths. He plowed through the crush of bodies. She held out her hands toward him.
He pushed and shoved his way forward, his hands outstretched, fingertips straining to touch hers.
“How does it feel to be Julian True’s daughter?” someone yelled out.
A hush fell. Jacey looked at Liam, her mouth open, her eyes widening in shock.
“Jesus Christ, she doesn’t know—”
“Move in, Bert, get a shot of her face—now—”
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” Liam screamed the words. He threw himself forward, knocking people aside, ramming them with his elbows.
At last he was at her side. He slipped an arm around Jacey and pulled her close. He could feel her trembling. “It’s okay, honey,” he whispered in her ear, even though he knew it wasn’t true.
“Who are you?” someone shouted at him.
“It’s the doctor,” someone else said. “What are you—”
“She has no comment.” Liam heard the snarl in his voice; it was an unfamiliar sound that came from a dark place deep inside him. He dragged a dazed Jacey through the crowd and helped her into the Explorer.
The reporters followed them all the way, still shouting out questions and popping photographs. The last thing Liam heard as he slammed the car door was “Get the license plate number.”
He started the engine and hit the gas. The car surged forward, tires spinning on the slushy snow, and spun out of the parking lot.
His heart was hammering, and there was a coppery fear taste in his mouth. He’d never felt so ashamed and defeated in his life. He had failed to protect her. It was his fault. The daughter he loved more than his own life had been hurt.
Jacey twisted around in her seat, watching the road behind them. “They’re not following us,” she said in a watered-down version of her ordinary voice.
Liam veered left onto the snowy, unmaintained forest service road that led to Angel Falls State Park. He chose this road because it only appeared on the most detailed maps of the area. No one would follow them here.
When they reached the end of the road, they found the empty parking lot as pristine as a new sheet of paper. In the late afternoon it was dark in these deep woods.
He parked near the information board, a rough-hewn wooden pyramid that told the story of these falls, discovered and named by Ian Campbell in honor of his beloved wife.
Liam took a deep breath and turned at last to his daughter. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
She looked at him, her dark eyes confused and afraid. “Is it true, Dad?”
He wanted to be angry with Mike right now, but as it was, all he felt was cold and hollow. “It’s true. Your mom was married to Julian True.”
The color faded from her cheeks. She looked impossibly young and vulnerable. “He’s my father?”
Father. The word hit Liam like a blow to the larynx. For a moment he couldn’t speak, and when he did find his voice, it was dull and flat. “Yes.”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh, my God …”
He waited for her to say more, but she remained silent. It felt to Liam as if seawater were rising between them, rising, becoming a rippling wall that distorted their images. He tried to think of what it was that he should say, but that emptiness was inside him again, bleeding into the silence. Finally he told her the only truth that mattered. “I should have told you—”
“Is that why he’s really in town? To see Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was my father?”
He understood the question. She didn’t want to believe that he had lied to her all these years, and as much as he wanted to protect Mike, he wouldn’t deceive Jacey. That’s why she was so hurt now. “I heard the same stories you did. Mike told me that she’d been married too young, to a man who only wanted to party and have fun. I didn’t know it was Julian. I found out the truth when I went looking for that dress you wore to the dance.”
“The way she wouldn’t ever talk about my other dad … I figured he was a bum or a bad guy. Some loser she met in college.” She paused, looking at him. “When I was little, she used to cry every time I asked about him, so I stopped asking. Jeez … Julian True.”
Liam tried not to be hurt by the tiny, hitching smile that tugged at her mouth. What teenager wouldn’t be thrilled to find out that a famous movie star was her father? It didn’t mean she’d turn away from the father who’d always been there for her, holding her hand, kissing away her little girl’s tears. At least that’s what he told himself as the silence between them stretched on and on.
“When was she going to tell me? When we colonize Mars?”
It had come faster than he’d expected, the anger, and he didn’t know how to assuage it. There was no way to excuse what Mike had done to her. It was selfish and hurtful, and now, these many years later, they would all pay for the lie that had lain between them, curled silently in a silk pillowcase.
“I don’t know when she was going to tell you,” he said at last.
He could see that she was close to crying. She seemed to be holding the tears back one shallow breath at a time. “That’s why he came to the prom—to dance with me—but he didn’t say anything that mattered. How did he know Mom was hurt?”
“I called him. I … discovered that your mom responded to his name. I thought that if he talked to her, she might wake up, and it worked. She woke up yesterday.”
“Julian woke her up—after all the hours we all spent talking to her?”
Liam winced. He felt hemmed in by all the times he’d told Jacey that love would reach Mikaela in her darkness. “Well—”
“Oh, my God, what if …” This time she couldn’t hold back the tears. She launched herself at Liam, landing in his arms as if she were a child again. She cried on his shoulder. The warm moisture of her tears seeped through his flannel shirt. When she drew back, she looked different somehow, changed, as if the tears had washed away the last, sticky traces of the little girl she’d been and made room for a young woman.
“I hate her.” At the confession, she started crying again.
He touched her face. “No. You’re hurt and angry—and you have every right to be. But you could never hate your mom. She loves you, Jace—”
“What about you? She lied to you all these years, too.”
He sighed. “Sometimes people lie to protect their loved ones. Maybe she thought … we couldn’t handle the truth.”
Jacey sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes were glazed with tears as she looked at him, her mouth quavered. “He didn’t want me, did he? That’s why he never called or wrote.”
Liam wanted to lie to her, but it was lies that had brought them to this sorry, painful place in their lives. “I don’t know Julian well enough to answer that.”
He could see that she was shocked and confused and angry. The truth had pushed her out on a twisting, narrow road, and only she could find her way. “I’m sorry, Jace. For all of it.”
She gazed at him, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I love you … Dad.”
He heard the tiny hesitation, the way her voice snagged on the hook of new information, before she called him Dad. “I love you, too, Jace.”
“We’re still a family,” he whispered. “You remember that. Your mom loves you and Bret—oh, shit, Bret.” He jerked back so hard his head hit the window.
“The reporters.” Jacey slid back into her seat and clamped the seat belt in place. “It’s three-thirty. He’s in music class.”
Bret was getting cranky. They’d been practicing for the Christmas assembly for more than an hour, and he, like most of the boys, hated standing still. They were all in rows, all the fourth and fifth graders, standing side by side on three risers. The music teacher, Mrs. Barnett, had organized them by height, which meant that the girls were next to the boys, and that was always a problem.
Mrs. B. rapped her wooden pointer on the metal music stand. “Come on, children, pay attention. Now, let’s try the last verse again.” Mrs. B. raised her poker and nodded at Mr. Adam, who was sitting at the piano in the corner. At the cue, he started playing “Silent Night.”
Bret couldn’t remember a single word.
Katie elbowed him, hard. “Sing.”
He hit her back. “Shut up.”
She pinched him, right in the fat part of his upper arm. “I’m gonna tell.”
“Bite me.”
Katie slammed her arms down and stomped one foot so hard the whole riser shuddered. “Mrs. Barnett,” she yelled in a shrill, gloating voice, “Bret Campbell isn’t singing.”
Mr. Adam’s fingers stumbled on the keys. There was a confused jangle of notes, and then silence.
Katie flashed Bret a satisfied smile.
He rolled his eyes. Like he cared.
Slowly Mrs. B. lowered her pointer. “Now, Katherine, that’s not really your concern, is it?”
“She thinks everything is her concern,” someone said, laughing.
Katie blushed. It was totally cool the way her whole face turned red. “B-But you said we all—”
Mrs. B. smiled at Bret, but it was a weird smile, sorta wiggly and sad. “Let’s not pick on Bret. We all know—”
Bret stuck his tongue out at Katie.
“—that his mom just woke up, and that it’s been a hard time for the family.”
We all know his mom woke up.
Bret couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t be true. Dad would have told him if Mommy woke up. But Mrs. B. said it …
He clutched Katie’s arm to steady himself.
She let out a little squeal, then opened her mouth to tell on him again. Only nothing came out. Instead, she frowned at Bret. “You look gross. Are you gonna puke?”
“My daddy wouldn’t do that,” he said to her.
Suddenly the door to the music room banged open and Jacey stood in the opening. Her face was all red and streaked, as if she’d been crying. “Mrs. Barnett,” she said, “I need to take Bret home now.”
Mrs. B. nodded. “Go along, Bret.”
Bret wrenched away from Katie so hard that four kids fell backward off the risers. He could hear everyone whispering, and he knew they were talking about him. Something else he didn’t care about.
He walked around the curious circle of his friends. Now he didn’t care if everyone saw that he was almost crying. He just wanted Mrs. B. to say that it was a mistake. Daddy would definitely have told Bret if Mom was awake.
He went to his sister. He felt very small all of a sudden, like a broken-legged action figure staring up at G.I. Joe, and his heart was beating so fast he felt dizzy. “Is Mommy—”
“Come on, Bretster.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the music room and down the hall. Outside, the Explorer was parked in the bus loading zone—a complete and total no-no at this time of day. The buses would be pulling up any minute. He saw that his dad was in the driver’s seat.
This is bad.
Bret allowed himself to be loaded into the backseat like a bag of grain. Jacey strapped him into his seat, then jumped into the front seat. Before Bret could even think of what to say, they were speeding through town. People were all over the streets, putting up decorations for the Glacier Days Festival this weekend, but Dad didn’t wave to a single person. And he was driving way too fast.
Bret wanted to ask something, to scream something, but it felt like Superman was squeezing his throat.
Dad pulled the car up to the back door of the hospital. He didn’t even look at Bret, just at Jacey. “Stay with your brother. Stay away from the lobby. I have to talk to Sam in Administration. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria in ten minutes, okay?”
Jacey nodded.
Then Daddy was gone, running off ahead of them, and Jacey and Bret were walking down the empty hallway in the back of the hospital. Their footsteps echoed, and it was creepy. At every noise, Bret flinched.
She was dead. He was sure of it this time. When he got to his mommy’s room, the bed would be empty, and it would be too late for him to see her …
He yanked away from his sister and ran toward his mother’s room.
“Bret—come back!”
He ignored her and kept running. At his mom’s room, he skidded to a stop and pulled the door open.
There was Mommy, lying in that old bed just like always. Asleep.
He stumbled. It was only because he was clutching the doorknob that he didn’t fall.
He didn’t know which emotion was stronger: relief that Dad hadn’t lied, or disappointment that she wasn’t awake.
He shut the door quietly and went to Mommy’s bed.
It still scared him, to see her like this. Even though she was still pretty, and Daddy had shown Bret the important things—like the rosy pink on her cheeks and the way her chest rose and fell with every breath—
All good signs, Daddy always said.
But to Bret, she looked like she was dead. He had to keep telling himself that she was alive.
It’s still her, Bretster. You remember that.
He tried to take strength from Dad’s words. His dad, who wouldn’t lie, said Mommy was alive … somewhere.
Bret moved in closer and climbed up the bed rail, leaning over her. He was so close, he could feel the softness of her breath against his eyelashes. Then he closed his eyes and tried to think of a happy memory of her.
Well, I guess any boy big enough to saddle his own horse is old enough to go on an overnight ride … I’m proud of you, Bretster.
He knew the memory would make him cry, and it did. All he could think about was the way she’d dropped to her knees on the cold cement floor and hugged him. He missed her hugs most of all … maybe even more than her kisses.
He heard the door open behind him, then the soft sound of his sister’s footsteps. “Come on, Bret. Dad told us to meet him in the cafeteria.”
“Just a sec.” He leaned a little closer and gave her the Mommy Kiss, just exactly how she always did it to him: a quick kiss on the forehead, one on each cheek and a butterfly kiss on the chin, then a longer kiss on the right side of the nose. While his lips were brushed against her nose, he whispered the magic words: “No bad dreams.”
When he drew back, his heart was hurting. A tear leaked down his cheek and splashed on Mommy’s lip.
And, very slowly, she opened her eyes.
Bret almost fell off the bed.
She eased up to a sit and stared at him. He waited and waited, but she didn’t smile. “Well, hello, little boy.”
At last she smiled, but it was all wrong.
It wasn’t his mommy.
Bret opened his mouth; nothing came out. All this time, he’d waited and prayed, and in every dream he had, his mom said the same thing when she woke up. How’s my favorite boy in the whole world? And then she’d sweep him into her arms and hold him like she always did …
Tears burned his eyes.
The lady who wore his mommy’s face frowned. “Is something wrong?”
They were the wrong words. His real mommy would have said, Those can’t be tears in my big boy’s eyes …
No, he meant to say, even if it was a lie, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out except his own breath.
The fake mommy looked around the room. Her gaze caught on Jacey, who was standing by the door, hugging herself and crying. “How’s my favorite girl in the world?”
A tiny sound escaped Bret then. He couldn’t hold it all in. Those were his words, his, but she’d given them to Jacey.
RUN.
That was all he could think. He tore out of the building and plunged into the darkening afternoon.
By the time he got to the highway, he was freezing, but he didn’t care. He kept running.