The Water Giver
The Story of a Mother, a Son, and Their Second Chance
PrologueI had not cried in his room. I believed he could hear me, or at least sense what I was feeling. So I chattered at him as if we were around our kitchen table. I told him we would be there when he woke up. That he should rest as long as he needed to heal. That he would be fine.
I believed it, despite everything that had happened. Ryan would be fine because children don't die and because he was Ryan. I looked at him on the bed in the intensive care unit and saw a strong, broad-shouldered, tanned sixteen-year-old who seemed to be sleeping. My eyes looked past the tube clamped to his mouth to keep him breathing, the hard plastic collar around his neck, the gauze turban, the wires snaking from his arms, chest, and skull into various beeping, blinking machines.
I stood at his bedside and held his hand and kissed his smooth skin. His fingernails still had grease under them from working at Lucky Garage. I wouldn't let the nurses clean them.
"You can't do this," I whispered in my son's ear. I was crying. "I can handle anything. But I ... read full excerpt from The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son, and Their Second Chance ebook
