Matthew's Choice

The beeping sped up. Allie stepped toward him. “Noah, we can’t stay.”

He blinked fast, his eyes shiny. “Not yet.” He turned back to his mom. “Please, Mom. Wake up.”

A nurse appeared at the door. “You have to leave.”

“No!” His desperate cry squeezed Allie’s heart. “She’ll get better if I talk to her.”

As if on cue, Mariah’s heart rate slowed to an even tempo. The nurse glanced at the monitor then back at Noah. “Five minutes,” she said. Then she gave him a gentle smile. “She needs to rest.”

“I think he’ll be ready then,” Allie said.

Noah patted Mariah’s arm. “Mom, you’ve got to get better.” He licked his lips. “You didn’t finish teaching me how to dance.”

As the boy talked to his mom, the back of Allie’s throat ached. She dug in her jeans for a tissue and, not finding one, used the back of her hand to blot her eyes. The wall clock ticked the minutes by while she leaned against the wall and let her gaze travel around the room. On a white board, someone had written, Good morning. I’m Becky and I’ll be your nurse today. That solved the question of who the nurse was. She glanced through the glass partition at the nurses’ station. Becky tapped her watch, and Allie nodded. She turned to Noah. He’d found a wet cloth and wiped Mariah’s forehead with it. How many times had he done that in the past?

“Noah.” Her voice cracked. She pressed her lips together and took a breath and blew it out. “We have to go.”

“Just one more minute.”

“The nurse wants her to rest. Come on,” she urged softly. “We’ll come back.”

He reached on his tiptoes and kissed his mother’s pasty cheek, then ducked his head as he walked toward Allie.

She reached to take his hand, but he stopped short. “Wait! I didn’t give her my letter.” Noah slipped the paper from his pants pocket and folded it until it was small enough to tuck into Mariah’s closed hand.

At the nurses’ desk, Allie fished one of her business cards from her purse and gave it to Becky. “Would you call me if there’s any change?”

“I’ll put this with her chart,” the nurse replied.

“And thanks for letting us stay longer than five minutes.”

“I think your visit may do more good than all the medicine.”

Noah flipped his bangs out of his eyes. “Will you read my note to her when she wakes up?”

Becky leaned over the desk. “I will, honey. Your mama’s going to be all right. She’s got some mighty fine doctors.”

Don’t tell him that. You don’t know for sure. Allie bit the words back. The nurse meant well, but what if Mariah didn’t make it?

Back in the waiting area, Allie called Sarah and gave her an update on Mariah. “The regular visiting time is at three. I’ll bring him back to the shelter after that, unless something comes up. If it does, I’ll call you.”

Noah glanced up at her after she’d disconnected. “Do I have to go back?”

“You don’t like it there?”

He shrugged. “Miss Sarah’s nice. And Logan’s okay. Lucas is a pain....”

“But?”

He shrank back into the chair and lifted his thin shoulder in a timid gesture. “Have you ever stayed in a place like the shelter before?”

Noah glanced toward the exit sign. She cupped his chin and turned his face back to her. “Where was it, Noah?”

He licked his lips. “In another state. Before we came to Cedar Grove. Mom was...sick, and this woman came and took me to this house.”

“What happened?” She forced out the question, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“I ran away.”

* * *

AFTER THE DOOR closed behind Allie, Matt pressed his fingers against his eyelids, then slid his hands to the side of his head and massaged his temples. If New Year’s Day was any indication of how the rest of his year would be...he didn’t want to go there.

“Matthew...” Jessica stood at the sliding door with her back to him. She turned to face him. “I think we need to talk.”

He rose and went to her, taking her hands. “You’re right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister? I mean, I realize you may not be all that proud, her being on drugs and all, but you could’ve told me. Did you think it would change the way I feel about you?”

He wanted to say he didn’t know why he never mentioned Mariah to Jessica, but he did know. Just like he knew why he never mentioned anything else about his past, and it had nothing to do with Jessica. “I know you better than that. It’s like I said before. Mariah and I have grown so far apart, it’s almost like she wasn’t there. I didn’t even know about the kid.” He rubbed the locked muscles in the back of his neck.

“But family is important. I think you should go.”

Matt stiffened. Jessica didn’t have a clue what she was asking him to do. He wasn’t ready to go back to Cedar Grove, where everyone remembered him as the kid from Beaker Street. The kid who had said he’d own his own company by the time he turned thirty. Well, he was thirty and still working for someone else. It didn’t matter that he pulled in six figures a year—he wasn’t his own boss, and that’s what everyone would remember.

His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s Clint.” Allie was calling in the big guns. “I’m not going,” he said when he answered.

“Did you know her heart stopped? And she’s in a coma.”

Clint’s blunt words startled Matt. He sank onto the couch. “I...had no idea. How about the boy? Has he been found?”

“Yes, he was at the hospital. Do you want me to go with you? You know, so you won’t have to face this by yourself.”

Or to make sure Matt went. “No. You have responsibilities here.”

“You’re going then?”

Matt sucked in a breath of air through his nose and exhaled. A memory of Mariah standing between him and their drunken father surfaced. Mariah taking the beating. He closed his eyes. “Yes, I’m going.”

“I’ll text you Allie’s number so you can let her know,” Clint said.

“Is she worse?” Jessica asked after he hung up.

“She’s in a coma.”

Jessica crossed the room and sat beside him, squeezing his hand. “I’m going with you.”