Chance of a Lifetime by Jodi Thomas Page A

blood. One wanted to feed him and the last one wanted to bathe him. He said no to them all. He’d keep his blood. He wasn’t hungry and he’d take a bath when they got all these tubes out of him.
    Only this time the staff hadn’t wakened him, a smell had. The warm, wonderful smell of his mother’s sausage-cheeseballs. He took a deep breath and knew they had to be in the room with him. “Mom?”
    “Morning, Rick,” Marian Matheson said. “It’s about time you woke up. These won’t be hot much longer. I had to make them before I came because I knew you wouldn’t eat the hospital breakfast. How I managed to spoil all my kids rotten is beyond me.”
    Rick smiled up at his mother. Her hair had turned white in her forties after being widowed, but she still looked young to him.
    She put her hand against the side of his face. “That sweet doctor told me not to worry, but I had to come up and see for myself. I don’t care how old you get or how tall, you’re still my boy.”
    Rick tried to smile. “I’m all right, Mom. Just an accident.”
    She nodded and moved away so he wouldn’t see her tear up. His mom cried at weddings, funerals, holidays, and birthdays. Sometimes she cried at sappy movies and cute things her grandchildren said, but not one of her five children ever doubted for a minute that she loved them. Rick didn’t doubt it now.
    “Roll me up, Mom. I can’t wait to eat a few of those sausage balls. I think they may be the cure I’ve been waiting for.”
    She laughed. “I knew they’d make you feel better. Hospital food is nothing more than school cafeteria food without the salt. You don’t eat right as it is so you might not have the strength to resist the meals here.” Now she was back to being the busy, bossy mom he loved. She raised up his bed, got him a towel to serve as a napkin, moved the basket within reach, and hurried out to get juice.
    By the time he’d finished off half the basket, the room had filled with his relatives. His mother’s three sisters all came with their knitting and sat in the corner by the window. They were the stock for all Matheson mixes, be it wedding or funeral. They kept a sewing bag hospital-ready at all times. Everyone else stood around asking him thesame questions over and over: “How you feeling?” “How’d such a thing happen?” “What can we do to help?”
    Mathesons in Harmony were like fleas on a dog. No one knew how many there were, but everyone knew they were there.
    Over a hundred years ago, when the old man who founded Harmony hired three men, Truman, Matheson, and McAllen, to help him, he probably never dreamed that one, Matheson, would multiply so rapidly. The Trumans had died out except for Reagan Truman, who’d left them last month to go study on an apple farm in Georgia. She was small, but like her old uncle, no one crossed her unless they were ready to fight.
    The McAllen family, like the sheriff, Alex, had mostly married into the other families. Rick thought of the McAllens as warriors, and warriors die out. Alex’s older brother, Warren, had been a highway patrolman killed in the line of duty and her little brother, Noah, rode bulls for a living.
    But the Mathesons produced tall, lean men born to survive in this country. They were mostly ranchers and farmers, and one lawyer, Rick, who was thought to be missing that rugged survival gene his relatives seemed to have.
    His three sisters and one brother were scattered around the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles but were keeping his mother busy calling and texting to monitor his condition. With all the cousins dropping by, the place was starting to look like a family reunion.
    Rick was relieved when the sheriff came by and politely asked everyone to leave. They all stood their ground, even his aunt May, who was deaf as a post, until Hank said the cafeteria served free coffee and rolls from ten to eleven.
    The Matheson gang marched out, leaving Rick alone with the sheriff and Hank.
    “Is your head