"I was there," Toy said flatly. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"No," he said, thinking there was no reason to let these delusions get out of hand. "And no one else will believe you. Honey, if you keep talking like this, they're going to think you have a mental problem for sure. Just reason with yourself. I know this has been hard on you, but saying you were in Kansas when you're in New York is nothing but insanity." He looked down at his hands. "Dr. Esteban has a good theory about how you got burned. He thinks you were standing over a trash barrel where some derelicts had a fire going. You didn't realize it and burned your hands."
Toy slowly shook her head from side to side, her lips clamped shut like a child who had been chastised by her mother.
Stephen suddenly exploded, standing and kicking the chair against the bed. Toy jumped and the IV bottle on the stand almost toppled to the ground. "Stop this idiotic talk, and stop it right this minute. Do you hear me?" His face was flushed and a vein protruded in his neck. "If you're sick, you're sick, but I'm not going to tolerate my wife talking like a lunatic, saying she's been places she couldn't possibly have been. Do you hear me? Snap out of it. Get control of yourself."
Toy turned her head to the opposite wall, trying to block out his voice, the anger, the look of contempt in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice strained and cracking. "You know I'm not good at situations like this." Then he walked out of the room, letting the door swing shut behind him.
cerned with the pain and discomfort in her hands, desperate to verify what she knew was real. Once she had the number from the long distance operator, she had her dial it for her and then waited.
'Tm calling long-distance. Can you connect me to Jason Cum-mings's room?" she told the operator.
"Hold, please."
A few moments later, a woman answered. "Mrs. Cummings?" Toy said.
"Yes."
"Mrs. Cummings, you don't know me, but I was the woman in the field this morning with your son. How is he doing?"
"Jason," the woman said excitedly, speaking to the child. "It's her, Jason. It's the woman." Then she returned to Toy. "You saved my son's life. I can never repay you. Why did you leave?"
"I ... ah ... I had to catch a plane," Toy said. She didn't know what else to say. "How are Jason's burns?"
"The doctors say he's doing very well. We should be able to take him home next week if there's no infection. At first they were certain he would need skin grafts, but now they say he's going to be fine. He'll have some scars, but they won't be so terrible."
"Thank God," Toy said.
"Yes, we have God to thank," the woman said. Then her voice dropped lower. "And we have you to thank as well. Let me tell you, I was praying and praying. They wouldn't let us near the school, and I was certain Jason was inside there burning." She stopped short and Toy could hear her crying. "Talk to Jason," she said, sniffling. "He wants to talk to you. He's so sweet, bless his heart. He was certain you were his guardian angel."
The words made Toy bolt upright in the bed. "Does he remember what I was wearing?"
Toy waited while she spoke to the boy. "I'm sorry," the woman reported back. "I guess he was just too afraid. Why do you ask?"
"Forget it," Toy said quickly.
"God bless you," the woman continued. "We never met you, but you'll always be in our prayers. Oh," she said suddenly, "you didn't tell me your name."
"Toy Johnson."
"What a cute name. Here, I'll let you talk to Jason."
A small, frail voice came on the phone. "Hello."
"Jason," Toy said. "How are you doing there, guy? Your mom says
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you'll be going home next week. See, I told you everything would be okay."
"I hurt," he said. "They're giving me medicine, but I still hurt really bad."
T know, Jason, but you're a big boy. You can handle it."
'Tell me the story, the one about the engine."
Toy's heart swelled with emotion. Yes, there was a God. Whatever had happened, however strange and unbelievable it had been, Toy was certain now that it was more than a dream.
As she recited the story from memory, she felt a gush of fresh air wash over her, like a gentle breeze on a chilly spring morning. Her hands were no longer throbbing, and she felt strong and capable, stronger than she had ever felt in her life. From somewhere far away she thought she could hear birds chirping in the trees, and the lyrical sounds of children's laughter, smell the fragrant aroma of spring flowers. She felt as she'd felt when she was seventeen—connected to every living thing, every object, every cell and molecule in the universe. The sun streaking through the window bathed her in warmth, and she felt secure and focused.
Yes, she told herself, her dry, cracked lips stretching in a smile of genuine pleasure and boundless joy. Miracles do happen. She had prayed for a miracle and received her request. She had died and brought something back, something that might have the power to change the world.
She had brought back the magic.
At ten o'clock that night, Stephen came waltzing through the door, a big bouquet of flowers in his hands and a smile planted on his face. Toy was propped up in the bed, eating a bowl of chocolate pudding. "First of all, are you still mad at me?" he said, stopping in the doorway, the smile falling from his face. "If you are, I won't come in."
Toy looked at him and then returned to her pudding.
"Okay, I see," Stephen said, about to toss the flowers on the floor. Then he collected himself and tried again. "Look, I rented a hotel room and got some sleep. I feel a lot better. Things have been tough. I think I was overtired."
'it's all right," Toy said between mouthfuls of pudding, "you can come in."
As her husband pulled up a chair, she continued eating as if he weren't in the room. "The silent treatment, huh?"
"No, I'm eating."
"I'm sorry, Toy, really. I was a jerk. You know me, though, sometimes I just can't help it."
"Maybe you should see a psychologist," Toy said curtly. "Get control of your anger. You could be suffering from some type of mood disorder. Never know."
"Stop this, Toy. Either accept my apology or tell me to leave. It's your decision."
Shoving the tray away, Toy took a deep breath and turned to face him. "I was in Kansas at that fire, Stephen. I don't know how I got there, but I was there." Seeing the look on her husband's face, she held up her hands. After she had talked to Jason Cummings, she had removed both the bandages.
"Your hands. Why did you take the dressings off?"
"Because they're fine now," she exclaimed, smiling strangely at him. "Look."
He did, gently holding her hands in his own and turning them over carefully. There was a pale red outline where the burns had been, but, amazingly, they were almost completely healed. There were no blisters, no charred flesh. "Looks good," he said casually. Then his eyes expanded and he bent his head to get a better look. "Great, actually!" he said. "Boy, I don't know what they use around here to treat burns, but it must be fantastic." He dropped her hands and looked her in the eye. "Since you're doing so well, I guess we can leave tomorrow."
"I'm not going anywhere," Toy said. "At least not until you're willing to listen to what I have to say with an open mind. Are you ready to do that?"
Her husband shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay," Toy said, her speech rapid-fire and laced with excitement. "I called the hospital where the little boy was taken, the one on TV. His name is Jason Cummings. And guess what, Stephen? He remembers me." Toy paused for effect and then continued. "Don't you see, Stephen? He even called me an angel, probably because I was wearing that T-shirt."
"What T-shirt?" Stephen asked, thinking her story was getting stranger by the second.
Toy lifted up her hospital gown. She was wearing the T-shirt Margie Roberts had given her under the gown, too attached to it now to take it off. "See, he saw the halo and word angel on the shirt. That's why he thought I was an angel
."
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"That's ridiculous," he said.
"No, Stephen,'' Toy protested, "this isn't like my other dreams. This is different, more like the time my heart stopped when I was in high school. I have tangible proof that I was really there. I had the orange pumpkin ring the first time. Now I have the boy. This child remembers me. He even remembers the story I told him." She turned and smiled at him. "We're talking proof here, Stephen, real proof."
Unable to stop herself, Toy continued, revealing more to her husband than she had intended. "See, I've always thought these dreams meant something special, that they were more than just dreams. The children seemed so real, everything really. In the beginning I thought it was what they call a near-death experience, you know, because my heart stopped. Then I started reading stuff on astral projection and out-of-body experiences and thought it might be something like that. I always bypassed religion and God, because it seemed so farfetched, but Stephen, can't you see, maybe angels and miracles do exist. Why not? What do we know? There could be angels everywhere. Some of them could even be perfectly normal people like myself. I could even be one of them. Isn't that a hoot?" She stopped and laughed. "I don't know about you, but I think the whole concept is marvelous."
Her husband leaned over his knees and placed his head in his hands, appalled at what his wife was saying. Peering at Toy through his fingers, he tried once more to reason with her. "There's no physical way for you to have been in the state of New York and the state of Kansas at the same time. If I remember correctly, they said on the news that the fire occurred at eight o'clock in the morning. That means it was ten o'clock here in New York. I looked at your chart, Toy, and it was almost exactly ten o'clock when you went into cardiac arrest, so there was no way you could have been in Kansas." Then another thought came to mind. "I could have made a mistake on the time. I think they said eight o'clock, but I'm not completely certain. If the fire was later, I guess you could have managed to get on a plane to Kansas when you disappeared from the hospital, since you were gone a number of hours. Then after the fire you got on another plane and flew back." He stopped and slapped back in his seat, realizing that even this scenario didn't work. Toy might have been unaccounted for for a number of hours, but with the traffic he doubted if she could have even managed to get to the airport, much
less fly to Kansas and back again. He wanted to believe her, appease her, but the premise was just too insane.
"You can tell me anything-you want," Toy said, "but I was still there. I didn't imagine the boy or the fire. They're real." She stopped and made a sweeping motion with her arms. "Hey, maybe I flew on gossamer wings, just soared through the air to Kansas."
Toy started giggling. It felt good, natural. All the stress of the past few days seemed to melt away, and she couldn't stop laughing. Stephen was glaring at her. "I know," she said, emitting another burst of laughter. "I got to Kansas like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. See, there was this tornado and . . ."
"It's not funny, Toy," Stephen said, his face grim. "This whole thing isn't funny."
"But it is, Stephen," she said emphatically. "Maybe it's not funny, but it's fun. It's exciting. It's a mystery. I've never felt so alive. When I spoke to that kid on the phone and he remembered me, I can't begin to tell you how overjoyed I was."
His head was tilted to the side and resting in his hand. "It was a mistake, Toy. You burned your hands by holding them over a trash can. This child you keep talking about has been injured. He's on narcotics for the pain. Whatever he said to you was just drug-induced drivel."
Toy wouldn't let it go. "No, you're wrong. It's something spectacular, something magnificent. Something about me is different from everyone else. I'm being dispatched on missions, like missions of mercy. What else could it be? All these dreams I've had. In every one there are children in some kind of grave danger. And I make a difference," she said proudly, a fanatical fire burning in her eyes. "I feel great. It's like my whole existence on earth has finally been validated, like I've been searching for this all my life."
Stephen was looking at his wife as though he had just seen her for the first time, as if she were a complete stranger. The feverish look in her eyes, the crazy way she was talking. "You're a rational, intelligent person, Toy, a teacher for God's sake," he said. "How can you accept something you can't explain?"
Toy leaned back on the pillows and then slowly turned her head to look at him. The longer he argued, the longer he stayed in the room, the more she felt her energy and joy ebbing. "How can I not accept it? I don't really have a choice."
"Why did you go into cardiac arrest, then? How could that possibly fit into your ridiculous hypothesis?"
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Toy sighed. "I don't really know. I haven't thought about it. How do you know I don't go into cardiac arrest every time I have one of these dreams? That would be great, you see? That would mean all the dreams I've ever had are real." She arched her eyebrows. "I've had a lot of dreams, Stephen, more than you'll ever know. That means I may have helped tons of kids already, and if I can find a way to have more of these dreams, then I could help even more."
Stephen tossed his hands in the air. "Right. Sure. Like your heart stops beating and you fly through space and pull people out of burning buildings. Then what happens? Do you come back to life and return to your body? Hey, Toy, maybe you're a vampire. Ever think of that one?"
He was never going to accept her, Toy thought, never accept something he couldn't see in black and white. All she had done was compound the problem by speaking her mind, make him even more convinced that she was a delusional hysteric.
As Toy figured it, she was standing at a crossroads. She could completely fall apart and let Stephen shuffle her from one clinic to another where they would dissect her body and mind systematically until they either forced a square peg through a round hole or found some absolutely dreadful disease that they could attach to her symptoms. Or, she could stand up for herself.
She analyzed her options. She could believe she was dying or crazy, or she could elect to believe something divine and miraculous had taken control of her life. Toy being an optimist and a dreamer, opted for the latter. "Tell you what," she said, pushing herself back up in the bed, "you go back to California and your medical practice and your neat and tidy life. I'll stay here in New York."
His mouth fell open and all the blood drained from his face. "Are you saying you want a divorce?"
"Sort of," Toy said, her eyes roaming around the room as her heart raced. She felt like she couldn't catch her breath, like she had stepped over the line now and there was no way back. The words rushed out in a thin stream of breath. "I think we should live apart awhile. Not a divorce. A trial separation."
"You're going to throw everything we have away simply because I won't feed into your stupid fantasies? What about your teaching post at the school? Are you going to just walk away from that, too?"
"Not exactly," Toy said, realizing that he had a point. "I could take a few weeks off, though. I might even find a school that needs me more here. How do I know? I have to go where I'm needed. Maybe I
came here because this is where I'm supposed to be. You know, like a sign?"
Toy thought of Margie Roberts and how the child depended on her. She'd have to keep sending the family money, she decided. Then if she decided to stay on the East Coast, she'd fly back and see her parents and Margie every month or so.
Stephen stood, angry and frustrated. "I thought you loved me, Toy. Evidently I was wrong."
His back was turned and he was leaving. Toy held her breath. She wanted to call him back, have him hold her, believe her, love her. He should feel what she felt: the wonder and awe, the blissful feeling of peace and contentment. The world was expanding in her hands, the boundaries of everyday existence no longer in place.
But then he was gone and it was just as well, she thought. During the six years of their marriage, Toy had been a nonentity, her own desires an
d opinions sinking under the weight of her husband's. It was his career that was important, that had to be constantly nurtured. It was his desires they fed with the expensive cars and houses. And it was his ego that was so swollen that it was about to burst like a balloon filled with water. He would never understand something he could not cut open and inspect, examine, and dissect. He was the omniscient, all-powerful healer. For Stephen, the buck stopped right there.
Toy hugged the covers to her chest and smiled coyly. Whatever was happening to her obviously did not include her husband. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't deny that she felt a sense of satisfaction. People had choices, and her husband had clung to his cynicism with the same tenacity as he did his money. Toy had always thought her husband was a brilliant man, but she now had her doubts. How brilliant could he be? After all the sacrifices he had made to become a surgeon, a healer, all the years of hard work and stress, he had just turned his back on a miracle.
Sarah's concern for Raymond grew with each passing second. She'd made pasta and a salad, but the only way she could get him to eat was to feed him. He wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't speak to her, but he seemed to know she was there. After she fed him, she led him like a child to the bed, where he just sat there staring off into space.
Sarah decided that the time had come. It was late and she needed to go home, but she couldn't leave him alone and find out later that
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he had committed suicide. For all she knew, he might have a medical condition, even a brain tumor. He had allowed her to feed him and lead him back and forth to the bed. She decided to get him dressed and make him get into the elevator. Once she got him downstairs, she'd catch a cab out front and take him to the hospital. She knew just where to go, too, the same hospital where she had gone when she'd been hit by a car a few years back. Some of the hospitals in New York were far from good but at this one, Sarah had received excellent care. She'd decided to take Raymond to Roosevelt Hospital.
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