Night of Miracles

by Elizabeth Berg

  Maddy nods happily. “I came to tell you in person.”

  Lucille has a million questions about who this fellow might be. But there is another question that is preeminent for Lucille: she asks, “Can I make the wedding cake?”

  “Of course! I was hoping you would. But can you make it chocolate and vanilla?”

  Lucille gives her a look.

  “Good,” Maddy says. “That part’s done, then.”

  “Can I have another cookie?” Nola asks.

  “Nope,” Maddy says. “We’re going to get started on lunch. We’re going to make Grandma Lucille lunch and dinner, remember?”

  “Yes, and lunch is BLTs and dinner is salad and chicken with some lemons stuffed inside and green rice.”

  “Green rice?”

  Nola nods, and then whispers sloppily into Lucille’s ear: “It’s spinach.”

  “Did you move the aprons?” Maddy calls from inside the pantry.

  “Yes, I keep them in the hall closet, now that there are so many. Got a lot more vintage ones from Time’s Treasures. The students in my classes love them.”

  “I want to see,” Maddy says.

  Lucille hears Maddy oohing and ahhing over the new additions. She comes back into the kitchen wearing the Eiffel Tower apron with the little French poodles with bows in their hair. That’s a popular one. The students seem to think they’ll become Julia Child when they wear that apron, even though Lucille doubts most of them can make a decent omelet. But never mind, at least they come dying to learn how to make something special—pecan divinity cake, for example. Cream puffs. Peach cobbler. Raspberry lemonade pie, oh they practically kissed her feet when they learned that one.

  “So the classes are going well?” Maddy asks.

  “Very well,” Lucille says. “In fact I just hired an assistant to help me. She’ll start next week. But never mind the classes. Who are you engaged to?”

  Maddy sits down at the kitchen table opposite Lucille. She folds her hands and leans forward to say, “My professor.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “That young and handsome one?”

  “No, the other one, the old one. Nineteen years older than I am. And he’s not exactly handsome.”

  “Well,” Lucille says, making her tone as diplomatic as possible, “age isn’t—”

  “I’m kidding!” Maddy says. “It’s the young, super-handsome one, the one who sent my work to the magazine and got my pictures published that first time. His name is—”

  “His name is Matthew!” Nola says. “Matthew Allbright!”

  “Do you like him an awful lot?” Lucille asks, turning to Nola.

  “Yes!”

  “Are you going to be a flower girl?”

  Nola looks at Maddy, who shakes her head no.

  “Why isn’t she going to be a flower girl?”

  “It’s going to be a really small wedding. If you’re all right with it, I’d love to have it here. There’d only be a few guests.”

  “Well, of course you can have it here! It’s your house. I’m just the tenant.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had the deed put in your name. It’s all yours now.”

  “Oh, Maddy, that doesn’t make any sense!” But then she says, “Well, for heaven’s sake. Thank you, Maddy. I guess you won’t be moving back here to Mason, then.”

  “No. In fact, right after I graduate in June, we’re moving to New York. To Brooklyn.”

  “New York!” Lucille looks over at Nola.

  “She loves New York,” Maddy says. “I hope you’ll visit us there. There are a lot of wonderful bakeries doing all kinds of creative things there.”

  “I suppose that’s fine,” Lucille says. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  “Lucille, get dressed,” Maddy says. “We’ll eat lunch and then find something fun to do. Then we’ll come home and Nola and I will make you dinner.”

  “All right,” Lucille says, and heads upstairs. She has no idea what might be fun to do in Mason. They’ll need to drive awhile to find some fun. But that’s fine, she would actually like a drive, so many of the trees still glorious. There’s a cooking store about thirty miles away that she’d love to visit. It’s called Good Looking Cooking, and it’s run by two sisters, and they have the cutest cookie cutters (Lucille thinks she’ll buy the turkey one and the stacking hearts), and they have a lot of beautiful cupcake wrappers—rainbow-colored, polka-dotted, silver and gold, even lace-cut. Someone in Lucille’s class put her name on the store’s mailing list and they send Lucille their catalog, but of course you need to see things in person. People who do catalogs get paid a lot of money to make things look good. Then when you order them, the store demands credit card information on the phone without so much as a by-your-leave. Why, anyone could take that information and do anything with it! And then when the things finally arrive, half the time they aren’t what you thought they’d be. They don’t fit. They’re made cheaply. They’re a different color than they seemed to be. Worst of all is when they don’t work, oh, that’s the most infuriating, you get it, you try it, nothing! A dud! And then there you go, hauling the thing to the post office when you have far better things to do. No. You need to see things before you buy them. You need to touch them. You need someone in the store who knows what the hell they’re talking about when you ask about the merits of this or that. She’ll ask Maddy to take her to Good Looking Cooking. Nola will like it, too. She’ll let the little girl pick out a cookie cutter. Or two.

  Lucille is standing in her bedroom in her underwear when Nola bursts through the door.

  Lucille thinks about trying to cover herself, but the damage is done.

  “You have big bosums,” Nola says.

  “I suppose I do. What about it?”

  “Nothing. Can I sit on your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I jump on it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” She sits on Lucille’s bed, then lies on it, and Lucille finishes getting dressed: gray wool slacks, a pink V-neck sweater.

  “Do you wear a girdle?” Nola asks.

  Lucille sits beside her to put her socks and shoes on. “No, I do not wear a girdle. Not anymore. How do you even know what a girdle is?”

  “Mommy told me. She took a picture of some girdles.” She puts her hands over her mouth and giggles.

  “Whatever for?”

  Nola offers an elaborate shrug. Then, seeing Lucille struggle to bend over to tie her shoes, she says, “Want me to do that? I know how to tie.”

  “Okay.”

  Nola hops off the bed and tends to the task. “Do you like these shoes?” she asks, of the orthopedic black sneakers Lucille favors.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you think they’re pretty?”

  “No, but I think they’re comfortable. And that’s what matters most to me.”

  Nola slowly ties the second shoe.

  “You’re doing a good job there, Nola.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I know—we could get you pink laces. They have sparkle ones.”

  “Let’s look for some today. And, oh, my goodness, I almost forgot. I’m teaching a kids’ class tomorrow afternoon. You can come!”

  “I can?”

  “Of course!”

  “Can I wear the star apron?”

  “Of course!”

  “Can we make Mississippi mud cookies?”

  “I’ll make those for you while you’re here, and you can take them home. But in the class, we’re making chocolate-dipped potato-chip cookies.”

  Nola screws up her face. “Potato-chip cookies?”

  “They happen to be delicious,” Lucille says. “But if you don’t think you’re interested—”<
br />
  “I’m interested!” Nola says quickly.

  She stands and stares into Lucille’s eyes. “Did you know? I love you, Grandma Lucille.”

  Lucille nods, her throat aching. This always happens. Only a few minutes into the visit and Lucille wants the child to stay forever. She touches Nola’s cheek, soft as a pile of sifted flour. “I love you, too.”

  Cookie Class

  LUCILLE’S KITCHEN IS LOUD WITH the sounds of excited children. Seven six-years-olds have gathered for the potato-chip cookie class, and Lucille is letting them release a little nervous energy and excitement before the class begins. Nola is making a neat arrangement of the ingredients that they’ll need. At her suggestion, Lucille tied a polka-dot ribbon around the base of the mixer, and affixed a balloon on the door handle to the half-bath. The demo cookies that Nola and Lucille and Maddy made last night (and then ate half of) have already been served to the children from a yellow dump truck; boys and girls alike seem to enjoy having a cookie dumped onto their little paper plates. Today’s plates are zoo animals: tigers, lions, elephants, and monkeys. There was a bit of a dustup between two children wanting the last monkey plate, but Nola offered an ingenious solution: she told the squabbling children that all the plates were monkeys, some were just still wearing their Halloween costumes.

  When everything is ready to go, Lucille claps her hands and a silence descends. “Good afternoon!” she says, and waits for the children to sing out, “Good afternoon, Miss Howard,” but children are not like that anymore. With rare exception, they say nothing after she greets them. Not their fault, of course, if they haven’t been taught basic manners.

  “As you know, today I will be showing you how to make potato-chip cookies. How many of you liked the sample you had?”

  All hands up. No surprise there. One hand stays up, though. A big blond boy, seated at the back of the class. His name is Parker Daley, and he came to another class last week. His mother was a full forty minutes late picking him up, and her idea of an apology was to say, “Whoops! Guess time got away from me!” Parker’s not great about doing the work, he’s one of those who starts something and doesn’t want to finish, but he’s a champion eater.

  “Parker?” Lucille says. “Did you have a question?”

  “Why can’t we make thumbprint cookies?”

  “Well, we just did that last week, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, but they’re better than these cookies today.”

  “No they’re not!” Nola says loudly. “These ones are way better.”

  “Okay, let’s just say that they’re both good, shall we?” Lucille says. “Not everybody likes everything the same. Now let’s get going. Who can tell me the first thing to do when you’re going to bake something?”

  “Go poop,” Parker says quietly, and the children giggle.

  Lucille ignores him. “It’s ‘wash your hands,’ because you don’t want anyone getting sick from germs, right? So, let’s one at a time come up to the sink, and we’re going to make sure our hands are nice and clean.”

  After the children have returned to their places, Lucille says, “Okay, class, the next thing is to assemble your ingredients.”

  “Your pee and poop,” Parker says.

  Lucille sighs. “Parker?”

  He smirks at her.

  “Would you come up here, please?”

  His smirk disappears. After a second, he gets out of his chair and comes to stand beside her.

  “I can see you have the makings of a real leader,” Lucille says.

  The boy stares up at her.

  “So I’m going to ask if you’d be willing to help me.”

  “I’m your helper!” Nola says.

  “Yes, and now Parker is going to help us as well. And, say, Parker, can you whistle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s good, because we’re going to need someone to whistle.”

  “What for?” Parker asks.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Lucille says.

  Parker studies her, and Lucille knows very well he’s deciding whether to abandon his plan for mischief and instead cooperate with her. “A loud whistle?” he asks.

  Lucille hands the sticks of butter to Nola to unwrap. “The loudest! I need a whistle so loud it will make everyone’s hair stand on end. Can you do it?”

  The boy grins. “Sure. When?”

  “I’ll let you know. I’ll give you a special signal. Now, who wants to help mix the butter?”

  All hands up.

  * * *

  —

  IT IS JUST AFTER the class has ended that Lucille slips on a butter wrapper that someone left on the floor. She catches herself on the way down, but she falls.

  “Grandma!” Nola says.

  “I’m all right,” Lucille tells her, though she’s not sure she is.

  Nola squats down beside her. “Should we call the ambulance?”

  “I’m all right,” Lucille says again, and, to prove it, hoists herself up. “See? I’m okay. Nothing broken.”

  Nothing may be broken, but something sure hurts in her back. When she hears the front door open and Maddy calling hello, she is so grateful. Talk about good timing. “In here!” she says.

  Maddy’s smile fades when she sees Lucille. “What happened?”

  “She fell down!” Nola says.

  “I just slipped a little,” Lucille says.

  “Are you okay?” Maddy asks.

  “I’m fine!”

  “Can you walk?”

  Lucille doesn’t move.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital,” Maddy says.

  “I’m fine!”

  “Can you walk?”

  Lucille rolls her eyes. “For heaven’s sake!” Who’s on first? She lets go of the chair she used to hoist herself up and tries to take a step independently, then cries out.

  “Okay,” Maddy says. “We’ll use the chair to get you out to the car. Use it like a walker, can you? Just slide it and I’ll walk behind you.”

  Lucille makes it to the car, but now her back is screaming. “Nuts,” she says quietly. And that is all.

  When they arrive at the hospital, the ER is empty, so Lucille is put into a treatment room right away. An hour later, after X-rays and an exam, she is released with prescriptions for muscle relaxers and pain pills, which she will not take. No. She’s not going to get addicted. A heating pad and Tylenol will do, and that’s what she told them, but they insisted she take the prescriptions. They thought she was in a lot of pain. She pointed to the face on the pain chart that showed the mouth as a straight line, number four, not nearly number ten, but they thought she was hurting more than that because she kept crying. What they didn’t know is that she wasn’t crying from physical pain. It was for another reason.

  Later that night, after Nola has been put to bed and Maddy and Lucille are sitting at the kitchen table in their nightwear—Lucille in her flannel gown featuring floating roses and Maddy in black sweatpants and T-shirt—Lucille says, “You know why I was crying so much in the treatment room?” She adjusts the pillow and heating pad behind her. See? Already better.

  “You were scared?” Maddy asks.

  “No. I wasn’t scared. I was crying because that was the room where Frank died. I was standing right outside the room that night. They wouldn’t let me in to be with him.”

  Maddy’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, Lucille. I’m so sorry!”

  “Yes, that room is where all hope came to an end.”

  Maddy says nothing and Lucille says, “I guess that was a bit dramatic.”

  “It’s how you feel. Or felt.”

  “Well, that’s right. It is how I felt. And to tell you the truth, Maddy, it’s still how I feel. Oh, I’m going on with my life, anyone can see that, but it feels li
ke the center of me has just about withered up. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you and Nola.”

  “You know you have us forever, right? No matter where we are?”

  “Yes. I do know that. And I’m very grateful.”

  Maddy grows quiet and looks around the kitchen. “Do you miss him?”

  “Who? Arthur?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do. I think of him sometimes. How about you?”

  “I think of him every day,” Maddy says. She stares out the window. “I’m not sure if you know this, Lucille, but he saved my life. I was very close to…I didn’t really want to live for a while. But he was such a radiant soul, and something about him convinced me that life is worth living. That it may not be fair, but it is beautiful. I loved Arthur very much.”

  “I loved him, too,” Lucille says. “Not like I loved Frank, of course, but I loved Arthur. There he would be, quiet at the table, with those long legs crossed, content first thing in the morning and content last thing at night. Why, it was like a scent he gave off.”

  “I know,” Maddy says, smiling. “Remember how he used to fall asleep in front of the TV when we were watching old movies and then deny that he’d been sleeping? ‘I wasn’t sleeping, I was dozing,’ he’d say. Dozing with his mouth hanging open and head cocked all funny!”

  “And snoring,” Lucille says.

  Maddy doesn’t mention the fact that Lucille snores louder than two Arthurs put together.

  “Lucille? You know how you say Frank was the love of your life?”

  “Yes. He was.”

  “I never told you, but I used to think that was kind of silly.”

  Lucille raises her eyebrows, nods. She points to Maddy’s engagement ring. “Different story now, huh?”

  “Different story.”

  Maddy stands and pushes her chair under the table. “Let’s get you into bed. And we’ll see how you are tomorrow. I’m not going home if you’re not better.”

  “I’m better already,” Lucille says. She’s not that much better, but she won’t have Maddy missing school. Maybe she’ll ask to dream of Frank tonight.