The Miracle Girl

by Andrew Roe

  Lastly, more systematic study needs to be done before the Church can even begin to evaluate the concept of “victim soul.” This label, unfortunately, has been troublingly applied to Anabelle. This term is not one that’s commonly used by the Church except for Christ himself who became the victim for our sins and transgressions on the cross.

  Much remains mysterious about the case of Anabelle Vincent and these extraordinary claims. I urge continued prayers for Anabelle, her ongoing recovery, and her family. But praying to Anabelle is not acceptable in Catholic teaching. As matters move forward, one might do well to revisit this quote from English cleric Jeremy Taylor (1613—1667): “A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.”

  A more in-depth summary of the commission’s findings can be obtained by contacting Father Jim Hinshaw, who is also available for interviews with the media.

  THE MIRACLE GIRL

  THE BABY IS crying. The baby is always crying, one of those prickly newborns who constantly fusses and squirms and is never right with the world. She was the same way, according to her mother and father, who never tire of telling her the war stories of the sleepless nights, the neverending frustrations, the tactics and remedies tried and failed (swaddling, not swaddling, giving antigas drops, tummy massages, rocking her in a rocking chair, driving her around in the middle of the night, putting her in her car seat on top of the dryer while it was running, and so on), and plus their overall inability to soothe and console, and how this made them feel like the shittiest parents ever. You weren’t the easiest baby in the world, that’s for sure, they recount, sometimes we didn’t know how we’d make it. And Anabelle listens, nods, even smiles, but it hurts to hear all this, she’d like to take it all back. She was just a baby, she didn’t know. She promises herself she won’t say these kinds of things to her baby when she gets older. She’ll only talk about the good.

  It’s now the day after the day the world was supposed to end. Some Internet preacher guy had predicted yesterday would be it, the end, the reckoning, Judgment Day. In recent weeks, billboards had popped up all over the country, warning of the coming devastation. The preacher’s followers were leaving their jobs, giving up their homes and their life savings, abandoning everything to prepare for the end times. Videos of the preacher, who looked exactly the way you imagined he would (gray shock of hair, grizzled beard, intense animal eyes), were released online and went viral. He was everywhere: CNN, Fox, The View. Then, when it didn’t happen and the sun still rose on May 22, 2016, he backtracked and said he’d screwed up the math, quickly revising his prediction and claiming the Rapture was now set to occur five months later. She’d been watching the news all morning, drifting in and out, thinking about the preacher and his crazed face and how all those people believed in him and could give up everything like that, while she also cleaned and scrubbed and got the house ready. Because it’s also the day her parents are visiting to see the baby for the first time, three weeks after the birth. The sky outside gray and dim, like it always is here. The sun a distant, druggy memory. That perennial Pacific Northwest drizzle.

  And the baby is crying.

  Her parents’ flight from Los Angeles had already landed, and they were now likely nearing the end of their short rental car drive from Sea-­Tac to Evergreen, where she lives in base housing, Joint Base Lewis-­McChord, with her husband, Marc, who’d fulfilled his boyhood dream of joining the Air Force. She wishes Marc was here—for support, for everything—but he’s somewhere way across the world, deployed again, in a country she previously hadn’t heard of: Qatar, which was right next to Saudi Arabia and located on the Persian Gulf, a Muslim country, and yet, according to Marc and his e-­mails and letters, they have Walmart and Applebee’s and Chili’s. He’d been there when the baby was born. And he’d be there for another five months. It was bad enough missing him and needing his help with the baby, but she also worried about being alone so much and forgetting (because she forgot things, her brain was sucky, wasn’t all it could be) and doing something that could harm the baby.

  To combat her chronic absentmindedness, she makes lists, puts up notes, bright pink Post-­its all over the house. Things like CHANGE DIAPERS!!! and PAY PHONE BILL TODAY!!! and TRASH/ RECYCLING ON TUESDAYS!!! But she still forgets, she gets lost easily when driving, she has headaches and spells, she gets tired, she can’t always follow the plots of movies or TV shows, it’s like she’s on a different speed than everyone else, or it’s like she’s drunk but she hasn’t been drinking, just a little off—all because her brain wasn’t right because of the accident and the coma and all that happened to her when she was a little girl. She didn’t remember anything of that time (her knowledge consisting only of her parents’ stories and the cable TV movie that had been made; the guy who’d played her dad was later in a doctor show that ran for several years, and whenever they’d watch TV and see the actor her dad would joke “There I am” or “Damn, I’m looking pretty good these days”), but it had altered her, made her forgetful and slow, like an old lady, and she tried, tried, tried to keep up and be normal and someone who was just like anyone else. Her neighbor, Michelle, whose husband is also deployed, comes by in the mornings and after she gets off work to check on her and the baby. If something happened to the baby because of her—well, she doesn’t know what. It’s one thing to get lost and spend the afternoon driving around. But a baby. Her baby. Brianna. Bri. The baby who was never even supposed to be born. Marc says he isn’t worried. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be a great mom. I can tell. And hell, I forget stuff all the time. You’ll remember the important things.”

  It became a mental battle to see how long she could hold out, how long she could go before she yielded and picked up the baby. She was inconsistent, she knew. Sometimes picking her up right away, sometimes waiting a short time, sometimes waiting a long time. This was not good. Being inconsistent turned out to be a highly suspect trait as a parent, a sign of your doom. All the books and websites said so. Consistency was key. She tried. She tried to make her actions and reactions the same, but are people really like that? And she should have written a Post-­it for MOM AND DAD ARRIVE THURSDAY AT NOON!!!!!! She had forgotten to do this, though, and it was now noon, and it had almost slipped her mind that they were coming.

  Deployed: it’s such a strange word, it feels funny in your mouth when you say it out loud and when you think it, too. Deployed.

  And so finally she picks up the baby from the crib next to her bed and starts walking with her throughout the house, singing, making up words and melodies. The crying does not stop, however, and when the doorbell rings, she jumps. She’s still surprised, even though she’s been expecting them, telling herself to remember, to focus and remember. Did she have a girlhood dream, the equivalent of Marc’s boyhood dream? And if so, what was it? Nothing immediately comes to mind.

  “There she is!” her mother exclaims as she enters the house and shakes off the damp and wet, and it’s not clear if she’s referring to her or the baby or both of them, followed closely by her father, wheeling luggage and carrying a box of diapers and flowers. The last time she saw them was Christmas, half a year ago, and they look the same basically: middle-­aged, graying, rounder, saggier, slower. You always see your parents as you saw them when you were a child, and she’s still getting used to the concept of parents that age and do not stay the same, vulnerable to time after all.

  Hugs, embraces, passing of the baby, whose crying has escalated further ever since the arrival of her parents. Everyone ignores this.

  “You look good,” her father tells her, holding her hands and examining her. “Motherhood agrees with you.”

  She guides them from the small entryway into the adjoining living room, where the TV is going and she has put out crackers and cheese (she remembered!) on the chest/trunk that serves as a coffee table, and where she and Marc spend the majority of their time when he’s home. They’ve lived here for two years and still the walls remain bare, no plant life or photos or cozy knickk
nacks, everything feeling temporary, most of their belongings in storage, “military spare,” as Marc jokingly calls the decor. And they have hardly any furniture anyway, so there’s just a red, bumpy couch (left by the previous occupants) and two nonmatching folding chairs, and next to the TV there’s a shelf lined with DVDs, mostly Marc’s, and a few books (hers), though it’s hard for her to read, the headaches start up after about ten minutes. The room has always smelled, mysteriously, of mushrooms. The baby’s Pack ’n Play sits in the corner and now dominates the room.

  “I still don’t know why you didn’t want us to come earlier, for the birth,” her mother says, sitting down, sinking into the couch. “We would have come. It would have been all right.”

  “Mom, let’s not, OK?”

  It had been hard to explain—to her parents, to Marc even—but she’d wanted to have that initial time to be alone with the baby, to get used to just the two of them, before the rest of the world joined in.

  “Well, we’re here now,” her father says.

  But she could have put out the cheese and crackers two hours ago instead of two minutes ago. When cheese is left out too long it starts to sweat, you can tell, right? She stares at the cubes of sharp cheddar and they look fine, freshly cut, not sweaty. Her father will stay a week then return home; her mother will stay another two weeks. Sweaty cheese. Deployed. Sometimes words were like glue in her mind. They got stuck there, and she repeated them over and over. One of the many things she doesn’t remember is how she supposedly made up her own language as a child. Went days speaking nothing but this nonsensical language, driving her parents crazy.

  “There’s cheese,” she says. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We had peanuts on the plane. I thought they stopped doing that but I guess not.”

  “The air. Just the air here is so different. From when you first walk off the plane.”

  “Do you miss Southern California?”

  “Sometimes. But I like it here, too. It’s different.”

  “I could stay longer, you know. They can get someone else to cover at work, for another week probably.”

  “Three weeks is plenty, Mom. I really appreciate it. Thanks. We can maybe go up to Seattle, see the Space Needle.”

  “You’ve got a lot of notes here.”

  “It helps me. It helps me remember.”

  And the other thing is noise. Loud TVs, loud restaurants, loud music. Her brain can’t filter out sound. All there is is the blaring sound. It’s not background noise to her; it’s all foreground noise and she can’t work her way around it. The louder it gets, the tenser she becomes, the more likely her temper will kick in. Many times she and Marc have left a restaurant mid-­meal because she couldn’t take the noise anymore, Marc patient, Marc boxing the food and paying the bill while she sat in the car and put in her earplugs and practiced taking deep, rejuvenating breaths. A good man in your life makes all the difference.

  “We miss you, Sweetheart. It’s only a couple of hours away, to fly, I know, but it still feels so far away. Marc, is he doing OK? We worry about him.”

  And she gives them the Marc update: the computer systems he runs and repairs, how Qatar is different from what you’d think, the Walmarts, the Applebee’s, and how he writes a lot, tons, misses the baby, feels bad about not being there, says not to worry, and in eight more years he’ll be done and he’ll retire early and they’ll be all set, he’ll retire from the Air Force and then get an IT job somewhere (probably Seattle or Redmond) and they’ll buy a house with the money they’ve been saving plus what was in the special Miracle Girl savings account created by her parents (including the money from the hospital lawsuit, which dragged on for years, and which, once all the lawyers’ fees had been taken out, wasn’t as much as they thought it would be) and then they’ll be all set, life will be good.

  “Look at this girl,” her mother says, lifting the baby, whose limbs dangle as if they were made of rubber. “Look at this little baby girl. Hello Baby Brianna. Hello Baby Bri.”

  Without noticing it, she realizes the baby has stopped crying. The baby who wasn’t supposed to have been born. They’d tried before, unsuccessful, prior to Marc’s first deployment. They visited their respective doctors and were told she wouldn’t be able to have children; whether it had anything to do with the accident and the coma and all that, her doctor couldn’t say. But then it happened. She didn’t get her period. She tested and retested and then went to the doctor, the same doctor who’d said it wasn’t possible, and he confirmed. “It’s a miracle, I guess,” said the doctor, who didn’t know who he was talking to. Yes. A miracle baby. A Miracle Baby for the Miracle Girl. These things happen. They happen every day.

  She watches her parents watch the baby. They are grand­parents. They are happy, she can tell, having found something over the years. A familiarity, yes, but also something more than that, a permanence and a peace that you don’t always see in couples. She knows there were troubles, from both before and after the accident. He left for a while. Doubts and uncertainties. Before she married Marc, her mother told her, “For a long time I worried. Your father wasn’t always there. There was a part of him that was somewhere else.” “What happened?” she asked. “He changed,” her mother said. “People change. Sometimes you’ll hear people say that it isn’t possible. But he changed. We both did. We both got lucky.”

  And she had been lucky, too, of course, waking up all those years ago, that day at the high school football stadium, all those people there, all that they needed and she was somehow able to give, resuming her life after being sick, recovering from akinetic mutism, a rare occurrence according to her doctors, who were never able to fully explain why she woke up. Just last year, for the first time, she met someone who’d had the same condition and also recovered, though not as well, still needing supervised care and help every day. The woman’s doctor thought a visit from Anabelle might be inspiring, so the woman’s family flew her down to Houston, where they lived. It was right after Anabelle found out that she was pregnant. The woman cried when she heard this. Her name was Ellen Smith. She said she just wanted one thought to flow to the next. She wanted speaking to not seem like such a chore. She wanted to remember names. She wanted to remember TV shows from when she was a little girl. When it was time for Anabelle to leave, the woman cried again.

  Her parents switch, her father now holding the baby, who remains still and calm, who doesn’t fuss or cry or try to escape. It’s a good sign. And it’s hard for her to always appreciate the baby because of all the crying, but she does so now, admiring her tiny fingers and tiny eyelashes and the pure beauty of her mouth, her skin, her lips. She will grow and continue to grow and become something else, a person, a full-­sized adult, and it was her job to prepare her daughter for all that. Sounded simple, sure, but she could already tell it wouldn’t be so simple.

  “Last month someone came to the house,” her mother says.

  Which happens every so often. Someone will show up at the house where she grew up, now owned by her cousin Dominique and her husband, who have two sons. Someone will knock on the door and Dom will answer and the person will say “Is this the house? Is this where the Miracle Girl lived?” and depending on Dom’s mood she will either let them in or not, she will, if inclined, show them around and even lead them to the room, allow them some time alone in there so they can make their prayer or whatever. And after they’re done, the person will begin to talk and start to tell their story.

  “After all these years, still,” Anabelle says.

  Yes. These things happen. Call them miracles or call them life. They happen every day.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing is often a solitary pursuit, but no book and no writer is an island. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had many people believe in me and The Miracle Girl over the years, and it’s a true pleasure to thank them here.

  First of all, there’s my agent Michelle Brower. Her patience, her wisdom, her enduring bel
ief in me even when I wasn’t so sure — she is one of the true “miracles” behind this book. Big thanks, too, to all the fine folks at Folio Literary, especially Melissa White and Annie Hwang.

  I can’t think of a better editor and advocate than Andra Miller. Her passion for this book has been inspiring. I’m eternally grateful. And I’m happy to have gained a new friend. It’s also been a pleasure and honor to work with everyone at Algonquin: Elisabeth Scharlatt, Ina Stern, Craig Popelars, Debra Linn, Emma Boyer, Kelly Bowen, Brooke Csuka, Lauren Moseley, Brunson Hoole, Anne Winslow, Chris Stamey, Kelly Clark Policelli.

  As I wrote The Miracle Girl, I was lucky enough to publish a few excerpts, providing me with much-needed encouragement along the way. Shout-outs to those who helped usher these previews into the world: Andrew Scott and Kevin Morgan Watson; Scott Garson; and Colleen Donfield, Andrew Snee, Tim McKee, Sy Safransky, and everyone at The Sun.

  For reading, encouragement, advice, friendship, commiseration, and more: Carol Keeley, Bonnie ZoBell, Heather Fowler, Peter Rock, Hannah Tinti, Will Allison, Rob Spillman, Jon Raymond, Roy Parvin, Alicia Gifford, Taryn Thomas, Doug Dorst, Amy Wallen, Linda Swanson-Davies, Michael Krasny, Jim Ruland, Justin Hudnall, Richard Lange.

  And my parents. Strangely, wonderfully, they never dissuaded me from becoming a writer. Their love and support fuel these pages (and everything else I will ever write). Growing up, I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have such a supportive mother and father. Now I do. And I miss you, Dad. Really miss you.

  Biggest, hugest, most heartfelt thanks of all to my wife, Maria, and our three children, Ethan, Henry, and Celia. Thank you for making me a better person. Thank you for making me a better writer. And thank you for inspiring me each and every day. The adventure continues.

  Spiritual Envy