he measure of a man comes down to moments, spread out like dots of paint on the canvas of a life. Everything you were, everything you’ll someday be, resides in the small, seemingly ordinary choices of everyday life. It starts early, this random procession of decisions. Should I try out for Little League, should I study for this test, should I wear this seat belt, should I take this drink?

Each decision seems as insignificant as a left turn on an unfamiliar road when you have no destination in mind. But the decisions accumulate until you realize one day that they’ve made you the man that you are.

Liam had let himself be overshadowed by his father.

Decision.

He had gone all the way to Harvard, learned how many roads fanned out from where he stood … and he’d come home to Last Bend, where it was safe.

Decision.

He had fallen in love with Mikaela and settled his whole world on the creaky foundation of that emotion. He’d known that their love was measured in unequal parts, but day by day, hour by hour, as their life together unfolded in a series of moments big and small—birthdays, anniversaries, family vacations, nights spent huddled on the sofa, watching television—he’d let himself fall into the sweet narcotic pool of forgetfulness.

Decision.

Today he faced another crucial choice. He had been grappling with it ever since Mike first blinked. He had no doubt that the decision he made would lay the groundwork for the rest of his life.

He pushed back from his desk. There was a pile of charts and messages, all needing his immediate attention. He didn’t care. Not now. Instead, he grabbed his down jacket, put it on, and walked out of his office. Just before the reception desk, Carol popped out of the X-ray room and bumped into him.

“Oh, Doctor!” she said, giggling.

He smiled. It was the first normal moment they’d had in weeks. “I guess I should be glad you weren’t carrying urine samples.”

Carol’s giggle graduated to a laugh. “Or scalpels.”

“I’m going to sneak out early,” Liam said.

“Good for you. Your mother-in-law called a few minutes ago. The elementary school lost electricity today, so they canceled classes. She said they’d be up at the pond, skating, if you wanted to join them.” Carol pushed the glasses higher up on her nose and squinted up at him.

Liam tensed, knowing too well what was coming.

“How’s she doing?” Carol asked.

Liam hoped he didn’t look as irritated as he felt. “The same.” God, he hated those words. When this was all over, he’d never say them again. Or I’m sorry.

“Give her my best.”

“Sure, Carol. Thanks.” He did his best to smile as he strode through the empty waiting room. He had a flashing memory of Mikaela redecorating this small space. You can’t expect your patients to sit on plastic … and what’s that wall color—baby diarrhea brown?

Now the waiting room was a cheerful blend of primary colors—yellow walls, complete with a sunflower mural painted by Mrs. Dreiling’s second-grade class, bright cobalt blue overstuffed chairs, and a bold red Berber carpet.

He remembered Mike up on a ladder, her face and hair streaked with yellow paint, yelling down at him. Hey, piano man, are your hands too precious to hold a paintbrush? He’d gone to her then, pulled her off of the ladder, and held her in his arms, kissing her soft lips …

He strode out of the room.

Outside, the sudden plunge in temperature was exactly what Liam needed to clear his mind. He glanced down at his wristwatch: 1:38.

Suddenly he didn’t want to go to the hospital and sit by his wife’s bed. For three long days, he’d been beside her, holding her hand, saying Julian’s name over and over again. Not once had she responded in any way.

He flicked his wool-lined collar up and headed down the street. It was one of those moist winter days when the bloated, gray sky seemed to snag the rooftops and tangle in your hair. The mountains peaked above the mist, their snow-covered tips barely distinguishable from the clouds.

He ducked into the Bean There, Done That coffee shop and ordered a decaf latte. Irma made small talk as the milk whipped into a white froth, then didn’t charge him for the drink. No amount of cajoling would get her to take his money. Finally he said thank you and went back outside.

Someone exited the Lazy Susan Bake Shop, and the scent of cinnamon wafted from the open doorway. He was tempted to get something for tomorrow’s breakfast, but the thought of hearing “How’s she doing?” and answering “The same” was more than he could bear.

The sound of children’s laughter rode high in the still, clean mountain air. He followed it to Mr. Robbin’s llama farm. His frog pond, settled comfortably in a flat patch of the pasture, had been turned by Mother Nature into a beautiful silver skating rink. There were already several cars parked around the perimeter of the pond, so that when it turned dark, they could use their headlights to cast tubes of light across the ice. A boom box was on. Garth Brooks was belting out “I’ve got friends in low places.” Suzie Sanman was stationed at the picnic table, heating pots of milk on a camp stove, and Mayor Comfort was roasting hot dogs over an open fire pit.

Liam could see Bret. He was skating with a bunch of his friends. Rosa was sitting on one of the benches near the pond, alone.

He greeted his friends and neighbors as he made his way through the crowd, pretending not to notice their surprise at seeing him here. Beside Rosa, he sat down. Wordlessly, she scooted sideways to make more room for him.

“Daddy, Daddy, look at me!” Bret waved his arms. When Liam looked up, Bret began furiously skating backward—until he ran smack into Sharie Lindley and they both fell down in a laughing heap.

“Life goes on, eh, Rosa?” Liam said softly, watching his son trying to master the skill of skating backward. Last winter that same boy had barely been able to skate forward.

“Sí.”

He curled his hands around the paper coffee cup; the moist heat felt good against his lips. He hadn’t even realized how cold he was until he started to warm up. But then, maybe that pretty much summed up all of his life experiences. “She is not doing well, Rosa.”

“Sí. Yo sé.”

“We’ve been talking to her for days now. I’ve said Julian’s name to her so many times, I’m afraid I’ll accidentally say it at dinner. I thought maybe Bret would be the key, but he’s visited every day after school, and … nothing.”

“She needs a little more time, maybe.”

“Time isn’t her friend right now. She’s getting worse. Hell, I can see her fading into those gray sheets. I’ve been doing a little soul searching and there’s only one decision that feels right. I think—”

His pager went off, bleating from its place on his belt. He threw a quick, worried glance at Rosa, then reached down and pulled out the small black unit.

It was an emergency message from Stephen Penn. Nine-one-one. The code for call immediately.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “It’s Mike.”

Rosa shoved her keys at him. “Take my car. It is right there.”

He snatched the keys. “My car’s in the office lot. The keys are in the visor. Get Bret and Jacey and get to the hospital. This could be—”

“We’ll be right behind you.”

“Cardiac arrest.”

Liam slumped in his chair. He barely had the strength to lift his chin.

Stephen didn’t look away. “I don’t know what to tell you, Liam. Her heart just stopped. We got it going again in no time, but it could be an indicator. Her body may be giving out. I think … I think it might be time to prepare yourself and the kids for the end.”

The End. He wished he’d never said that to a patient of his, but he knew that he had.

Stephen sighed. “It looked like she was getting better there for a few days.”

Liam knew that Stephen was thinking of his own wife, Margaret, who was probably at home right now making snowmen with the kids. He could see it in his friend’s eyes, the terrible understanding of what it would mean to lose the woman you loved. “How do you tell a nine-year-old that it’s time to say good-bye to Mommy? And what if you don’t tell him—how in God’s name do you tell him tomorrow that it’s too late to say anything?”

“Jesus, Lee.” Stephen leaned forward, planted his forearms on the desk.

Liam could see that Stephen was searching for words that would honestly give comfort, rather than the standard platitudes. He saw, too, when Steve came up empty. Of course he would. This was a time for faith, for God and religion; science was hopelessly inadequate.

Before Stephen could say anything, Liam got to his feet and made his way out of the office.

The corridor was too bright; light stung his glazed eyes. In the waiting room, Jacey stood at the window with Mark beside her. Rosa sat perched on the very edge of the sofa. Bret—still in his skating coat and Gore-Tex bib overalls—stood pressed against the wall by the television. His little cheeks were candy-apple red. Water dripped from the frozen shelf of his bangs, plopping onto his upturned nose.

When Jacey saw Liam, she let go of Mark’s hand and took a cautious step toward him. “Daddy?”

He couldn’t tell them. Not here at least, not beneath these cold strips of fluorescent lighting. He’d tell the kids the truth tomorrow. Maybe he would find a miracle between now and then. And if Mikaela didn’t make it through the night … he’d live with his decision. It would become another of the many choices that formed the boundary of his soul.

He didn’t look at Rosa as he spoke. “She’s okay. Mom’s okay. She had a little trouble with her heart, is all. It skipped a few beats, but everything is okay now.”

“Can I see her?” Jacey asked.

“Of course, but only for a minute or two. Ironically, she needs her rest.”

Jacey nodded and headed for the door. As she passed Liam, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. She stopped and turned to him.

“She doesn’t look too good, sweetie.”

Jacey paled. “Okay, Dad. I-I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He forced a smile and let her go. What else could he do? She was old enough to find her own way along this desperate path.

Bret looked up at him. A drop of water snaked down his cheek and landed on his navy ski coat. His mouth trembled uncertainly and tears puddled in his eyes. “Is she awake?”

Liam touched his son’s cold, cold cheek. “No, honey, she’s not.” He fought the urge to say not yet; he couldn’t throw out hope as if it were penny candy. Not anymore.

Bret backed into the wall. “I don’t wanna see her right now. Not … like that.”

Liam didn’t know what to do.

“Hey, Bretster,” Mark said, moving toward them. “I promised to get you an orange soda and some Gummi Bears. How about now?”

Bret’s face broke into a relieved smile. “That’d be great. Can I, Dad?”

Liam felt like a coward for taking the easy road, but he nodded. There was no use pretending he wasn’t relieved. He got to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a couple of dollar bills. “Here you go, but don’t be too long. We’ve got to get home.”

Bret snagged the money and fisted it. “’Kay.” Then he followed Mark out of the room.

At last Liam turned to Rosa. He could tell by the wary look in her dark eyes that she had been waiting for this moment.

She sat stiff as a fence post, her knees pressed together, her hands coiled in a ball in her lap. “It is bad, sí?”

He sat down beside her on the hard vinyl sofa. His bent knees cracked into the Formica coffee table. An old, dog-earred issue of People magazine slithered fanlike to the floor. Liam took a moment, trying to formulate his thoughts into words. In the end he said simply, “Her heart stopped.”

Rosa drew in a sharp breath and crossed herself. “Dios mio.”

“They revived her easily—and quickly, which is important—”

“There must be something you can do. Some medicine—”

He gave her a sad smile. “Faith in medicine, Rosa?”

She couldn’t smile back. “What do we do?”

He’d known they’d circle around to this question, which was, after all, the beginning. “The only moment of hope in this whole damned mess came when we said Julian’s name.” He was surprised that his voice sounded so ordinary.

“Sí. Perhaps it is coincidence.”

“Once, maybe. Twice—no way. The crying was a response. I’m sure of it.”

“But we have said his name many times. I have told her the story of her marriage to that man so often I could say it in my sleep. Still, there is nada.”

Liam sighed. These were the issues that had kept him up all last night, tossing and turning sleeplessly in his lonely bed. They had followed him into the light, plaguing him all day.

The measure of a man. That was what it came down to. At least that was the cul-de-sac at the end of his thoughts. “We’re going to have to try something else, Rosa. Something a little more extreme. She’s not responding to our voices. And I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

He felt Rosa turn toward him, but he didn’t look at her. He stared instead at the hands in his lap, at the small gold wedding band he’d worn for ten years.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He heard the worry in her voice, the tiny, halting hitch in the middle of the sentence, and he knew that she knew what he was going to say. “I’m going to call Julian True and ask him to come see her. Talk to her.”

She gasped. “You cannot!”

He turned to her finally. Her cheeks were paper white; her dark eyes looked like burn holes in a sheet. “You know I have no choice.”

She laughed. It was a brittle sound like the breaking of an antique glass Christmas ornament. “He is … dangerous.”

“You think he was physically violent to her?”

“No, no. Of course not. The danger is in how much she loves—loved him.”

Liam pretended not to be wounded by her mistake. “Do you think he still loves her?”

“He never did, I think.” She twisted around so they were face-to-face. “You do not have to do this. God will waken Mikaela if that is His plan. You need to take care of su familia. That man, he could ruin everything. Mikaela made her choice a long time ago. You do not have to do this, Liam.”

He wondered if she realized that she’d used his name. Strangely, that little intimacy comforted him as no touch ever could. “You and I, Rosa, we’re not kids. We know how easy it is to do the wrong thing. This is probably the clearest moment I’ve had in all my fifty years. I can call Julian and give my wife a chance at life. Or I can not call Julian and know that I was so afraid of losing Mikaela’s love that I let her die.”

Rosa’s eyes filled with tears.

“I won’t be able to look myself—or my children—in the eye if I let fear keep me from doing what’s right. I am going to call Julian True. There’s a phone number for his agent in the pillowcase.”

Rosa reached out, placed her hands on top of his. “Does she know, I wonder?” she said softly, gazing at him through watery eyes. “Does my Mikita know how lucky she is to have you?”

Liam knew he shouldn’t ask it, but he couldn’t help himself. “Did she love me, Rosa?”

She squeezed his hands. “Of course.”

“Like she loved him?”

Rosa paused, and in that heartbeat’s hesitation, Liam saw the harrowing truth. “Sí,” she answered with a smile that was too bright, too fast.

Liam sighed. “Then I guess we have nothing to worry about.”