"I'm sorry, what?"

"Hope. You should go see Hope."

Jake blinked. How could she have read his mind like that?

Mindy grinned, stepped forward, patted his shoulder. "Jake, I've worked for you for several years now. I've always known you to stay on task and get things done." She glanced toward the front counter of the shop, where ticket orders were piling up.

Jake looked at his feet. "Mindy, I'm sorry. I know I've been distracted."

"Don't apologize. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when we're consumed with something, we ought to figure out why. You witnessed something horrible to someone you once knew. The fact that you can't get her off your mind says something."

What did it say? He had no idea.

"It says that you need to go see her."

Jake walked to the counter, sifted through some of the tickets. "I've been to see her, Mindy. Twice since the day of the accident. I mean, I'm not family. I'm not even a friend. What am I supposed to do there? She's in a coma, so what's the point?"

"The point is, you can't stop thinking about her."

Jake held up the tickets in his hand. "I think we better get to these p.r.o.nto."

She took the tickets from him. "I can handle these myself. Go to the hospital."

"No. Too much to do. I can't leave you here by yourself."

"I've got the sisters." She touched his arm. "Jake, you've been very good to me. The best employer I've ever had. You've always watched out for me and my family. It's the least I can do. There's a young woman in a coma after the worst day of her life. She needs somebody there."

Even as Jake shook his head in protest, he knew that's where he wanted to be. His mind was there already, every part of the day. His body should follow. Jake hugged Mindy.

"I'll come in tonight, help finish up these orders. Just leave them by the cash register before you lock up."

"Go."

The hospital was only fifteen minutes away, but it took him an hour to get there because he kept circling the building, then would head home, then turn around and come back. What was his hesitation? But then again, what was his obsession?

Finally, he made it inside the hospital elevators. When they swished open, he just stood there.

A little old lady, her purse clasped against her chest, stared at him. "Are you going to get off?"

He stepped off, but didn't move. The elevator missed pinching his backside by mere inches. He didn't bring flowers this time. He carried nothing except hesitation as he turned right and walked the shiny, white linoleum toward her room. Everything was so stark, so sickeningly clean and bright. The lights hurt his eyes. The sounds buzzed his ears. His head throbbed with uncertainty.

He paused right before her doorway. He could still leave now. He could just turn and go home and let fate carry Hope to wherever she was supposed to go. But for whatever reason, he didn't. Instead, he stepped into her room.

Her friend, Becca, was at her bedside. Sobbing. Jake immediately regretted his decision to come. He'd broken into a private moment. He took two steps backward, trying to quietly and gracefully exit.

But Becca suddenly looked up. Then she gasped. Jake gasped too, but he tried to suppress it, which caused his lips to press together like a waffle iron and his cheeks to inflate like balloons.

Becca wiped the streaming tears. "I thought I was alone."

Jake took a deep breath as Becca stood with effort, her belly round and protruding. "I'm so sorry," Jake said softly. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's Jake, right?"

He nodded. They'd stood together the day of the accident, almost two weeks ago, but he'd barely seen her since.

"The flower guy?"

"Yes. I'll just come back another time-"

"No, please. Come in." She beckoned him with her hands. "I have needed to leave for twenty minutes but I hate leaving her alone."

"Where is her mom?"

"I'm not sure. She is here some, but she spends a lot of time down at the chapel and I don't know where else."

Jake felt the tension between his shoulder blades release a little. "She does seem to like to pray."

Becca raised a playful eyebrow. "You have no idea."

Jake stepped a little closer to the bed, for the first time looking at Hope. She lay still, her arms crossed over her belly, a little thinner now. They'd taken the bandage off her head wound and there was just a Band-Aid over it now. Dark purple seeped around its edges, and he wondered if she still had st.i.tches in.

"How is she doing?"

Becca shrugged, casting a desperate look toward the bed. She pulled the blanket a little higher. "The doctors can't really tell us anything. They said it's a traumatic brain injury. They have no idea when she'll wake up. Or if." She grabbed her sweater off the back of the chair and stepped next to Jake. "It's so nice of you to come to check on her."

"I just feel so . . . bad, about everything."

"She definitely doesn't deserve this. She's such a great person. Talented, too."

"Did they ever catch the person who did this?"

Becca shook her head. She squeezed his arm. "Thank you for coming. I know she's not alone now."

Becca left and Jake just stood there for a long time, observing her and feeling guilty about it. She was truly as beautiful as the day he saw her all the way back in elementary school. He could still spot some of those features even now as she'd grown into a woman. Yet in this bed, she looked as fragile as a child. She probably hated the idea that people were just standing around staring at her.

"Hi, Hope. It's Jake. You won't remember me, but we . . ." He sighed. What a stupid thing to say.

"We what?"

Jake's head jerked up. Hope's mother stood in the doorway.

He jumped out of his seat while trying to keep a casual look on his face. By the way her mother eyed him, he could only a.s.sume his expression was betraying him in every way imaginable.

"I'm sorry. I was just leaving."

"Wait." Her hands were crossed at her chest. She was fully blocking the doorway. "Wait just a minute."

A sickness roiled through his stomach, the kind you get from a roller coaster or having your zipper down in public.

"You . . . I know you . . ."

"Um, well, yes. I'm Jake, from the other day. I found Hope-"

"No. I knew you before that."

"Yes. You ordered the flowers for the wedding from me. I was delivering them . . ."

"No. Before that." Her mother's eyes narrowed.

"We deliver the Columbine flower to your-"

"Before that."

Jake cleared his throat. "Hope and I went to the same school."

"That's it!" Her expression now beamed delight. "That's how you know my baby girl?"

"Well, I mean, no . . . we . . . you know, we didn't run in the same circles. I hardly remembered her, you know . . . just kind of the name . . . I put it together days later . . ." He was never good at lying.

CiCi, as she'd introduced herself the first day, walked into the room and looked at her daughter.

"I'll leave you two-"

"Oh no you will not. The doctor says we need to keep her stimulated." She eyed him. "You look like the kind of guy that can do that sort of thing."

"Oh . . . uh . . ."

"Talk to her. Carry on an interesting, one-sided conversation?"

"I sometimes have trouble even when it's two-sided."

"Oh, come now. Surely you can think of something interesting to say. Talk about your childhood memories, the school, the teachers, that sort of thing."

"But, I'm not really-"

"The doctors say she can hear what we're saying, so you must, must talk to her. You could be her only hope."

Jake's gaze cut to the bed. He sure hoped not.

And then CiCi raised her voice at the point that most people would lower theirs. "You must understand what dire straits this poor girl is in. She's been dumped . . . DUMPED . . . at the altar. Generally, people don't recover from that. But it must be said, one doesn't get dumped at the altar because the relationship is going well. And relationships generally don't go well when one or more of the parties lives in a dream world."

"You mean . . . the coma?"

"Before the coma. She believed she could make a living writing greeting cards." CiCi shook her head, made circular motions around her ear.

Jake couldn't help it, it just rolled off his tongue. "Believes."

"What?"

"Believes. Not believed. She's still with us."

Then her voice grew even louder. She was practically shouting. Or wailing. "My poor baby girl! Her life fell apart the day her daddy left and it's just getting worse and worse!"

Before she could shoot her hands in the air for another prayer, Jake gently put a finger to his own lips though he really wanted to put a hand over her mouth.

She stopped, looking curiously at him.

"If what they say is true"-he spoke in such a quiet whisper she had to lean in to hear-"and she can hear what we say, perhaps a better use of our time is to speak to her in a way that will encourage her to wake up."

CiCi looked as if she was trying to understand, but blinked as if she didn't. "I know the Lord hears my cries." And up her hands went.

But Jake whispered, "The sign down the hallway says he hears them more clearly in the chapel."

Her hands dropped. "What sign?"

"Down the hall, by the door, near the place that has the thing."

"What, wait . . . where?" CiCi's eyes widened. "If that's true . . ."

"Oh, it is."

She glanced at Hope. "You'll stay with her then?"

"Sure." The room was now very quiet, but the alternative, to have CiCi shouting her daughter's dysfunction all over the hospital corridor, didn't seem to be a good option either.

"Thank you, you dear one! Thank you!" She drew him in for a hug, but she was so wispy it felt like hugging a cheese cloth. Then she was gone.

He stood and watched Hope for a long time, wondering if she might, on a whim, just open her eyes. When she didn't, his gaze followed the crowd of cards and flowers, pushed into all the shelves and s.p.a.ces in the room. He walked to where most of the cards were, gazing at their covers . . . a lot of mountains, waterfalls, bridges, clouds, rainbows, sunsets, gra.s.sy fields, barns . . . the most serene pictures that were ever caught on film.

"Excuse me, sir . . . ?"

He looked to the doorway, where a candy striper-in actual red and white stripes-stood holding a stack of cards. "These came for her."

"Oh . . ." Jake looked around. There wasn't really a place to put them. "Here. I guess I can take them."

"Thanks." The young girl couldn't have been more than sixteen. She glanced sideways, with a measure of guilt on her expression. "She looks so peaceful."

Jake nodded and thanked her again.

"Well," he said, sitting in the chair, counting the stack of cards. "It looks like ten more have arrived today for you."

He fingered the sharp corners of the envelopes. He should say something. Something real. Something profound. Something encouraging. But he was no different than that small boy who couldn't manage to speak when the girl rewrote his card. His tongue was tied even as his feelings were unraveling.

She was beautiful, even sleeping. Her hands held delicate and long fingers. He wanted to take them into his. He wanted to tell her that it was going to be all right, that she didn't deserve what happened to her-any part of it.

But instead, nothing came, and he chided himself for being unable to speak even the smallest amount of encouragement. Instead, he looked at the stack of cards on his lap and then tore open the first envelope. It was a pretty photograph of a gray sky with a vague hint of a rainbow. He opened it, a little sheepishly because he was reading someone else's mail, but it wasn't like she could read it. From a family called the Thompsons: "May G.o.d bless you in the midst of your turmoil." He glanced at her. Well, this was turmoil all right. He supposed a blessing would be for her to wake up, but he guessed they didn't make "wake-up-from-your-coma" cards.

He filtered through the cards, a lot of handwritten notes like "hope you get better!" and "get well soon!" inscribed after some Bible Scripture or a simple poem about all the good that suffering can do when placed in G.o.d's hands. A lot of pictures of doves.