Night of Miracles

by Elizabeth Berg

  Downstairs, she can hear Jason making breakfast for Lincoln, and she hears him call. “Linky! Come down right now, or you’ll be late for school!”

  “Coming!” Lincoln says, and then there is noise of him going downstairs, his backpack bumping along behind him. He is too old to keep a stuffed animal in his backpack, but he does anyway, a little calico cat with green eyes, curled up in a circle. None of the other kids know, and Abby is glad, because even though Lincoln has said he wouldn’t care if they did know (this after Abby proposed making the cat a secret hiding place), she knows he’d be humiliated. Even here, in a town far more innocent and generous-hearted—and, okay, behind the times—than the one they left, kids would make fun of him.

  She won’t go downstairs until after Lincoln leaves. Sometimes she makes it down in time to see him off, sometimes she doesn’t; he’s grown used to this, without knowing what the reason for it is. It breaks her heart how accepting children can be—must be.

  She’ll have to tell him today. She’ll do it after school. She was hoping the ice cap she wore during treatments would let her keep her hair; she was told that half of the time, it works, but it did not work for her. Oh, well, she thinks, it’s past time to tell him, anyway. Once, he came upon her throwing up and said, “Do you have the flu?” and she’d nodded, then said, “Just a little twenty-four-hour one, I’m sure. I’ll be okay.”

  She wipes her eyes and stands to finish making the bed, pulling the sheets tightly, forming the hospital corners her mother taught her. She runs her hand over the compass quilt she’s using as a bedspread, it’s such a beautiful piece of work and she loves sleeping under it because sometimes she wakes up a little afraid in the night and it comforts her to touch something her mother touched. When it’s big fear, she turns to Jason and holds him close and he awakens and does not say a word and so speaks volumes.

  She hears the front door slam, Lincoln going out to catch the bus. She showers, brushes her teeth, dresses, and puts on a little lip gloss to go downstairs. Normal is what she’s after.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Jason says, when she comes into the kitchen. He’s wiping off the table, sweeping crumbs into his hand. He looks up at her and smiles. And then he stops smiling.

  “Yeah,” she says. “It’s happening.” In the shower, a great deal more hair had fallen out. She’d collected it from where it had gathered near the drain, tossed it in the garbage, then pulled it out, wrapped it in a washcloth, and put it in her nightstand drawer. She doesn’t know what to do with it.

  Jason stands there. Swallows. She thinks of something a friend of hers once told her, that when you recite Kaddish as a mourner, you stand, while everyone else in the congregation remains seated.

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  “It’s only hair, right?”

  “Right.”

  “It will come back,” he says.

  “Three to six months after the treatment ends.”

  “Right. So, that’s not so bad!” He’s trying hard, but his voice is tight.

  He comes over to embrace her, and then he is weeping and so is she, but all she says is, “Uh-oh. You dropped the crumbs on the floor.”

  * * *

  —

  “MOM!” LINCOLN YELLS THAT afternoon, after he comes into the house.

  “In here,” Abby says. She’s sitting at the kitchen table with Jason. She’s wearing the prettiest scarf on her head, something she’d not worn until now, but it’s lovely, all greens and blues and golds.

  Lincoln comes into the kitchen. “Hi.”

  “Hi, sweetheart.”

  “Can I go to Mike Pizer’s house?”

  “Sure, but can we talk to you for just a minute?”

  He looks from one to the other. “What’d I do?”

  “Nothing,” Abby says. “We just have some news we want to share. Sit down. You want something to eat? An apple? Some cheese?”

  “No thanks. And I know what your news is.”

  Abby’s stomach clenches and she steals a quick look at Jason, who has taken her hand beneath the table.

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to have a baby brother. Or sister.”

  “Ah,” Abby says. “That’s a good guess. But it’s not that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Well, I need to tell you that I have cancer, Lincoln.”

  He stares at her. Then he says loudly, “What do you mean? Are you sick? What do you mean, Mom? What is cancer, anyway? Like what is it?”

  “That’s a very good question. Because cancer is just one word that can mean many things. Sometimes cancer is such a little thing, and other times it’s a bit more serious. I have cancer that is a bit more serious, but I am getting treatments to get better.”

  “Is that why you’ve been so tired? And throwing up?”

  She nods. “Um-hm. It’s not fun, but it’s how we know the medicine is working.”

  Lincoln stares down at the table. “Fuck,” he says softly.

  “Linky…” Jason says, and Lincoln looks directly at him and Jason says no more.

  “Are you going to die?” Lincoln asks, and this is a question Abby was anticipating. Even so, it takes everything in her to tell him the truth and say, “I’m going to try really hard not to. I think I will be fine. And so does Dad. And you should think that, too, okay?”

  He looks at her face as though it is a map he’s studying in order to locate a certain city. He looks at her eyes, her mouth, her nose, he looks up at the scarf on her head with new understanding.

  “Are you bald now?”

  “Not yet. But my hair has begun to fall out. Do you want to see?”

  “No.”

  Silence, and then Lincoln says, “You should just do a buzz cut, if it’s going to fall out.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “It might look kind of cool.” And then, “Linky, I might have to do some other treatments over in Columbia, near to where we go to the bookstore. If I do that, and Dad comes with me, which I would want him to, it would mean we wouldn’t be here when you got back from school. So we’ll need to find—”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Yes you do, son,” Jason says.

  “I’m fine by myself!”

  “You are, but we would want someone here just in case. Or we would want you to go someplace where there was an adult.”

  “What about Miss Howard next door? She’s always home. She could be there if I needed anything.”

  A little jump of happiness in Abby, and she says, “Would that feel okay for you? If you stayed with her?”

  “Yeah, I could just go over there if I needed her.”

  “Well, you’d need to stay there,” Abby says. “Actually.”

  “Tell you what,” Jason says. “How about I take your mom out for a while tonight and you stay with Miss Howard for just an hour or so, and you can see how it feels. We asked her if she’d do that and she said sure. She said she was making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and you could join her.”

  “We don’t eat meat.”

  “Right, but you could have some sauce.”

  “That meat was cooked in?”

  “Yeah, if you’re okay with it. Otherwise you could have the spaghetti with just cheese.”

  “I eat meat, you know. At school, when they have fried chicken, kids share it with me. It’s good!”

  “Well,” Abby says, “it—”

  Jason squeezes her hand. Don’t.

  “It’s fine for now,” Abby says.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I can have meatballs?”

  “Eat whatever you like,” Jason says.

  Abby can’t help it. She says, “But, you know, try to make good choices.”

  “Can I go to Mike
’s house now?”

  “Yes, but be back at five. Miss Howard eats early.”

  A New Friend for Lucille

  ONE THING LUCILLE JUST KNOWS Lincoln will love is garlic bread, because she loved garlic bread as a kid. They’ll have spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread and a little salad and then she’ll offer dessert, even though they don’t eat dessert over there. But she’ll offer it, it’s a blueberry-peach crisp with an oatmeal-based topping, so it’s healthy. Healthy enough. She won’t push it, she’ll just say, “I’m going to have some delicious blueberry-peach crisp, would you like some, too?” Then, if he says yes, she’ll plop a little ice cream on there and if he says anything about that, she’ll say, “Well, it comes with that.” Then he’ll taste it and that will do it.

  She has cleared this with the parents. With the father, anyway. Jeremy. Is it Jeremy? No. Jason. She told him what was on the menu and asked if that would be all right to give Lincoln and he said it would be fine. He was a little distracted, but he heard her.

  Poor man. He could not care less about what his son has for dinner. He’s worried about his wife. She’s got some kind of medical problem, and he asked Lucille if she would be at all amenable to letting Lincoln come over after school sometimes. Wouldn’t be for more than a couple of hours at a time.

  Lucille was not wildly excited about the idea, at first. She doesn’t even know the kid, for one thing, but she likes kids generally, or she never could have taught fourth grade for all those years, even though that wretched Krissy Labrue nearly did her in, her third year of teaching. You never want to think of one of your students as a little shit, but that’s just what that child was. Lucille tried to tender her resignation three times that academic year, and each time was persuaded not to, because everyone else thought the girl was a royal pain, too. But Lucille is sure she’ll like Lincoln well enough. And anyway, neighbors do for each other, Arthur taught her that.

  She looks at her watch, then goes into her bathroom to freshen up. You’d think she was getting ready for a date.

  A date. The idea makes her sit down on the toilet seat and sigh. Frank.

  She gets up and puts on lipstick and runs a brush through her hair, not that the boy will care what her hair looks like. Kids don’t really see old people. A lot of people don’t.

  The doorbell rings and she goes downstairs. Jason is standing at the door with his hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. The boy looks up at her shyly and Lucille’s heart instantly goes to him.

  “Come on in,” she says. “Welcome! Are you ready for some dinner?”

  “I guess so,” he says. “Thank you.”

  “And then I have plans for after-dinner entertainment.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a surprise. I like surprises, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it depends on what the surprise is.”

  “You’ll like it,” she says, putting her hand gently on his shoulder to guide him in. “You skedaddle,” she tells Jason.

  “We’ll see you in an hour, son,” Jason says, and Lucille says, “Oh, we’re going to need at least two.”

  Jason looks down at Lincoln and the boy grins. “I’m fine, Dad.”

  * * *

  —

  “IS THERE SUGAR IN HERE?” Lincoln asks, about the crisp, after taking a bite.

  “Well, of course. What would crisp be without sugar? Horse feed.”

  “My family doesn’t eat sugar.”

  “Yes, I know. I did ask your dad if you could try this, though. And he didn’t seem to mind.”

  “Yeah. I can eat whatever I want now, because my mom has cancer.”

  Lucille makes herself not react much. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Lincoln.”

  “Yeah. She’s going to get better, I think.”

  “Yes. She’s young, and she’s healthy. I mean, otherwise.”

  “She might die, though.”

  What to say. Absurdly, the cuckoo clock in her kitchen strikes.

  “What’s that?” Lincoln asks.

  “It’s a cuckoo clock,” Lucille says. “Haven’t you ever seen a cuckoo clock?”

  “No.”

  “Well, every hour the little bird comes out of his house and cuckoos once for every hour that it is.”

  “Wow. Twelve o’clock must be awesome!”

  “I can make it do that.”

  “Would you?”

  “ ’Course I would. Let me get out my little ladder. Now, I want you to spot me, and I’ll climb up and make it cuckoo twelve times, just for you.” Thank goodness her back pain is gone.

  She hauls out her stepladder from the pantry and climbs up a step, then two, with Lincoln close behind her and with one of her hands on top of his head to steady her. She moves the hands of the clock to make the bird cuckoo and cuckoo and cuckoo and they both laugh themselves silly. One good thing about someone really liking something you have is that you appreciate it yourself all over again. It is funny, isn’t it, the little door snapping open, the bird popping out and then quickly back in, the door slamming behind him.

  After she’s made it cuckoo twelve o’clock three times, she says, “All right, that’s enough, I’m getting a little dizzy. Help me down and then we’re going to do our entertainment.”

  “I think I know what it is.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Is it a movie?”

  That wouldn’t have been a bad idea, Lucille thinks. She could have taken a load off, maybe dozed a bit, and been done with her duties until the parents came back. But she has another idea. It came to her as she was napping that afternoon and so she knows it will work out fine: things that suggest themselves in sleep almost always work out.

  “No,” she tells Lincoln. “It’s not a movie. Come, and I’ll show you.”

  He looks at the dishes on the table. “Shouldn’t we clean up first?”

  “You want to help me clean up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, aren’t you just Sir Lancelot!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, he was a gallant knight in King Arthur’s court. You know what a knight is, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. They were in the Middle Ages. They wore suits of armor.”

  “That’s right. Very good.”

  She stations herself at the sink. “Bring me over the dishes, and I’ll wash them.”

  “You don’t have a dishwasher?”

  She looks over her shoulder. “It’s a wonder I survive, right?”

  He shrugs.

  She takes the plate he hands her and begins soaping it. “I don’t mind washing dishes. I think about things when I do. Don’t you like to do that sometimes, just be doing something kind of mindless and think about things, let your imagination wander?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. What was that knight’s name, again?”

  “Lancelot.”

  “I like that name.”

  “It’s a little bit like your name.”

  She rinses a fork and puts it in the drainer. “Do you like your name?”

  “Yeah, ’cept when my parents call me Linky, which I’m too old for now.”

  “Tell them to call you Lincoln, then.”

  He’s silent.

  “You can tell them to call you Lincoln.”

  “I would want them to call me Link.”

  “Oh! Link. Yes, that’s quite nice. Very elegant. So tell them to call you Link. And get that dishtowel that’s hanging over there. You might as well dry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dry the dishes! With the dishtowel!”

  He stands there.

  “Pretend the dishes have just come out of the bathtub and now you are going to dry them.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He gets the dishtowel and wraps it arou
nd a wet plate and starts pressing here and there.

  “Lord have mercy,” Lucille says, and snatches the plate away. “Like this!” she says, and shows him how to dry a dish. She read in the paper the other day that a mom had to tell her college-age son how to mail a letter. True story.

  “So, Link,” she says.

  He smiles.

  “You like how it sounds?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, so from now on, I’ll call you Link and you tell your parents to do it, too.”

  “Maybe later. They’re kind of upset right now.”

  She rinses a glass, puts it in the drainer, and keeps her voice purposefully casual to say, “I really think your mom will be just fine.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Nobody knows.”

  They work in silence but for the squeaking of the dishrag, and then Lincoln says, “Do you believe in heaven?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “For real?”

  “Yes! Don’t you?”

  “I think it’s an artificial construct. That’s what my dad says.”

  “Is that so. I’ll bet you don’t even know what ‘artificial construct’ means.”

  “It means it’s a fake idea. People make up heaven so they won’t be scared to die.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do you know not?”

  He looks up at her, confused.

  “Let me ask you something,” Lucille says. “Will the sun come up tomorrow?”

  “Yeah…”

  “How do you know?”

  He laughs. “Because it just does. Every day, the sun comes up.”

  “But how do you know it will come up tomorrow? Put that silverware away in the top drawer over there, will you?”

  He gathers the silverware that he has dried and laid on the table, and puts it in the drawer, carefully. She might hire him to help with her classes. He’s smart, he’s considerate, he’s so cute with his red hair and freckles and big brown eyes. She’s hired that Iris woman now to set up all kinds of Internet nonsense, but this kid could probably have done it. He’s one of those really smart ones, she knows one when she sees one.