She wasn’t issuing a threat or even stating a fact. The truth was she didn’t know what she’d do if Devon didn’t wake up soon. Then again, she’d felt that way for six years now. Six. She hadn’t missed the shock on Matt’s face when she’d told him that tonight. She could see he’d wanted to ask her how she’d made it this long. She wasn’t sure what she would have told him. She’d just kept going, and she supposed she’d keep muddling through as long as she had to. As long as Devon was hanging in there, so would she.
You can keep him trapped in that bed another six years or longer, or you can tell him he is free to move on.
Cassie’s head jerked up, and she turned her body toward the doorway, fully expecting to find Pearl standing there, so clearly had she just heard her voice and earlier advice. The door was still closed.
“I’m not the one trapping him. I didn’t do this,” Cassie said to no one, starting to feel defensive and hurt and angry all over again.
The power to free him lies within you. And only you.
“That’s not true.” Cassie leaned her head back, as if talking to God instead of some imagined voice. “I don’t know how to wake Devon up. If I did, don’t you think I would have done that long ago?”
Devon lingers on Earth because your heart calls him to stay.
“Of course my heart calls him to stay. He’s my husband.” Cassie thought of poor Mr. Leifter, missing Ivy the last couple of weeks. Someday, when she and Devon were old, one of them would have to say goodbye to the other, and it would be a terrible, awful, sad time. But that time wasn’t now. They were young, and they had Noah to raise.
If you would release him, he would go and find peace at last.
“No!” Cassie’s goosebumps reappeared as she stood, turning a slow circle in the dimly lit room, making sure no one really was here with them. After all, no one had seen Pearl leave. What if she hadn’t? The seldom-used door to the adjoining bathroom caught Cassie’s eye, and she crossed quickly to it and pulled it open. Empty. She turned to the floor to ceiling closet next to the sink in the room, then grabbed the double doors and pulled those open as well. Nothing. She didn’t feel relieved. Great. Now she was imagining things. She hadn’t imagined the entire encounter with Pearl, had she?
Cassie returned to the chair next to Devon’s bed. “You know what I worry about most? Aside from you, that is.” She sighed heavily. “I worry that something will happen to me— that I’ll get sick or hurt or I’ll become mentally unstable, like I feel like I might be right now— and then where will Noah be? What will happen to him? So I’m asking you, begging you—” Cassie swallowed back a swell of emotion, determined not to cry anymore tonight. She took Devon’s hand again and pressed it to her cheek.
“Wake up and be with us. Wake up soon. Please.”
In the rearview mirror, Matt could see Austin’s face screwed up in confusion.
“So it’s kind of like Noah’s dad is dead, except he’s not?”
“That’s a pretty good summary,” Matt said, surprised that an hour after their initial conversation with Cassie, Austin was still on this same subject. He’d asked questions— most of which Matt didn’t know the answers to— throughout their trip to the grocery store and had continued asking them on the drive back to the care center. A kid-sized snore rumbled from Asher’s open mouth as he slept beside Austin in the backseat.
“When do you think Noah’s dad will wake up?” Austin unbuckled and leaned forward as Matt pulled into a parking stall in front of the care center.
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I don’t think his doctors even know.”
“But he will wake up, right?” Austin asked, unmistakable concern in his voice.
Matt shut off the engine, unbuckled his own belt, and turned around in his seat. “Why don’t you come up here with me, buddy?” How long has it been since he’d used that term? How long it had been since he and Austin had thought of each other as buddies or treated each other that way? Matt waited for Austin’s rejection but was pleasantly surprised when instead, he clambered head first to the front.
Capitalizing on this unexpected moment and Austin’s unusual mood, Matt hurried to help Austin right himself, then put his arm around his son and pulled him close. “Noah’s father may never wake up. You know that sometimes brain injuries are like that.” There was a world of difference between an aneurysm and what Matt suspected had happened to Devon Webb, but that wasn’t easily explainable to a six year-old. A quiet moment passed, Matt wondering the whole time what was going through Austin’s mind.
“I feel bad.” Austin’s voice sounded small and quiet.
“So do I,” Matt said, silently applauding the return— temporarily, at least— of the tenderhearted son he used to have. “That’s how we’re supposed to feel when something sad happens to someone we care about.” And I’m starting to care— a lot. He shouldn’t, he knew. Cassie was still as married as she’d ever been, and he’d learned tonight just how very faithful a wife she was. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t care for her as a friend, did it?
“I don’t just feel bad because I like Noah,” Austin said. “I feel bad for what I did to him.”
“Ahh,” Matt said. Finally. He pulled Austin a bit closer. “That’s good you feel that way. It means you’re a nice person. We’re supposed to feel bad when we make a mistake and do something wrong. Hurting people isn’t who you really are, and I think you can make it up by not hurting anyone else and by being Noah’s friend.”
Austin’s head fell forward, hair hanging over his face, so Matt couldn’t make out his expression. “I pushed Noah because I was mad he had a mom and I didn’t. And she was there with him all happy, and I was sad. But now that I know he doesn’t got a dad, I kind of want him to push me back.”
“Because that would make you feel better?” Now they were getting somewhere. Why hadn’t the $125-an-hour therapist figured this out?
Austin gave a solemn nod. Matt answered with one of his own, completely understanding. For months now, he’d expected and almost wished for something truly awful to happen to him. He deserved it for being a less than attentive husband. He should have died instead of Jenna. But life didn’t work like that. He felt sorry that Austin, too, wished it did. They were so alike it was frightening. Poor kid.
“Do you think you could ask Noah to hit me or something?” Austin looked up at Matt.
“No.” Matt shook his head. “Because then Noah would feel bad. Doing something mean never makes anyone feel happy.”
“Oh.” Austin’s sigh sounded far too heavy for someone so young.
“But if you want you can help me do some nice things for Noah and his mom, and I promise, that will make you feel better.” Matt was feeling much improved just from this conversation. He felt truly terrible about Cassie’s husband and about all she had been and must still be dealing with and going through, but he also felt, strangely, that her situation was somehow going to make his life and Austin’s and Asher’s better. It was probably as simple as thinking about someone other than themselves, something he thought he’d have figured out before now.
But apparently he hadn’t, basking in misery for the last several months as he had been. He was ready for that to change and believed Austin was, too. Asher didn’t need to change; he’d stayed kind and loving all along. Sitting in the dark truck, with his arm around Austin for the first time in weeks, felt really good. Something had happened between them tonight, and Matt felt exhilarated by it.
Before he could contemplate his plans too much, Cassie came out the front doors of the care center. She gave him an appreciative smile as she approached, then opened the passenger door and climbed up into the truck.
“Sorry I didn’t get your door for you,” Matt said, looking down at Austin, asleep against his side. “We were having a conversation a minute ago. I guess I talked him to sleep.”
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” Cassie said. “It was selfish of me to make you wait.”
Matt leaned
over Austin, closer to her and only just barely resisting the urge to place his hand over Cassie’s on the seat. “Nothing about coming to visit your husband is selfish, but I would have been the biggest codfish alive if I’d have left you here without a ride home.”
“Codfish?” She tilted her head, and her mouth quirked in amusement.
“Codfish,” Matt reaffirmed. “The boys and I watched Peter Pan a couple of days ago, after which Austin pronounced me a worse villain than Captain Hook when I wouldn’t let him have donuts for dinner.” Matt nudged Austin toward the middle of the seat and pulled a seatbelt around him. “I didn’t help the situation much by singing, ‘Dad is a codfish’ as I served his dinner.”
“A plate full of fish and vegetables I suppose,” Cassie said.
“Um, yeah.” Those breaded things he’d bought were fish sticks, right? And prewashed, ready-to-eat mini carrots were the staple of every meal. He started the truck. “Where to? I don’t know a lot of streets yet.”
“No problem,” Cassie said. “We’ll go to my mom’s first, then my place is out in the country a bit.” She directed him to an older neighborhood with mostly kept-up homes, from what Matt could tell in the dark. He waited, getting out to open the back door for Noah, while she went up to her mom’s house to get him. When she left the house carrying him in her arms, Matt hurried up the walk and took Noah from her.
“Thanks,” Cassie said, not sounding at all irritated, calming Matt’s worry that he’d just overstepped his bounds.
“He’s getting heavier,” Cassie said. “I’d better start working out more or pretty soon I won’t be able to lift him at all.”
Matt situated Noah in the backseat while Cassie got in front. As Matt walked around the car to the driver’s side, he saw a face peering at him from the part in the curtains at the front window. He thought about lifting his hand to wave but decided against it, in case he wasn’t supposed to see that he was being observed.
“It’s about twelve minutes from here,” Cassie said, directing him to the right road once more. “I really appreciate this. My mom’s getting older and really doesn’t like to drive at night.”
“I’m glad to do it,” Matt said, happy to spend a few minutes more in Cassie’s presence and to find out where she lived.
“Right here,” she said a few minutes later as she pointed to an old barn about a hundred yards off the country road they’d been driving on.
“You live in a barn?” Matt peered through the dark but could see no other buildings.
“On top of it, actually,” Cassie said. “Devon found this place for us when we first got married. The rent is cheap, and I was going to school then…” Her voice trailed off, and Matt wondered where her thoughts had drifted to as well.
“Let me carry Noah up for you.” He turned off the truck and jumped out before she could object. Noah slumped easily into his arms when Matt opened the back door, and he followed Cassie across a dirt yard and up a steep staircase tacked to the side of the barn. After the first few steps, he paused and purposely stayed a few stairs below her to space out their weight because the stairs appeared so rickety. He felt it nothing short of a miracle when they’d safely reached the top.
“Who’s your landlord?” Matt asked, eyeing the stairs again.
“Some guy in Sacramento,” Cassie said. “He’s never been up here since we’ve lived here that I’m aware of.”
“Well he should come,” Matt said, “and fix your stairs, at the least.” He worried what the inside of the apartment would look like as Cassie unlocked the door.
She stepped inside and turned on a light, and Matt found himself pleasantly surprised. The space seemed in good repair though it was small, tiny really, with room for only a loveseat, round kitchen table, and two chairs. A three-foot countertop and smaller-than-normal stove and fridge lined the far wall past the table.
“This way,” Cassie said, flipping on another light. Matt followed her past a bathroom to the only other door that he could see, into a bedroom only slightly larger than the master bath at his previous home.
“Noah sleeps in the loft.” She reached up to pull the covers back so Matt could place Noah beneath them. This he did, then took an extra few seconds to take Noah’s shoes off and tuck the blanket up around him. As Matt handed the shoes to Cassie, he took in the rest of the room, a strange combination of little boy and grown woman, with bins of Legos on one side and a jewelry hanger on the other.
“Where do you sleep?” Matt asked, then realized how personal and intrusive the question was. “Sorry. None of my business.”
“It’s all right.” Cassie walked the few steps to the opposite wall and pushed on the lower part of it. The top jutted out, and she reached up and pulled down a bed. “Pretty lame that my son has to share a room with his mom, but for now…”
Matt got it, or at least he thought he did. She drove an old car and lived in 500 square feet above a barn. Money was an issue. But not her biggest one. He thought of the expression on her face again when she’d told him her husband had PBS, or whatever it was— that he was in a coma. Matt couldn’t fix that, but he could fix some other things for her, starting with her car tomorrow.
He suddenly couldn’t wait to get over to Ikeda’s and pick it up first thing in the morning. He’d jump it with the truck, then drive it over to the auto parts store for a diagnostic, but he’d have to have her keys for that.
“About your car—”
“Ugh.” Cassie brought a hand to her head and rubbed her temples. “I’ll get it towed over to the mechanic tomorrow morning and deal with it then.”
“Why don’t you let me tow it instead?” Matt suggested. “I’ll get a buddy of mine to help me. My truck can pull it no problem.”
“I can’t ask you to do another thing,” Cassie said.
“You didn’t.” Matt held out his hand. “I offered. That’s completely different. Keys?”
She looked at his hand for a few seconds, then finally went into the other room and retrieved the keys from her purse. “I owe you dinner or something.”
“You don’t owe me a thing,” Matt said. “Because of you, I’m getting my boy back. Whenever we’re with you, I see glimpses of the old Austin returning.”
“That’s great.” Cassie leaned against the table, looking tired enough that she might collapse.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, and you can tell me where to tow it.” Matt headed for the door. With a little luck, he wouldn’t have to tow it at all. He and his buddies, Austin and Asher, would be able to take care of the problem themselves.
“Good night.” Matt lifted a hand in farewell.
“Good night,” Cassie returned.
He closed her door behind him and descended the treacherous stairs. Knowing what he did about Cassie now, he wondered how she could ever say that it was a good night at all.
Cassie sat on her bed, staring up at Noah, sleeping peacefully, and thinking about how Matt had so easily lifted him into his loft and then tucked him in. Devon had never had that privilege. Noah had never been tucked in by his dad, and tonight, if Matt hadn’t been here to help her, Cassie would have had to wake Noah to get him into his bed.
Such a little thing, yet how it had struck her, and how she appreciated it. She flopped back onto her pillow and closed her eyes, thinking back through the day that had felt like about five years.
The school hours had crawled by. Fridays were always the worst, as children and teachers alike were eager for the weekend. The extra soccer game had been fun but tiring. After that, everything else was a blur. Dropping Noah off at her mom’s, Ikeda’s, the stupid car, the care center, Pearl, and the things she’d said. Cassie refused to allow them into her mind again, or not tonight at least. But she felt Pearl’s words nagging at her and knew at some future point, she’d have to contemplate them at least.
She continued her mental review of the evening. Eating dinner with Matt and his boys, finally visiting with Devon, the news about Mr. Leifter, Matt driv
ing her home and carrying Noah inside.
It seemed almost providential that Matt had been at Ikeda’s tonight. Though why shouldn’t he have been there? It was the best burger place in town, and as a newcomer, of course he’d probably looked something like that up and wanted to try it for himself. That he’d also been at the hospital cafeteria had simply been a blessing. Just at the point she felt she might lose it, Matt and his wonderful boys had been there to rescue her, to help her regain perspective and keep on going. Because in spite of what Pearl had told her tonight, she still had hope. Matt didn’t. He would never again have the opportunity to be here with his wife, to talk to her, wake up next to her, have her beside him to watch their boys play soccer. Cassie couldn’t imagine what that kind of loss must be like, or how it would feel if someone took away the hope she felt. She wished there was something she could do for Matt, the way he’d done so much for her tonight. Just listening to her had been such a service.
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Oh, Mom. Cassie reached over and picked it up, having already ignored two calls while she was showering. For some reason she didn’t feel like explaining who Matt was to her mom. Though it should have been simple.
He’s just a really nice guy. With cute kids and crappy circumstances.
“Hi, Mom.” Cassie answered on the third ring, figuring she might as well get this over with. It was 11:30 already, and if her mom hadn’t given up on getting an answer tonight, then her curiosity really must be driving her crazy. No sense in both of us being unable to sleep.
“Hello, dear,” a high pitched voice that was definitely not her mom’s squeaked back.
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