Rejoice by Karen Kingsbury Read Free Book Online

granddaughter’s brain? He urged himself to concentrate. “It’s your decision, but don’t make it with your heart. Make it with your head. Then move past it. She’s in bad shape, Brooke. You know that. This is only protocol.”
    Peter slipped his hands into his pockets and looked at his shoes again. He added nothing to the conversation.
    “Okay.” Brooke sniffed and searched John’s eyes. “We’ll sign the papers.”
    John waited a beat and looked at his son-in-law. “Peter?”
    “Fine.” He said the word fast, as though it hurt too much to let it linger on his lips.
    “All right. I’ll get Dr. Martinez.” John turned and saw the doctor talking with another specialist at the end of the hallway. He motioned at the man, and he came toward them, a clipboard tucked beneath his arm.
    John nodded at Brooke and Peter. “They’re ready.”
    The other doctor stepped closer, his voice soft, filled with compassion, as he held the clipboard out and explained the document. His words weren’t necessary, of course. Peter and Brooke knew the document well; it was part of their medical training. Brooke reached for the pen first. John watched as she signed her name, her tears leaving a black smudge beneath her signature. Peter signed it next. Then Dr. Martinez tucked the board beneath his arm once again.
    He was telling them something in hushed tones, something about hoping for the best and wanting to believe that Hayley would be okay, and how their signatures on the document didn’t mean they’d given up on her or her chance for survival. But suddenly, in the middle of his brief talk, a different doctor came hurrying toward them, one John recognized but didn’t know by name.
    “You’re Hayley’s family?”
    “Yes.” Peter lifted his head for the first time in five minutes. His eyes screamed for a reason to hope, a reason to hang on.
    Something about the scene made John want to cry, because the news couldn’t possibly be good. Peter and Brooke knew that more than anyone else in the family, but now, when it was their daughter’s life at stake, they wanted to believe as badly as the distraught parents they often dealt with.
    The doctor uttered a frustrated huff. “We’re losing her.” He glanced at John, and then back to Brooke and Peter. “We thought you’d want to be there.”

Chapter Four
    Peter had no idea how to survive what was happening.
    He and Brooke had raced to Hayley’s room after the doctor’s warning, but now they’d been on either side of her bed for thirty minutes without any change in her condition. She wasn’t breathing on her own, and her heartbeat was irregular. But her face was more swollen than before, the skin around her eyes thick and bunched so that her eyelids were grotesque slits.
    And the whole time, Peter hadn’t said more than a handful of sentences to anyone. He replayed the scene from earlier that day, the first few moments when he and Brooke were alone together in Hayley’s hospital room. She was already at their daughter’s side by the time Peter arrived, and when they locked eyes, Peter wasn’t sure what he saw there. Fear and anger, yes. But a strange sort of guilt as well.
    He wanted to go to her, hold her and tell her it wasn’t her fault, explain how it wasn’t his fault either. That from what he’d been able to piece together, after eating cake, the girls had gone upstairs. She’d chattered on about wanting to swim again, but Aletha and the other mothers had told the children no, they could swim later.
    All of them headed upstairs, every single girl. Aletha was certain Hayley had been with them. But sometime after they’d pulled out the Barbie dolls, after assignments had been made as to who would have which one and what drama they were going to act out, Hayley turned to Maddie and told her good-bye, told her she wanted to be the first to go swimming.
    “No, Hayley. Mommy says we have to stay together in the pool. Plus you need your life