They had all been planning to go to the lake in late July, but they canceled their plans and stayed home. By August, Alice was still awake all night, but at least Jim was drinking less. He had gone back to drinking beer in front of the TV at night, and had stopped drinking gin. Charlotte was playing baseball again, and Alice had asked Jim to go to her games, just to show her some support after everything that had happened to them, but he said he didn't have time. And Bobby was still lying on his bed most of the time. Despite all of Alice's efforts to lure him downstairs with her, and keep him entertained, the moment her back was turned, or she answered the phone, or did anything, he went back upstairs to his bed. The house was like a tomb at night, they each kept to themselves, nursing their wounds, and thinking of him. And for a while every afternoon, Alice sat in Johnny's room.

And when Pam took a good look at her in early September, she thought Alice looked worse than she had since June. Johnny had been gone for three months by then, but for his mother nothing had changed. She was as grief-stricken as she had been in the first few days after his death, and she could barely make herself get dressed every day. When she did, she wore jeans and a sweater with holes in it. She looked every bit as depressed as she felt. Pam even offered to do her hair for her, but Alice just shook her head and said she didn't care.

The kids had gone back to school again when she started getting stomach pains. They were fierce and sharp, and she finally mentioned it to Jim one night and he looked concerned.

“You'd better go to the doctor right away.” They were all frightened about each other now. Their own mortality had been underlined. Alice worried about Charlotte now constantly, getting hurt while she played, or hit by a car on her way to school on her bike. The concept of invulnerability had been permanently dispelled.

“I think I'm okay,” Alice said unconvincingly She was more worried about the kids. Charlotte had gotten two migraines that week, and had to come home from school. And Bobby wouldn't go to school at all. He locked himself in his room so he wouldn't have to go, and the principal of his school had said to wait another month and see how things went.

The stomach pains got worse over the next few weeks, but she didn't say anything. She knew she had to be strong for the rest of them, and she said as much to Pam. Becky was still in bad shape too. She was working full-time again, but all she did was sit at home and cry at night. She never saw her friends anymore, or went anywhere. Johnny had left them all in sorry shape.

The kids had been back in school for a month, when Alice lay in bed next to Jim one night, trying not to shout out in pain. She was in so much agony, she could hardly think, and just after he came to bed, she began vomiting, and as soon as she did, she saw bright spots of blood. Her old nursing experience told her just how bad it was. She stayed in the bathroom for a long time, vomiting and when she finally opened the door, she could hardly stand up. Jim was still awake, though a little less than alert, but he sobered up quickly when he saw her face. She was no longer even white. She was green.

“Alice? Are you okay?” He was sitting up in bed, and staring at her, with a look of panic on his face.

“No,” she said softly, doubled over with pain. She couldn't even walk by then, and as she looked at him, the room whirled around, and she began sliding slowly to the floor.

“Alice! … Alice….” He rushed to her, as she passed out, and then he ran to the phone and dialed 911. She looked as though she were dead, and he could feel his heart pound as they answered and he told them his wife was unconscious, and she had been vomiting. He realized suddenly as he looked at her how much weight she had lost. And it suddenly occurred to him that she might die too. He couldn't even conceive of losing her. And as he spoke to the emergency operator, Alice stirred and began vomiting again. She never fully regained consciousness, but he saw bright pools of blood.

“We'll get an ambulance out right away.” And, minutes later, as he knelt next to her, he could hear the siren of the ambulance, and ran to let the paramedics in. He took the stairs two at a time as he led them upstairs, and as they hurried into the room, Charlotte came out into the hall, looking terrified. Mercifully, by then Bobby was sound asleep.

“What's wrong?” Charlotte asked with a look of panic on her face, as she watched the paramedics bending over her mom. Even Charlie could see that Alice was gray, and she started to cry as they worked over her mother's lifeless form. “What happened, Dad?” she asked, crying uncontrollably.

“I don't know,” he said in a choked voice. “She's been vomiting blood.” He didn't even think to reassure Charlotte, he was too worried about his wife to think of her. He had no time for anyone but Alice now. He wanted to hear what the paramedics had to say.

“It could be a number of things,” they explained, “most likely a bleeding ulcer. We've got to take her right in. Will you come with us?” they asked, as they put her on a stretcher and covered her. Even in her unconscious state, she was shivering, and slipping rapidly into shock from the blood she'd lost.

“I'll be right there,” Jim said, pulling on his pants, and slipping into shoes without socks. He put on a sweater, grabbed the phone, and called Pam. He told her what was happening, and asked her if she could come and stay with the kids until he got home. He hated to impose on her, but he couldn't think of who else to call.

“Just go with her. I'll be over in five minutes. Don't worry about the kids. Becky can stay with mine here. Just take care of Alice, Jim. I've been worried about her for a long time.” They had all seen how much weight she had lost, but no one said anything. They knew why, and how hard it was for her to come back to life again. It had been the worst four months of her life since Johnny died in June.

Jim climbed into the ambulance with her, without saying a word to his kids before he left. And Charlotte sat huddled in her parents' bed like a lost child. Pam found her there, and hugged her tight. And then she checked on Bobby, when she could leave Charlie finally, but he was still sound asleep, much to her relief. She made warm milk for Charlie after that, cleaned up the blood on the bedroom carpet, and they sat at the kitchen table, talking for hours. About how miserable life was without Johnny now, how upset her parents had been, how much her father drank, and how destroyed her mother was. Charlie told Pam that their lives would never be the same again, and Pam admitted that was true, but it would be a lot better again one day. It wouldn't always be like this, and in time Alice would make her peace with it, and be able to turn her full attention to them again. For the moment, she was being crippled by grief, but Pam assured Charlotte that it was a process and not an end.

Pam called the hospital after she got Charlotte to bed, and she talked to Jim. They were still working on Alice then. She was being given powerful medications by IV, they had sedated her, and they were giving her two units of blood. She wasn't out of the woods yet, by any means. She had regained consciousness once, briefly, but the last time he had seen her she was unconscious again. He said she was in a private room next to the ICU, and there was an ICU nurse with her. The doctors were checking on her constantly, and they wouldn't let him stay in the room. He could only go in for five minutes every half hour. And when he did, Alice looked terrible to him.

“What exactly do they say is wrong with her?” Pam sounded desperately worried as she listened to him, and he sounded sober and scared beyond belief.

“She has an ulcer apparently. They think the bleeding has stopped now. But if I hadn't gotten her here as fast as we did, she could have died.”

“I know,” Pam said quietly. “Thank God you did.”

“Thanks for staying with the kids, Pam,” he said, sounding drained. “I'll call and let you know how things are here.”

“Call me anytime. I'll grab the phone as soon as it rings, so it doesn't wake the kids.”

“Thanks, Pam,” he said again, and went back to his wife. The nurse told him she was sedated and would sleep for hours, and they offered him a bed in the waiting room, for the night. He didn't want to leave her there, and seemed grateful to stay. And as soon as he lay down on the cot they'd given him, he fell asleep. He was exhausted from the strain of worrying about her, and by then it was the middle of the night.

Alice was sleeping more peacefully by then, and she hadn't vomited again. Her blood pressure was slightly higher than it had been, and the nurse came in every twenty minutes now to check her vital signs, but they were satisfied that she wasn't about to die. They left her alone in the room for twenty minutes at a time, and she was in a deep sleep, filled with complicated dreams. She couldn't tell where the dreams were leading her, but after a while, she was aware that Johnny was walking along at her side. He seemed happy and at ease, and after a while, he turned toward her with a smile and said, “Hi, Mom.” It was just the way he had looked every night when he came home from Becky's house after work, and she had dinner waiting for him.

“Hi, sweetheart, how've you been?” Alice was aware of being able to talk to him in the dream, and she noticed how well and happy he looked and she was glad. She felt more awake than asleep, but she knew she had to be asleep if she was seeing him. She also knew she didn't want the dream to end.

“I'm fine, Mom. But you're not in such great shape. What have you been doing to yourself?” She could see the worry in his big brown eyes. He was wearing a clean blue shirt, and jeans, and his favorite shoes, and she wondered how he had managed to take them with him. She distinctly remembered, even in her dream, burying him in a different pair, and his one dark suit. But the mystery of what he was wearing seemed too deep to solve.

“I'm okay,” she reassured him, “I just miss you a lot.” She had an odd sense that she wasn't actually saying anything, but talking to him in her head. And she wasn't sure how.

“I know you miss me, Mom,” he said gently. “But that's no excuse to fall apart. Charlie's really sad these days, and Bobby is a mess.”

“I know they are. I don't know what to do for them.”

“Dad needs to start going to her games, even if she is a girl. She's a better athlete even than I was. And Bobby's not listening to you anymore. You have to do something about it, Mom, or he's going to slip into a worse place.” He was already nearly autistic now, and she had been worrying about the same thing.

“Why don't you talk to Dad?” she said sensibly, and he smiled. She could see him perfectly with her eyes closed, and she could hear him in her head.

“He can't hear me, Mom. You can.” She knew Johnny was right because this was her dream, not Jim's. “You've got to get well now, Mom. You can't do anything for anyone until you do that. You have to get well and go home.” She could hear his voice with perfect clarity in the stillness in her head.

“I don't want to go home,” she said miserably and started to cry in the dream. “I hate being home without you now. It makes me too sad.” He stood watching her for a long time, not sure what to say to her, as she cried. He put an arm around her, and she blew her nose. “I'm never going to get used to this,” she said, trying to explain it to him, as though it would make a difference now and he could change his mind, and come back, if she talked sensibly to him.

“Yes, you will,” Johnny said emphatically, “you're very strong, Mom.” He sounded very firm.

“No, I'm not,” she sobbed. “I can't be strong for everyone, your father, myself, Charlie, and Bobby. I don't have anything left to give.”

“Yes, you do,” Johnny insisted, and then there was a sound in her dream, like another voice talking to her. This one seemed to come from far away, and she didn't recognize it. She opened her eyes to see who it was. It was the nurse. And as she looked at her, her sense of Johnny talking to her disappeared.

“You're having mighty busy dreams tonight, aren't you?” the nurse said pleasantly, taking her blood pressure again, and looking pleased by what she saw. Things were looking better for Alice again. But for a while there it had been a close call.

Alice closed her eyes and went to sleep again, and as soon as she did, she found the dream. And it was comforting to find Johnny waiting for her as soon as she did. He was sitting on a low wall, swinging his feet, as he had done as a little kid. And he hopped off the wall as soon as he saw her again, but as soon as she spoke to him, he didn't like what he heard.