by Jason Mott
“They weren’t anomalies,” Reverend Brown said. “There are many more like them in this world. And they’re gaining a voice. But if you can show them that you do intend to help, that you really are trying to use this talent of yours in a selfless way, then we can control the time and place of it all. We can make sure people understand that none of this comes without a cost, and that Ava wants to help, but she can’t help everyone. And then you’re in charge of your lives again.”
The family considered the man’s words. Even Carmen found a certain degree of logic to them. Maybe there was a way to get control of all of this, as Macon had suggested, and maybe the reverend really was there to help.
* * *
Once the reverend left, Macon, Carmen and Ava discussed his offer throughout the day and into the night. There was talk of responsibility, talk of duty, talk of selflessness, talk of religion, talk of the general notion that people should help those they can. There was even talk of money. Publishers offered book deals and television personalities offered to pay a premium for exclusive interviews. Everyone wanted a piece of the Miracle Child.
Their talking went into the late hours of the night until, finally, Ava was drowsy from exhaustion and went to bed, leaving Carmen and Macon in the kitchen, still talking.
It was a little after 2:00 a.m. when Ava woke to the sound of Carmen crying in the bedroom next door. She was sobbing gently, obviously trying to mask the sound of it. She heard her father’s voice. She spoke in a low tone. There was something between them that they did not want Ava to hear. But with the small, frail nature of their old house, secrets were impossible to keep.
“Brenda says they’re still trying to decide how to treat it,” Macon said.
“Why won’t they tell him?” Carmen replied. She sobbed.
“It’s Brenda,” Macon said. “In her mind, she wants to let him have a little bit more of his childhood. Cancer is a hard road. Even if he responds to the treatment, Wash has got some miserable days ahead. I think she just...well, I think she just wants to let him have a few more days of sunlight.”
Ava trembled. Her stomach tightened and she thought she might vomit. It made sense now—the testing that Wash has been going through since the event. She’d thought that they were testing him to find out more about how Ava had healed him, but what they were actually doing was trying to find out more about his cancer.
Wash. Cancer.
The two words spun in her head. Without a sound, Ava turned and buried her head in the pillow. The tears came heavily. How had it happened? And why wouldn’t they tell her? She had healed him, hadn’t she? So why did he have cancer? Had she caused it somehow?
The questions swirled in her mind, and still she wept. She cried until she could not keep it silent anymore and her sorrow rolled out of her in a long, painful wail. And when Macon and Carmen came rushing into her room, asking what was wrong, she could not even say the boy’s name. When they finally calmed her, she said to them, “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Macon asked.
“What the reverend said. Heal somebody in front of his church.”
“You don’t have to,” Carmen said. “You don’t have to put yourself through that. You almost died the last time. Who knows what will happen if you do it again?”
“I need to know if I can do it again,” she said. “And maybe, like the reverend said, if there’s a big enough crowd, maybe people will understand.”
“Understand what?” Macon asked.
Ava only shook her head. “I want to do it,” she said. “I want to show everyone.”
Finally, at last, Ava had discovered a plan to stop all of this. She knew what she had to do, once and for all, in front of everyone, in full view of the world, for as many people as she possibly could, no matter what the cost. If she could only heal once more in her life, she knew who it would be. And she knew how to make it happen in a way that everyone would leave their family alone when it was over.
* * *
“I’m the worst father in the world for what I’m about to do,” Macon said. He and Ava were backstage, waiting for the time when they would be called out front so that Ava could perform the act that so many people had come to see. He and Carmen were still not in agreement on whether or not they should allow Ava to do this. “It’s killing her,” Carmen had told him whenever they were alone in the days leading up to now. She repeated it whenever she could, like a chisel working against stone.
“She only has to do it one time,” was Macon’s defense. In his mind, one more time, one more miracle, would be enough. Then they would get enough attention, enough notoriety, to really make ends meet. The money would come. He never said it directly, and he didn’t have to. Carmen knew just as well as he did what was really motivating him. It was the weight of poverty combined with the notion that, if a person could endure one painful decision, they could be liberated from the worry, from the day-to-day toil of dreaming of one life while living another. “Just once.” It was his mantra of justification.
But regardless of how they felt, this had become Ava’s decision.
“I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” Macon said. He was seated in a small, steel-framed chair and Ava sat in a similar one beside him. Around them there was a buzz of people, all of them affiliated with Reverend Brown’s church—deacons and assistants and more. For the most part, they kept their distance, treating Macon and Ava with reverence from afar, like movie stars that, out of respect, they pretended not to recognize.
“It’s okay,” Ava said. She took his hand and squeezed it.
“How do you know?” Macon asked. He wanted to laugh; he wanted to turn the question into a joke, as if he had the answer and was only teasing her. But there was no humor in his voice.
“I don’t,” Ava said. And somehow she achieved the humor that Macon had been attempting. They both smiled and she squeezed his hand tighter.
“We’re ready for you both,” a man said, walking over at a lope. And, just like that, their time alone together was at an end, though neither of them could know it.
Reverend Brown’s sermon had gone on for almost two hours before the time finally came when Ava was brought out before the church. The reverend had spoken on the topic of “Willingness to Believe.”
He stood in the center of the stage—the choir and his deacons behind him, the tent above him and the twilight sky above it—and he was dressed in a suit so fine and so sharp that it seemed to be a part of him, something that he had been born into and had spent his lifetime in. The night air was crisp and, now and again, Reverend Brown would draw a handkerchief from his pocket and dab the sweat from his brow. He was full of a vigor and excitement his church had not seen from him in a very long time.
When the time was near, the reverend removed his suit jacket and passed it to one of his helpers who took it away. “And now,” he said solemnly from the center of the church, “we will all be witness to something amazing.”
Then there was a commotion at the rear of the church and the entirety of the congregation turned to witness it. A young couple was led by the ushers through the aisle. Walking between them was a boy. His hair was thin and dark, a striking contrast to the pale skin on his face. There were circles around his eyes and a stiffness in his gait as if, for each day of this child’s life, sickness had shadowed him.
“How long has your child been afflicted?” he asked when they had finally reached the stage. He pointed a microphone toward the boy’s father.
“Since he was born,” the man said.
“And what have the doctors had to say about his illness?”
“They’re hopeful,” he replied. “But they’ve been hopeful for a long time and my son has been sick all the while.”
Reverend Brown squatted slowly, as if to show that he was an old man and tired from the day’s sermon. “And what is your name, child?” Reverend Brown asked the boy.
“Ronald,” the boy said. “Ronald Williams.”
“And how old are you, Ronald?”
“Eight.”
“Eight years old,” Reverend Brown repeated—a slight tremble in his voice. “Eight years old and stricken with this terrible illness.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
“Such a terrible thing,” Reverend Brown said. “Come now, child,” he said, and he reached down and lifted the boy and turned toward the rear of the church and there, in the doorway, being led by Macon, was Ava.
She clutched Macon’s hand and looked up at him. “I don’t think I should have said I’d do this,” she said, but Macon was already moving forward, leading her out from backstage and into the middle of everything. The crowd held their breath. The silence was such that footfalls and the flutter of clothing could be heard as Macon and Ava marched through the aisle. A wall of deacons in matching blue suits stood at each of the pews, blocking anyone that might decide to step out or reach for the father and daughter.
Toward the end of the aisle, just as they reached the main stage, Ava heard someone call her. She turned and saw Wash standing there. He was dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. He looked taller than he ever had before, and his hair was combed and smoothed down. He waved timidly.
She waved back.
Beside Wash was Brenda. She was dressed in her Sunday gown with her hair hanging down to her shoulders. She looked regal and proper, but still with a hint of iron about her, like royalty in its twilight. Next to Brenda was Carmen, draped in a loose-fitting dress. She held her hands on her round belly and waved as Ava saw her. She mouthed the words You’ll be okay.
Ava looked for Tom, but didn’t see him, which didn’t completely surprise her. In the end, it was only Wash who she had wanted to be there, anyway. Seeing him gave her courage and strength, even knowing what she knew about him, knowing that he was sick and that he did not know it.
“It’ll be okay,” Macon whispered, and there was a hint of fear in his voice. He gently tugged Ava forward. She didn’t realize that she had stopped walking and was fixated on Wash.
“There she is, brothers and sisters,” Reverend Brown said. His voice boomed through the speakers. It shook with the words and his face was, all at once, an expression of pain and sadness and wonder and hope. “Come forth, child,” he said to Ava.
It could not be stopped now, she knew that. Everything that had been building had come to this. Macon led her to the center of the stage where Reverend Brown and the Williams family were waiting. All the eyes of the crowd and the cameras and the television screens and computer screens, and cell phones—all of them trained on her.
Reverend Brown, still holding the sick boy in his arms, nodded at the choir and they sang. The words of their song were nothing more than guttural moans and wailing to Ava. Her heart beat in her ears and her legs were weak, but her father was there with her, holding her hand, almost holding her up. “It’ll be okay,” he repeated.
“Hello, child,” Reverend Brown said.
“Hello,” she replied.
And someone in the audience said, “Amen.”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
Ava looked at Macon.
“Yes,” Ava replied.
“This child needs your help,” Reverend Brown said. Another round of “Amens” came from the crowd. The young boy looked at Ava. He reminded her of Wash. “He has a terrible condition called ATRT,” Reverend Brown said. “It’s a kind of brain cancer.”
Macon released Ava’s hand, like releasing a paper boat into a fast-moving river. She walked over to the boy. His parents looked at her with a strange mixture of skepticism and yearning. As if she were everything they feared and hoped for all at once.
“You’ll be wonderful,” Reverend Brown said, placing his hands on Ava’s shoulders. She reached forward and took Ronald’s hand. It was cold, clammy. He trembled slightly, as if he expected to be stung.
“How does this work?” the boy asked.
“I don’t really know,” Ava said slowly. There was a thought in her mind, something that she knew she needed to say. Something she knew she needed to do. But she was afraid. And looking into Ronald’s eyes just now, having the entire church, the entire world, watching, it did nothing to make what she would do any easier.
She glanced up at Macon, as if she could convey to him what she was about to do. He stared back at her, not moving from where he stood and, slowly, understanding spread across his face. He opened his mouth to speak.
“It’s okay,” Reverend Brown said. He kneeled beside Ava and Ronald. He took both of their hands and wrapped his around theirs, as if binding them together. He squeezed their hands. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just do what you did before.”
And then all the breaths of the church were held. Everyone watched and waited. Some people wept silently. Others fidgeted as they stood before their seats. No one spoke, no one moved, no one committed any action that might break the solemnness and the magic of what they knew would happen next. They waited; they listened as the speakers piped in the dull, electric hiss of microphones awaiting voices. Everyone wanted to hear what Ava might say when she performed the healing, what the boy might say once he was healed, what his parents might say when, finally, their son was saved, what Reverend Brown might say when it was all over.
The silence was a bell jar, smothering them all. Until, finally, Ava broke the silence.
“No,” Ava said. She looked up into Ronald’s eyes as she said it. “I’m sorry,” she said, crying a little. “But no, I’m not going to do this.” And the microphone caught her words, amplified them and the mountains echoed.
* * *
“She wouldn’t do it,” Reverend Brown said. He paced back and forth in Macon’s office, clenching his jaw. “She utterly and flatly refused to do it. That’s all this comes down to.”
“Settle down,” Macon said. He peeked out through the window blinds and was immediately met with the flashing of cameras. If things were bad before, when Ava had done her healings, they were worse now that she’d gone before Reverend Brown’s church and refused their pleas.
“Why?” Reverend Brown growled. “Then again, I don’t really care why. I don’t really care how.” He stopped pacing, but still his jaw tightened and released, as though chewing through his anger, piece by piece.
“Does that help?” Macon asked, stepping away from the window and closing the blinds.
“Does what help?”
“The jaw thing,” Macon said. He made a motion with his hand to indicate Reverend Brown’s jaw. “Does that help you keep a handle on things when you get angry?”
“It helps with all manner of things,” Reverend Brown replied coldly. He took a deep breath, considering Macon as he held the air in his lungs. Then he sighed, long and slow, and when he was done, his jaw did not clench anymore. “Okay,” he said. “Where is she?”
“They’re safe. While the reporters were all chasing our car toward the house, Carmen, Ava and Wash were able to sneak into another one and slip out. Carmen has been having more problems with the baby and all of us would feel better if she stayed at Dr. Arnold’s house for a little while. All of us are going to stay at the Doc’s. They should be there by now.”
Reverend Brown nodded approvingly. He took a seat in the chair in front of Macon’s desk. “Let’s talk this out. All is not lost here.”
“Personally,” Macon said, “I don’t think anything is lost.”
“Nonsense.”
“I feel like I dodged a bullet tonight,” Macon said. “And I don’t think I’m going to step in front of it again. Maybe she just can’t do it anymore. Maybe whatever it is, whatever it was, it’s over.”
Reverend Brown laughed. “Like a planetary alignment? Like a summer cold that stuffs up the sinuses for a few weeks in the most prime and vibrant time of the year? Like a coincidence, you mean?” He crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap. “She chose,” Reverend Brown said. “That’s the crux of it. You saw it, the whole damned world saw it. They heard her. Sh
e said no. She refused to help that boy.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Macon said. He continued to stand, even though the reverend was now sitting.
“Whatever happened, whatever her reason,” Macon said, “I’m sure she had a good one. Why else would she choose not to help?” He tucked his thumbs into the belt of the suit Reverend Brown had bought for him for the night’s event.
“A powerful question,” Reverend Brown replied. “I wonder if she wasn’t told not to help that boy. I wonder if maybe her father sat her down just before coming into the church tonight—or even before that. Maybe this has been something you’ve had up your sleeve all along. Maybe you told her that, if she failed this time—‘threw the fight,’ if you will—then you all could create enough to make a little more money from someone else.” He looked down at the floor and released a hard chuckle. “Honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”
“You’re more paranoid than I thought,” Macon said. He stepped away from the window and walked behind his desk. Still he did not sit. Reverend Brown was a different man now and it made him uneasy. He took off his suit jacket and readied his muscles.
“Paranoia takes a man far in this world,” Reverend Brown said, lifting his eyes from the floor and back to Macon.
“Nobody planned anything,” Macon said. “She said she wanted to do it. She wanted to help.”
“If only I could believe that,” Reverend Brown said.
“Why is it impossible to believe that whatever this is, whatever it was that let her do those things, has ended?”
“Because nothing ever ends,” the reverend said. He straightened his back slightly. “Everything we do in this life is as permanent and eternal as God’s very grace. You want things to go back to the way they were, don’t you?” he asked. “You want your town, your life, to return to that invisible, sleeping state that it once was.” He shook his head. “That’ll never happen. The best thing you, your daughter and your family can do is embrace it, control it, before it gets too far out of hand. No one will ever believe that your daughter can’t do those things, not really. There are too many tapes, too many videos. They’ll always come around, always show up in your lives, asking for help. Asking for guidance. There’s no stopping this,” he said.
