The Miracle Stealer

by Neil Connelly

But Volpe shook her head. “No. Her spirit’s strong. And Daniel’s here now. We have to believe.” Again she stared at my brother, still kneeling.

  “Daniel,” I said. “Come on with me.” I took a few steps toward the door, hoping he’d just follow. But when I looked back from the doorway, the face he aimed at me over his shoulder was blank. He didn’t look scared or upset. If anything, perhaps he was disappointed.

  “Maybe we better all stay here,” Daniel said.

  Mrs. Abernathy’s convulsions eased, and Volpe extended both her lanky arms over the trembling body. She raised her face to the bed’s white canopy and said, “Join with me now.”

  My mother got off her knees and took one of Daniel’s hands, urging him to his feet, and Mr. Abernathy stood. The four of them joined hands, then Volpe and my mother both offered me their open hands, waiting for me to complete the prayer chain. My mother said, “Please, Ann.” But I stayed where I was and shook my head. Volpe slid her palm into my mother’s, and they turned from me. Looking heavenward, Volpe said, “Merciful Christ, Father in heaven, giver of life, we place our trust in you. We join together in hope and faith.”

  Mrs. Abernathy’s moans started getting louder, and her lips spread back to reveal her clenched teeth. Mr. Abernathy shouted above her, “Please Jesus!”

  “Thy will!” Volpe shouted. “Deliver us this night. Amen, amen.”

  My mother chanted, “Yes, Lord,” over and over, swaying her body and rolling her head. Daniel still looked okay, but I knew that wouldn’t last. I scanned the room and found a phone on a table by an open window. I crossed behind Volpe, and at the window I could see the lake through the trees.

  When I reached for the receiver, Mr. Abernathy cried out, “Don’t! You can’t!”

  “You need to take Daniel downstairs,” I hollered at my mother. “Like right now.”

  “Put down that phone,” Volpe ordered.

  “It’s not what she’d want,” Mr. Abernathy yelled. “Not after last time.”

  Turning from all of them, I faced the lake and the crescent moon. I dialed 9-1-1. The familiar voice answered on the first ring, and with all the shouting behind me I had to practically scream, “Bert, it’s Andi Grant. We need the ambulance up at the Abernathys’ place. Hurry, Bert.”

  “No!” Mr. Abernathy yelled, and the anger in his voice mixed with Volpe’s prayer and my mother’s rising chant. But somehow in that crash of sounds we all heard Mrs. Abernathy when she whispered, “Don’t need…any doctors.” Mrs. Abernathy’s body stilled and her eyes opened. She turned her weary face to Daniel and said faintly, “Only him.”

  The dial tone sounded in my ear, and I put the phone down. When I looked again, my brother was climbing up onto the bed, leaning back into the pile of pillows with Mrs. Abernathy. Her pale face twitched, as if something were coming alive beneath the skin, and she began panting, slowly at first and then more quickly. Mr. Abernathy, Volpe, and my mother closed the prayer circle and squeezed one another’s hands, a trinity of true believers. Mrs. Abernathy bit her lip and turned her wet red face to my brother.

  Daniel said, “Your tiny girl, she’s afraid.”

  “What?”

  “That baby. She’s afraid to come out. Everybody’s yelling. She’s scared.”

  Mrs. Abernathy laughed but then her face turned serious. “I’m scared too, Daniel. And it hurts. Please. Daniel. Won’t you intercede?”

  Daniel smoothed the sweaty hair from her forehead. “When I was little, my daddy used to sing me a song when I was sad or scared.”

  At the mention of my father, my mother stiffened, but she didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at her.

  Daniel’s head began to nod to a rhythm only he could hear, and then he started to sing, “There was a hole, in the middle of the ground, the prettiest hole, that you ever did see. And the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Mrs. Abernathy eased her head back into the pillow and stared straight up into the canopy of her bed. Her chest rose and fell as she took one deep breath, then another. I hadn’t heard that song in years, but of course, I remembered it too, in my father’s voice, husky but gentle.

  As Daniel began the second verse, my mother joined in. “And in that hole, there was a tree, the prettiest tree, that you ever did see. And the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Mrs. Abernathy’s fingers released the bunched-up sheets and worked their way into the hands of her husband on one side and my mother on the other. Now she was a link in the prayer chain. Daniel and my mother sang together, “And in that tree, there was a branch, the prettiest branch, that you ever did see.”

  Mr. Abernathy choked back tears and added his deep, cracking voice to the chorus, “And the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  “It’s coming now,” Mrs. Abernathy whispered.

  “Steady her knees,” Volpe said, pulling her hands free of the prayer chain. My mother took hold of Mrs. Abernathy’s one knee and I took hold of the other. The flesh was hot. I tried not to look at the wound.

  Meanwhile, Daniel kept right on singing. “And on that branch, there was a nest, the prettiest nest, that you ever did see.”

  And now all of us, Daniel and Mr. Abernathy and my mother and Volpe and, yes, even me, we all sang. “And the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  Volpe said, “Push now, Grace. Push!” She held her open hands at the wound, and when I looked down, a hard round shape emerged, a wet stone swirled with hair. Volpe said, “I see the head.”

  Mrs. Abernathy screamed, just once, and Daniel sang gently, “And in the nest, there was an egg, the prettiest egg, that you ever did see.”

  Afraid to stop now, we all sang with him. “And the egg in the nest and the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  An entire tiny face, purple-gray, slimy and scrunched up, appeared suddenly from the wound. Its little bird eyes were closed, and it made no sound. I knew that when babies are born they’re supposed to be crying, so that silence was awful, the worst thing I ever heard.

  Volpe placed her hands on either side of the baby’s slick head. She whispered, “Please, Jesus. No.”

  The room went totally quiet except for Mrs. Abernathy’s breathing, louder and faster than even my own after a race. Everyone was looking at Volpe, who sat on the stool holding the head of the still child, apparently unsure what to do next. Nobody but me was looking at Daniel. He closed his eyes and dipped his head. I saw his lips moving quick, forming words no one could hear. His face turned a shade whiter and a bead of sweat rolled down one cheek. And I saw his chin begin to quiver and his eyes roll beneath their lids, like a convulsion was about to possess him. I stepped forward to grab my brother, snap him out of this insane fantasy, but he opened his eyes and smiled. I smelled something like vanilla suddenly in the air, and before I could recall where I’d encountered the scent before, Daniel, sweet Daniel, finished his song all by himself. “And in that egg, there was a chick, the prettiest chick, that you ever did see. And the chick in the egg and the egg in the nest and the nest on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the hole and the hole in the ground, and the green grass grew all around all around and the green grass grew all around.”

  At the instant Daniel finished, that child blinked its blue eyes twice. And it was like staring into the clearest summer sky, that’s how deep those blue eyes seemed. With a sploosh, the baby squirted from the wound, and Volpe caught it and wrapped it in a green towel. She offered the squirming bundle up to Mrs. Abernathy, whose hand
s stretched down to take her daughter. “She’s all right?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

  “Everything’s okay,” Daniel answered. His face looked normal again. And with that the child opened its mouth and its crying echoed off the high walls. It was a healthy wail and everyone in the room except for Daniel began to sniffle, and maybe I cried a little too.

  From the open window, I heard a second wailing, the siren of the ambulance circling the lake on Roosevelt Road. Everyone turned to the sound. The baby’s crying quieted as she nuzzled in to her mom’s neck.

  “Praise Him,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “Praise God for touching Daniel, making him His holy instrument here on earth.”

  Now I was still feeling pretty relieved that the baby had been born okay. But these words, they fell on me like mighty rocks dropped from heaven. I’m not going to pretend I knew then everything that was going to happen. I didn’t. But that bad feeling I’d had lying in my cabin settled again in my gut, and I walked away from Mrs. Abernathy’s bed over to the open window. Red and white strobing lights flickered through the forest on the far side of Paradise Lake, and behind the distant siren’s cry, I thought I heard something else, slow and deep and rhythmic, like the clanging of some terrible bell.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My mother left us by ourselves on the first floor of St. Jude’s Regional Medical Center. The visitors’ area was a square box of a room with no windows and a TV hanging precariously from the ceiling in one corner, broadcasting static. Despite the NO SMOKING signs, the gray taste of cigarettes hung in the stale air. For ten minutes I stood on one of the mismatched chairs and tried to tune in something other than fuzz, but finally I gave up and settled down next to Daniel. He was flipping through the same coverless comic book he’d been looking at during the afternoon ride up from Paradise. The comic came from a bundle I’d bought him at a flea market over in Hawley, ten for a dollar. On the page spread across his lap, Superman sat alone in his Fortress of Solitude, an icy castle he hid in at the North Pole when the burden of saving the world got to be too much for him.

  “I need a Crunch bar,” Daniel announced, looking over at the snack machines. This was his third request.

  “You don’t need it. You want it,” I told him.

  “Okay. I want a Crunch bar.”

  “You didn’t have lunch yet,” I said. “Besides, I’m not paying a buck fifty for a candy bar.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “You’re only hungry because there’s candy in front of you. Don’t look at it.”

  With an annoyed sigh, he went back to Superman. From the way Daniel was acting, I was pretty sure he didn’t remember the last time we were here, how I found him huddled up in that broom closet after Mrs. Bundower died, squeezing his fat fingers in prayer and sucking back tears. It had been three years ago, after all—half his lifetime.

  While Daniel and I waited, my mother had gone upstairs to check with the Abernathys to see if this was still an okay time to visit with them and the baby, now two days old but still nameless. I felt certain she was up there warning them that I’d come along, which certainly wasn’t part of the agreed-upon plan. Everyone would worry that my heathen presence would somehow infect the innocent child.

  When I was just six, Grandpa Anderson, the man I was named after and the original owner of the Camp Anderson compound, died in this very building. So hospitals have been near the top of my list of things I absolutely hate for a long time. The past year of my life hasn’t done much to change this. But that day I swallowed my fear of white coats and hypodermic needles for Daniel’s sake. I didn’t trust my mother any more than she trusted me.

  “Hey, Andi,” Daniel said, “if Superman and Jesus had a battle, who’d win?” He didn’t lift his face from the comic.

  “Superman and Jesus are both good guys,” I said. “They wouldn’t fight.”

  Daniel turned a page. “But what if they did? What if Lex Luthor brainwashed Superman and made him evil and he was knocking down a church or something. You think Jesus could stop him?”

  I pictured Jesus holding a green chunk of Kryptonite, standing over a genuflecting but still-undefeated Man of Steel. I knew that Jesus preached peace and love, but He went nuts in the temple that one time, so I figured He had a good fight in Him. Strange, but I always liked Jesus better when He was acting more like a person and less like a god.

  “Superman’s make-believe,” I told Daniel. “You know that.”

  “Sure, I know. And Jesus is for real. Right?”

  I was quiet. Though he was just six, Daniel had a way of asking things like this all the time, and you never got used to it. It wasn’t just “Do fish get colds?” or “What happens to the sun at night?” He wanted to know if people had their own beds in heaven, why God made villains, where the angels in his dreams went when he was awake. This curiosity made him seem old and wise, despite his innocent brown eyes, despite the freckles that spotted both cheeks. When he was little, I would pretend to count those freckles, telling him each one was from an angel’s kiss.

  Picking up on my hesitation, Daniel repeated, “Right?” Now he was looking deep into my face. Explaining my thoughts on Superman was a lot easier than explaining my thoughts on Jesus, which had changed quite a bit over the years. Besides, why would I share my doubts and complicate his perfect faith?

  I stood up and crossed to the doorway. The hall was empty, just shiny tiles and an abandoned gurney. Over the loudspeaker, a voice asked Dr. Armstrong to report to Radiology. There was a Code 76.

  I turned back to my brother. “If Lex Luthor brainwashed Superman into being evil and Jesus showed up, he’d unbrainwash him back into his normal self and they wouldn’t have to fight.”

  Daniel considered my solution and nodded his head. “Awe-some.” He folded up the comic book and set it on the cushion where I’d been sitting. “Hey, Andi, how come there aren’t any fish in the fish tank?” He hopped down and walked over to an aquarium set in the wall beneath the staticky TV. I hadn’t noticed the absence of fish until Daniel pointed it out, and even when I joined him for a closer inspection, we couldn’t see any signs of life in the murky water. I wondered if they got the water from Paradise Lake, a thought that made me scan the surface for floaters.

  “Maybe they’re microscopic fish,” Daniel offered.

  I smiled down at him. “Could be they’re on their fishy lunch break.”

  “I think they’re just invisible.” Daniel laughed, and just like always the sound made me relax a bit. Once his laughter fell away, the only sound was the low bubbling murmur of that aquarium filter. We stood there, quiet for a long time, I guess. Finally, still gazing into the empty water, my brother said, “Hey, Andi, how come you’re mad at me?”

  I knelt down and cupped his shoulders, wondering how long he’d been waiting to ask this particular question. “I’m not mad at you, Little Man. Nobody’s mad at you.”

  He stared at the gray carpet. “Well then, how come you’re mad at Mom?”

  I winced. In the two days since the birth of the Abernathy baby, my mother and I had avoided each other altogether. Mostly she stayed in the main cabin and I did routine maintenance around the grounds, replacing a busted window in Cabin One, trimming back some rhododendrons trying to take over Cabin Three. Daniel had tuned in to the tension and kept to himself, rereading his comics and constructing a Lego spaceship from a kit my mother picked up for him at Cohler’s. Finally, I made up a diplomatic answer. “We just don’t always see things the same way.”

  Daniel rocked on his heels. He lifted his face so his brown eyes came into mine. “You guys are fighting about that baby girl.”

  It was always hard to hide things from Daniel, and even harder to lie outright to him. “Mom loves you and I love you. That’s all you need to worry about.” After a pause, I added, “Just remember, you ain’t special, right?”

  It’d been three years since I uttered this phrase, a kind of magical incantation I spoke with the same reverent tone I once reserved for
solemn prayer, but Daniel seemed to recall it and nodded earnestly. “I ain’t special,” he repeated, just like he used to. He looked a little sad.

  You might think I’m a crappy sister for telling my kid brother that kind of thing, but before you judge me, you better hear about Mrs. Bundower. She was a sweet lady and the best seamstress in town, always the first choice for a wedding veil or a prom dress. (She made the one Michelle Kirkpatrick wore the night she deliberately drove her car off the cliff at McGinley’s Cove.) When Mrs. Bundower’s heart started going bad, everybody felt miserable. This was the summer after Daniel got rescued but before the fish died, so the people at the Universal Church of Paradise were still asking Daniel for favors with God. But even all those prayers didn’t slow her steady decline, and finally she ended up at St. Jude’s.

  The night my mother said she wanted us all to visit, I didn’t think too much of it, figuring Mrs. Bundower just wanted some company. At that point, I was convinced that she was going to recover. But when we walked into that dim room up on the fourth floor, Mrs. Bundower was still and gray, and I knew she wouldn’t be getting better. Her eyes were open, but they were locked on the ceiling above her with no sign of recognition. Her head sat like a heavy stone, hard and deep in the pillow. The worst thing of all was how with every breath her jaw twitched as she sucked for air. It wasn’t like the way a runner tries to catch her breath after a sprint. It was more like the way a fish washed on the rocks gasps—open-eyed, trying to fight off the inevitable.

  Chief Bundower sat with his forehead pressed to the metal rail of the bed. I guess he’d seen enough of that face. He thanked my mother for coming, gave the latest report from the doctors. I remember the phrase, “Try to keep her comfortable.” Sylvia Volpe stepped from the shadows behind the Chief to greet us. Daniel walked right over to Mrs. Bundower, just across from the Chief. He climbed up on a step stool, reached through the metal railing, and took one of her skeleton hands between his. I didn’t like him touching her. The five of us prayed silently for a while, and I tried hard not to think of what Mrs. Bundower was or wasn’t feeling. I hated the raspy wheezing of her breath and the look of her face, so, like the Chief, I just closed my eyes. That’s why I didn’t see Daniel till it was too late.