She smiled. “And cover my glamorous life? After ten minutes, they’ll realize that the ordinary life of a small-town doctor’s wife is hardly front-page news.”
“I’ll be right back with the limo. I’ll meet you around back.” He gave her a last, heavy look, then turned and left.
Mikaela reached for her suitcase, then decided to leave it in the closet. It was too unwieldy for her to carry, and it would only arouse suspicion. She called and canceled the cab. Empty-handed, she left her room. She kept her head down, and her side brushed against the wall as she made her slow, limping way down the hospital corridors.
When she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was the evergreen smell of Christmas. Green pine needles and fresh snow. A dark purple sky filled with the first few evening stars made her feel small. She smiled; that was what she expected from the sky. All her life, she’d gone out at night and stood beneath all that blue velvet darkness. It was her temple, the true house of her God, and it never failed to remind her of her place.
She liked feeling small. It had been the wanting to feel big that had led her to Julian.
The limousine pulled up, the door opened, and she got inside.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The limo crawled through town at the posted speed limit of ten miles per hour. Outside, there were people everywhere, moving in gray clouds of exhaled breath, walking beneath banners that read: WELCOME TO GLACIER DAYS.
Julian couldn’t take his eyes off Mikaela, although she rarely looked at him. She directed the driver out of town, onto a back road where trees outnumbered houses a thousand to one. They turned into a driveway, passed beneath an arch announcing ANGEL FALLS RANCH.
Acres of white pastures rolled away from the road on either side, bracketed by four-rail fencing. Beneath a huge old tree, a dozen horses stood, their big butts turned into the wind.
Mikaela touched the smoked-glass windows. “Hi, babies,” she murmured to the horses. “I missed you.”
At last the house came into view; it was a beautiful log structure set against the serrated black mountains. White icicle Christmas lights hung from the eaves and made the house look like a princess’s castle.
The car pulled up in front of the house and stopped. The driver—Julian could never remember his name—hurried around to their door.
“Thank you,” she said to the young man as she got out.
Julian realized that not once in all these weeks had he offered the driver those simple words. He got out of the car and stood beside Kayla. She shivered with cold and he put an arm around her.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, speaking of the house.
He looked down at her, only her. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
The driver got back into the car and shut the door, giving them privacy.
Kayla turned to him. “Come in with me, Jules. Meet your daughter.”
He saw the sorrow in her eyes, and he knew that she understood what hadn’t yet been said. Still, as always, she expected the best of him. It was, he knew now, one of the things he loved most about her. In all the world, she was the only one who had ever wanted him to reach for the man he could be.
He hated to hurt her again, to remind her of the painful truth. “You know I can’t.”
“Oh, Julian …” She said his name on a sigh of disappointment, a sound more intimate and knowing than any kiss they ever shared.
“If I walked through those doors, it would be a lie. We both know that. I don’t want to do to Jacey what I did to you.”
She looked at him and tried to smile.
It broke his heart, that soft realization in her beautiful eyes. “Tell me you’ll always love me,” he whispered.
She touched his cheek. In the coldness, her touch was a brand that burned his flesh. “I’ll always love who we were.”
He felt and heard the continent that lay between his question and her answer. He knew as certainly as he’d ever known anything that this time he would miss her forever. When his fans had died and the women no longer followed him, he would sit in a leather chair in his lonely house and dream of this woman who had once and truly loved him.
He reached down for her left hand. The plain gold band glittered in the pale glow of the limo’s headlights. “Do you still have the wedding ring I gave you?”
“Of course.”
“Give it to Jacey. Tell her …”
“What, Jules?”
“Tell her that out here, somewhere, is a man who wishes he were different.”
“Be different, Jules. Come in with me. You know Liam, he’ll make a place for you.”
“Liam’s not the problem. I wish …” He couldn’t say it.
“What do you wish?”
Somewhere a branch snapped in the breeze, and it sounded dangerously like the breaking of his own brittle heart. “I wish I could love you the way he does.”
He didn’t want her to answer, so he pulled her into his arms and kissed her for the last time. “Goodbye … Mikaela.”
She turned away from him and limped through the snow. One last time, she stopped at looked at him. “Good-bye, Julian True.” It was spoken so softly, he wondered later if he’d imagined it.
The house smelled of evergreen boughs and baking apple pie, of hollyberry candles and a newly stoked fire. Mikaela paused in the doorway, breathing in the welcoming scent of home. She could see her mother in the kitchen, alone, wiping down the tile countertops. Rose looked up suddenly. Mikaela pressed a finger to her lips and moved silently forward. As she passed the living room, she saw Liam sitting at the piano. Last year’s Sasquatch costume lay heaped on the floor by his feet.
“Where are the kids?” Mike whispered to her mother.
Rosa pointed upstairs. “They are cleaning their bedrooms for you.”
Mike nodded. She could imagine how their bedrooms must look. No doubt Bret had at least a thousand chewy-bar wrappers strung across his desk. He’d probably talked Rosa into buying him Twinkies and Ding Dongs. “Keep them busy for a few minutes, will you?”
“Si.” Rosa started to turn away.
Mikaela touched her mother’s arm. “Gracias, Mama. For everything.”
“De nada, mi hija.” With a quick smile, Rosa headed out of the kitchen and hurried upstairs.
Mikaela took a deep breath. It disconcerted her to see Liam at the piano, with his hands in his lap. She’d missed his music. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much a part of her it had become. Every moment and memory in her life seemed to be accompanied by some piece of music drawn from her husband’s heart.
She tiptoed into the living room. A brightly lit Christmas tree stood in the corner, a thousand sparkling lights reflected in the black picture window. It was the first year ever that she hadn’t chosen the tree and directed the placement of each ornament; it saddened her, this evidence that somehow her family had … gone on.
When she was directly behind Liam, she paused and closed her eyes. Please, God, don’t let it be too late.
“Liam?”
He spun around so fast his knees cracked into the piano bench. When he saw her, he frowned, running a hand through his too-long hair. “You should be at the hospital,” he said, looking awkward and uncertain.
“Tell me it’s not too late.”
He looked confused. “What do you mean?”
She sat down beside him, laid her hand on his forearm. She needed to be touching him, and yet she was afraid to do more. “I wish I were smarter. I know there are words I need right now and I can’t find them. For twelve years, you loved the woman I wanted to be. I used to look at you sometimes, especially when you were with the kids, and the ache in my heart … I wanted to be the kind of wife you deserved. I just … couldn’t.”
He stroked her hair, and she knew that the tenderness of his touch was as natural as breathing. “I know that, Mike, but—”
“I love you.” She flung the words at him, wincing at the high, tinny edge of de
speration in her voice.
He yanked his hand back. “Mike, please …”
“I love you,” she said, softer this time. “I want to grow old with you, Liam Campbell. I want to sit on our porch and sip lemonade and watch our children grow up and go on and have children of their own. I want to fix holiday dinners for all of us, and watch our grandchildren learn to walk and talk and have them fall asleep in our arms.” She gazed up at him.
For the first time, she knew it was in her eyes, all the bits and pieces and scraps of love she’d collected over the years. Love, as pure and clean as rainwater, as complex as memories themselves. It was all for him, for this gentle, steady man who’d always been there for her, whose heart she had so carelessly broken in a thousand little ways, in the things she hadn’t said. Hadn’t felt.
“What about Julian?” he asked quietly.
For once, the beloved name hit the hard shell of her rib cage and clattered away. No piece of it reached the tender walls of her heart. “He will always be a part of me … but now, I can put him where he belongs—in the past. Part of my wayward youth that was lived too hard and too fast and in a world that wasn’t real.” She caressed his cheek; it was a soft, fleeting touch. She hadn’t the courage for more. “It was real, what I felt for Jules; I’ll never deny that. No more lying to myself or to you or the kids. I loved Julian True. But it was a fragile love that didn’t pass the test of time. When it broke apart, I never let it go. I held the pieces together, thinking—dreaming—that they’d magically fuse again. I was so busy holding them, I never noticed the emptiness in my hands.” Tears stung her eyes. “I was a fool, Liam. And it took a smack upside the head to make me see the truth. You’re the one I love, and if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll love you until the day I die. You’ll never, ever wonder again.”
“I’ve always loved you, Mike,” he said simply.
Tears blurred her vision. “I know.”
Slowly he smiled, and now it was in his eyes, too, that love they’d built together over all these years. She could see it, feel it warming her. “I missed you. God, for twelve years, I missed you.”
How was it that the profound simplicity of those words had the power to rock her world? Never again would she lose sight of what mattered, not for a day or an hour or even a minute. She would treasure every instant of her life from now on, for she knew something now, a deep truth that had eluded her all of her life. Love wasn’t a great, burning brushfire that swept across your soul and charred you beyond recognition. It was being there, simply that. It was a few people, standing together in a living room, trimming a Christmas tree with the decorations that represented the sum total of who they were, where they’d been, what they believed in.
It was simple, everyday moments that laid like bricks, one atop another, until they formed a foundation so solid that nothing could make them fall. Not wind, not rain … not even the faded, watercolor memories of a once-brushfire passion.
Nothing.
“Play me a song.”
Something passed through his eyes; it almost looked like fear. Then, slowly, he faced the piano and lifted his hands. For a split second, his fingers floated hesitantly above the keys, and absurdly, she thought he doesn’t play anymore—
Gently, he began to play. He chose their song, “A Time for Us,” and the sweet, familiar music filled the room. She thought she heard him breathe a soft sigh, as if in relief, and when he finished the song, he turned to her.
“Hey, piano man,” she said in a throaty voice, “take your wife to bed.”
He laughed and stood up, drawing her up alongside him. “I know, I know, or lose my chance.”
She held onto him, unable to stop touching him, even for a moment. “You already lost your chance, Liam Campbell. You should have run when I was in a coma. Now you’re stuck with me.” She pressed up onto her tiptoes and kissed him with fifteen years of pent-up passion. When she drew back, she whispered the word that had brought her through the darkness: “Forever.”
For Benjamin and Tucker
Acknowledgments
To Ann Patty and Elisa Wares—thanks for your boundless enthusiasm, your insightful editing, and your friendship. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with such outstanding editors.
To Dr. Barbara Snyder and Katherine Stone, thanks—again—for your immeasurable help in medical matters.
To my good friends Ruth Hargiss, Trish Bey, and Lori Adams, thanks for so many wonderful memories.
A CONVERSATION WITH KRISTIN HANNAH
Random House Reader’s Circle: Did you begin Angel Falls with a particular image, character, or situation in mind? Did you choose the title of the book in the initial stages of the creative process, or did it come later?
Kristin Hannah: As with most of my work, Angel Falls evolved from a collection of ideas in between books. I tend to gather ideas that interest me; then I wait for several of them to coalesce into a story. This time, I’d been waiting to do a “coma” book for a long time. Somewhere along the way in my personal reading, I had discovered that people who fall into lengthy comas often wake up “different.” Once I knew that, I was hooked. Then came the writer’s greatest tool: What if? What if you’d been hiding a great love, nursing its memory throughout your life—and then you had a chance to touch it again? What if your memories had turned that love into more than it had been? And if you’re always looking backwards, regretting, can you ever really look forward and appreciate what’s around you?
Another key component in the initial creation of this novel was celebrity. I wanted to look at the personal cost of celebrity—not just the lack of privacy, but the things we often overlook, like the cost to your psyche, your relationships, and your family. I wondered what kind of person was drawn to a larger-than-life career, what they’re willing to give up to succeed in the rarefied world of Hollywood, and what happens when they get everything they want? Who pays the price? My husband is in the movie business, so I’ve been on the perimeter of the Hollywood world for a while. I am captivated by the dark side of celebrity. Nothing can mess with a person’s mind like success.
Finally, I wanted to delve into the mind of a supposedly ordinary man and show how easy it is to be extraordinary in life, especially in the context of parenthood, and how the sacrifices we make for love change us.
The title came to me at the final stages of writing the novel.
RHRC: This novel contains a great deal of medical information. Before writing, did you conduct research into comas and comatose patients? What interested you the most about this state of suspended animation; a sort of bad dream between life and death?
KH: My friends and family often tease me that I was a doctor in another life. I absolutely adore doing medical research. Over the course of my career, I’ve written about a lot of medical crises—heart transplant, cancer, coma, aphasia, stroke, infertility, etc. For this book, I began reading memoirs of former coma patients. The most fascinating angle was the uncertainty. Obviously, the human brain is a remarkable organ. Each injury is different and each outcome unpredictable. The mind can quite simply play tricks on us, and a brain injury can alter the fundamental tenets of a person’s personality. How fascinating is that? You can live your whole life as person A, with a collection of morals and memories and ideologies, and wake up after a long sleep to find that you don’t remember that person at all. Now you’re person B, with a different moral code, a different sense of humor, a changed sensibility. That’s catnip to a writer. Do you still love the same people, even if you can’t remember falling in love?
RHRC: You begin Angel Falls with an epigraph by T. S. Eliot that reads, in part, “Footfalls echo in the memory/Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door that never opened …” Why did you choose these words to set the tone of the book? In what ways is this novel an exploration of lives that might have been?
KH: First of all, I love T. S. Eliot. I could find a quote from his work to begin every book I write. Specifically, in this
book, I am exploring the road not taken, the door not opened. Because Mikaela has spent a lifetime idealizing her first love/first marriage, she never reallyappreciated the man she married next, Liam. And Liam, knowing he never had his wife’s fullest love, allowed himself to be content with that. He let it be okay that she held back a part of her heart; thus, he stayed firmly on the wrong side of the door—a man unwilling to reach for what he’s afraid he can’t attain. Finally, there’s superstar Julian True. Of all the characters, Julian is the one who has lost the most in his life, and he doesn’t know it. There’s a whole world that he knows nothing about—love, family, commitment; he’s turned his back on all the true things in life and chosen to skate on the surface instead, to take bright lights instead of warmth. His journey in this novel is to finally see the life he could have chosen—perhaps can still choose—and how changed he could have been by love.
RHRC: How does the character of Mikaela compare with that of Kayla? How are the two names emblematic of two very different individuals? At the end of the novel, what elements of Kayla’s personality do you think Mikaela might reclaim after she emerges from the coma? How is the woman at the end of the novel a fusion of her past, present, and future?
KH: Kayla is the younger, freer, more optimistic version of the woman Mikaela becomes. In a way, Kayla is the young woman we all were once—full of fire and passion. When Kayla divorces Julian True and moves to Washington State to start over, it is symbolic that she changes her name. Kayla will always be Julian’s adoring young wife; Mikaela is a woman who will sacrifice anything—including her own happiness—to make certain that her daughter is happy. While Michaela’s journey in this novel is to discover her truest self (ironically, while she’s sleeping), I would not say that she reclaims the part of her that was Kayla. I think, rather, that Mikaela grows up enough to realize that Kayla was wrong, that in her naïveté, she mistook passion for love. More important, the newly awakened Mikaela discovers that even if she could, she would no longer trade places with her younger self. How often have we all thought, If only I had another chance to do that again, to be my younger self again, and to make a different choice? Mikaela gets that chance in a very real way, and in choosing the present over the past, she finally finds herself.
Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour Page 26