Night of Miracles

by Elizabeth Berg

  “Tell me who you are!” Any fear she might normally have had was muted in the dream, and she walked right over to the man. He looked like someone she knew, but she couldn’t think who.

  He sat up, put his hands in a prayer position, and looked up at her. “Lucille Rachel Howard, I am the angel of death, and I have come to take you home.”

  “Oh, you are not.” But she looked again at his back. Wings?

  “I’m afraid I am. That pain you had in your chest? It’s going to come back in a second, and you—”

  “Now, you listen to me. I am not ready and I’m not going with you, I’m going back inside my house. And you just…” She waved her hand as though swatting away a fly. “You just go on back where you came from because I am not ready!”

  She started walking, taking short, huffy steps, then spun around quickly. “For one thing, I have not had my miracle!”

  The man smiled at her and spread his arms wide. “What do you call this?”

  “You’re not even real!” Lucille said, and she ran into the house, slammed the door, and went back to bed.

  Now she shakes her head to rid herself of the dream, then goes to the stove to pour herself another cup of coffee. Perked coffee. That’s the ticket. People don’t use percolators anymore and they don’t know what they’re missing.

  She puts a finger to the center of the coffee cake she baked this morning to see if it has cooled enough for cutting. Yes. She cuts a generous slice and places it on a yellow plate that is perfect for morning. Back at the table, she closes her eyes and takes in a deep whiff. Oh, my. Thank the Lord for green pastures, blue skies, and butter that is 83 percent butterfat. The scent of the cake is so rich it makes her shoulders rise up and her hands squeeze into happy fists. This is a cinnamon-nut crumble with a sweet bourbon drizzle, but Lucille just calls it Granny’s coffee cake because everybody always likes Granny’s this and Granny’s that, keeping some outmoded idea of grannies who used to be able to bake. Well, guess what? Most grannies don’t even wear aprons anymore.

  Angel of death! Someone once told Lucille that dreams manifest desires that you will not otherwise admit to yourself. But she does not want to die. And it is not time for her to die. She’s still got work to do.

  She takes a bite of coffee cake, and a memory from long ago comes into her head, that of her as a five-year-old girl, coming into the kitchen one morning and finding her mother sitting at the table with coffee cake, just as Lucille is now. She remembers the inflated sense of importance she had, the urgency to share what had happened to her. She said, “A ghost came into my room last night. It was Grandpa.”

  Her mother turned a bit in her chair to regard Lucille, but said nothing.

  “He sat on my bed, at the bottom, and he talked to me.”

  Silence, but for the clink of the fork against the plate. And then Lucille’s mother said, “Get dressed. You’ll be late for school.”

  “Don’t you want to know what he said?”

  “You mustn’t indulge in such things, Lucille. And you must not speak of them to others.”

  Now Lucille rises slowly out of her chair to look over the half-curtain into the backyard. Nothing.

  The Future Foretold

  MONICA IS AT THE HOUSE of Rising Visions in what she guesses they would call the lounge, waiting for Polly to come out from the red-velvet-curtained cubicle where she’s having her fortune told. Monica finished first, and is kind of excited to tell Polly what she heard, even though she thinks it will probably be essentially the same thing Polly gets told. Monica doesn’t really believe in fortune-telling. She believes in signs, but that’s information that comes from within herself, from her own unconscious, not from some stranger who takes Visa.

  Last night at dinner Polly insisted that a trip to New Orleans was incomplete without a visit to a fortune-teller, and she suggested they go to one before they left for the airport. It surprised Monica that Polly would have such a strong belief in them. But Polly went on and on, talking about how there are ways to divine things, there are people who can intuit things, come on, hadn’t Monica ever heard of those psychics who help the police find crime victims and lost items? Hadn’t Monica herself ever had a psychic vibe about something?

  “No,” Monica said. “Nope, I have had signs, but I have never had a psychic vibe.”

  “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to go to a reading,” Polly said.

  “No I’m not! And anyway, I doubt that the people we’d be seeing are real psychics like those cop ones. Plus, it costs too much.”

  “I’ll treat you,” Polly said, and she just wouldn’t stop, and so, fine, here they are at the fortune-telling Mall of America.

  It does seem like a kind of mall, though maybe “strip mall” is more accurate. The place is long and narrow, just a line of six cubicles with fortune-tellers inside, with a row of chairs for people waiting on the other side of the booths. Lots of red and black, lots of velvet, dim lights on some ratty chandeliers. When they first walked in, there was a man who was available, but neither Polly nor Monica wanted him—they asked if they could wait for a woman. “Suit yourself,” the man said, and went out for a smoke. Monica thought that was unprofessional. She thought he might have said something like, “I see you have had bad experiences with men.”

  Monica got a woman who seemed to look the part: long black hair, a great deal of eyeliner, long red fingernails, a throaty voice. She wore a full-length, black velvet dress embroidered in silver thread with all kinds of things, including suns and moons and pentagrams. Her little table was covered with a black silk shawl, and it had the longest fringe Monica had ever seen. She kind of wanted that shawl. If she’d had enough nerve she would have asked to buy it, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t for sale.

  The fortune-teller, whose name was Twilight (Sure it is, Monica thought), had a few different kinds of tarot cards. She had what she called a divining stick, decorated with beautiful stones. She even had a crystal ball, but that was extra if you wanted her to look into it for you. Praying for you after your visit, that was extra, too, but highly recommended. “No thank you,” Monica said, a bit too emphatically, perhaps. She requested a basic tarot card reading.

  She looks at her watch, crosses her legs, and starts to jiggle her foot. Polly has to come out now, or they’re going to miss their flight. She leans forward, straining to hear what’s going on, but can’t. And then she decides not to try to eavesdrop anyway. It would be wrong, like listening in on someone’s confession. Which, actually, she has done and then felt bad about, but who could walk away from a guy confessing pretty loudly about infidelity with his wife’s best friend? And he didn’t even get that bad a penance, just a couple of rosaries and a promise that he would stop the affair and go to a therapist. Well, maybe the man did. Maybe the wife was a shrew and deserved to be cheated on. Monica shouldn’t be so judgmental. She shouldn’t eat so much bread.

  The bell over the door tinkles and two young women come in, giggling. The man comes out and says he’s available if one of them would like to come with him. They look at each other and then ask if they can be seen together.

  “Up to you,” the man says. “You both have to pay the full amount. And I’m going to say some real personal things about y’all in front of each other.”

  “That’s okay,” they say, all singsongy and together, and Monica feels sure they’re cheerleaders. Maybe it’s something in the air, but she really does feel sure they are cheerleaders. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. She feels so sure she wants to ask them, but she doesn’t. “I’m Midnight,” the man says, and the girls say (together), Ohhhhhhh, and Monica rolls her eyes. They disappear behind the curtain.

  She is just about to knock on Polly’s curtain, should she be able to do such a thing, when Polly bursts out of the little space, grinning.

  “What did yours say?” Monica asks, as the
y walk quickly (a little too quickly, for Monica’s taste, but Polly would move quickly if she were ascending the ladder to the gallows).

  “Wait till we’re in the car!” Polly says. “The crystal ball reading, oh, my God!” Now Monica feels bad that she didn’t get the crystal ball reading, too.

  “Did you get the she’ll-pray-for-you thing?” she asks.

  “Of course!” Polly says. “Didn’t you?”

  “No,” Monica says. Then, apologetically, “I was too cheap.”

  “I was paying!” Polly says, and Monica says, “I know.” And then she doesn’t really want to share what Twilight told her anymore. Because it wasn’t even that interesting and it was not what she wanted to hear. She probably should have gotten the crystal ball reading.

  As it happens, Monica doesn’t have to worry about saying anything, because Polly starts talking a mile a minute and does not let up until they reach the airport. Her psychic told her that she was going to meet a man who would become more of a friend than a lover but he would be a good friend and they would end up living together. He would take her often to Paris, where it looked like he might have an apartment? A permanent hotel room? “And then she looked at me as if I should know,” Polly, says, laughing. “So I said, ‘An apartment, with a beautifully stocked kitchen.’ And then she said, ‘Oh, no, he’s not a cook. Never has been a cook. That’s where you’ll come in, because you’re a cook, am I right? Your job is something with food.’ ”

  “Wow,” Monica manages to fit in.

  “Yeah, and she told me that I am going to get a dog, a dachshund, which she knew I have always secretly wanted but never got, but now I will, a red doxie, maybe a mini one.”

  Oh, it went on and on. That Polly should wear more yellow because it lit up her aura and brought her good fortune. That her business would thrive until she sold it, and then it would go under. “Which actually made me kind of happy, which I guess is small of me,” Polly says.

  She keeps talking, and Monica gets bored and starts thinking about the food they had there, chickory coffee, red beans and rice—the rice and beans were just from a fast-food stand, and they were so good! They also had oysters Rockefeller at Antoine’s, and Monica tried escargots, so fun to even say, and she’s going to tell Lucille Howard all about that because Lucille said one day in her baking class that eating snails was one thing she wanted to do. Well, wait till Monica tells her they were escargots à la bordelaise, baked in red wine and garlic sauce and sprinkled with cheese and breadcrumbs they made out of French bread. And oh, those muffulettas! They got them from the Central Grocery because Polly said they had to get them there. They thought about sharing one because they were so huge but then they didn’t share and they both ate every last bite. Monica told Polly they should put muffulettas on the menu at the Henhouse and Polly said it would be too hard to find the right olive salad to put on top and Monica said you could get everything on the Internet now. “Who would eat them, though, in Mason?” Polly asked, and Monica said, “Us! And Tiny!”

  “Yeah, Tiny’ll eat purt near everything,” Polly said.

  That was true, except at breakfast, when he refused to eat anything but the same thing he always had.

  At the gate, Polly asks Monica what her fortune-teller said.

  “Oh, not so much, really,” Monica says. “She knew my dad had died when I was real young. She said my mom was watching from heaven. She said I was going to get married soon, but to a man whose first name starts with P.”

  “P?” Polly says. “Are you sure she said P? P sounds a lot like T, you know.”

  “I’m sure. I even said, ‘You mean P like Paul,’ and she said, ‘Yes, but it isn’t Paul. Or Peter.’ She might be wrong,” Monica adds.

  “I suppose,” Polly says, but Monica can tell she doesn’t think so.

  “Huh,” Polly says.

  They fall asleep on the plane just like that because one thing about New Orleans is you don’t sleep much because of the beckoning fingers of jazz and zydeco music and the meandering crowds holding great big glasses of booze and the bright-colored beads and the whoo-ha and yee-ows as people spin wildly around on dance floors and the exotic-looking drag queens (the only people who can wear blue eyeshadow and wear it well) and the Creole you hear and all the other languages and the horses and buggies and gaslights and even the danger, even the little sense of danger they felt when they were followed back to their hotel a bit too closely by a couple of really seedy-looking characters. Well, seedy in New Orleans is romantic. Everything there is romantic. When she marries P., she’s coming to New Orleans on her honeymoon. She hopes T. will be good and sorry.

  Step One

  JASON AND ABBY ARE WAITING at the hospital in a little room where Abby will soon receive her first chemotherapy treatment. She’s brought her own pillow and she is lying under the compass quilt her mother made and just sent her, all purples and blues, healing colors. You will find your way, the note her mother included said. Just now, just for a moment, Jason wonders if Abby wishes she had taken her mother up on her offer to come stay with them. But her mother suffers from health problems herself—severe arthritis, occasional atrial fibrillation—and Abby didn’t want to tax her any more than the news of her daughter’s diagnosis already had.

  Abby’s mother, Joan, was on speakerphone when they called to give her the news, and they looked at each other when the first thing Joan said was, “I’m coming. I’ll get the first flight out. I’ll take a taxi to your house.”

  “Thank you, Mom, but maybe it would be good to save you for later on,” Abby said, and her mother said, “Are you sure?”

  “It’s just that we’re taking in a lot right now. Trying to figure things out. Jason and I, I mean. Linky doesn’t know yet. It’ll be hard, telling him.”

  “He might get mad at you,” Abby’s mother said.

  “Yes, I’ve read that. Because of his fear, he might lash out at me. And at Jason. His schoolwork might suffer. That’s why we haven’t told him yet. And anyway, I’m feeling okay right now. So we’ll wait on having you come. Okay?”

  “All right. Whatever you want. But I’m here, honey.”

  “I know.” Abby pressed two fingers to her mouth, rocked back and forth.

  “Call if you need me for anything. Or if you want to talk. Call anytime, night or day.”

  “I will.”

  After they hung up, Abby wept in Jason’s arms.

  Now she looks into his eyes and whispers, “I’m so scared.”

  He takes her hand and rubs it between his own. Kisses it.

  “Are you scared?” she asks.

  He shakes his head no, but doesn’t look at her.

  “Jason?”

  “I’m a little scared,” he says, “but I also know you’re going to be fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.”

  She smiles. “No you don’t.”

  He is about to argue when the nurse comes up to start the IV. But first she confirms identification, asks about any allergies, and so forth. Jason feels a sudden fullness in his bladder and points to the nearby bathroom. Abby nods, then tells the nurse, “I got a rash with amoxicillin once.”

  It comes to Jason that so many things that get said now seem…well, they seem ridiculous. Surreal. Beside the Big Point. Yet life goes on, it must go on, with its small pronouncements and mundane activities, with its unrelenting necessities. The evening after they got the news, Abby came out of the bathroom, saying, “You know, it seems so odd that so much still works.”

  “You mean…?” Jason said, and Abby flopped down beside him on the sofa and said, “I mean, I’m waiting for all the other shoes to drop.”

  Jason looks in the hospital bathroom mirror to practice what he wants to say. “You’ll go into remission,” he says. “I know you will.” Not all that convincing. Well, that’s
because he’s not all that convinced.

  “We’ll get through this,” he tries. Better.

  We’ll get through this. Right. Like we were pregnant. Right.

  When Lincoln was born, Jason was in attendance the whole time, and he thought, God, I’m glad I don’t have to do this. And he felt guilty about that.

  And now? Does he wish it were him going through this rather than her? He wishes he could say yes.

  Back at Abby’s bedside, he sees the IV in her hand, the time and date written on the white dressing over it. A little smiley face is drawn on there, too.

  Jason points to the smiley face and rolls his eyes.

  “I know,” Abby says. “But she’s sweet. God, she’s young, too!”

  “New grad?”

  “I didn’t ask her. I was afraid to. I want someone with experience.”

  Jason looks around the room. “Everybody seems really competent, though.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Do you want anything? Do you want some almonds or something?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Want me to read to you?”

  “I don’t think I could really listen.”

  “Well, then, let’s just conversate.”

  She smiles, as she always does when he uses that word. Conversate.

  “That’s not a word” she told him the first time he used it.

  “Nothing used to be a word until the first time it got used,” he responded.

  “You know, you can never take criticism,” she told him.

  He frowned, thinking. Then he asked, “Is that true?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s conversate about it.”

  Now conversate is in their own personal clubhouse, along with blueberry oatmeal pancakes and fresh-squeezed orange juice and The New York Times every Sunday morning. They talk to their dog, Henry, as though he’s another person. They fall asleep on the sofa at night in front of the TV and then they go upstairs to bed and that wakes them up a little and so they read side by side until they fall asleep again. Once, she told him that reading together was better than sex.