Miracle Woman

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  The crowd did not move: silent, as if waiting for something else to happen. One or two people patted her on the back.

  ‘Hey, lady, you saved that boy!’

  ‘Only for you he was a goner!’

  ‘I ain’t never seen anything like it, never.’

  Two cops were taking a statement from the driver and some witnesses. Martha gave them her name and number. She looked over, pitying the traumatized driver with her two small kids, her hands still shaking. One of the girls from the store was bringing her out a glass of water as Hal began to take charge and clear that part of the front lot. The ambulance turned and headed out of the slip road and the shoppers returned to their tasks, while the young mother sat stunned in the front seat of her Jeep as her baby roared and a police officer made notes.

  She and Mary Rose were both still upset when they got into the car, but Martha was filled with a deep sense of gratitude and immense relief that the boy had survived.

  ‘Mom! If it wasn’t for you that kid would have died.’

  ‘Hush, Mary Rose, don’t say such a thing.’

  ‘But I was there, I saw how you touched him. We all thought he was dead and then you just laid your hands on him and he began to breathe again.’

  Martha didn’t know what to say. It was the strangest thing. She remembered touching Timmy, wanting to take the pain away from him and praying to God not to do this, not to rob this child of his life, and feeling the immense heat and power come into her hands and the knowledge that somehow or other she was able to help lift some of the pain from him.

  ‘I don’t know, Mary Rose.’

  ‘Mom, I saw it! You just put your hands on him and I don’t know what happened but you saved him. Everyone around saw it.’

  ‘I prayed, Mary Rose.’

  ‘Prayed?’

  ‘That’s all I did. I prayed and asked God to help and I don’t know but I could feel my hands get hot, tingly, the strangest feeling, like there was electricity or something in them, and I was just sure and certain that Timmy was meant to live.’

  This seemed to silence her daughter as they drove, both lost in thoughts of the boy and crazy explanations of what had happened. Turning into the bottom of Sycamore Street, Martha pulled up outside the Lucas house, noting the neatly mowed lawn and the tub of creeping roses in the porch and wondering what she should say to his mother. She jumped out of the car and quickly ran up towards the front porch.

  ‘She ain’t there,’ the old man from next door informed her, busy tying up a cascade of magenta petunias that tumbled from a basket on his front step. ‘Had to go to the hospital in a hurry as one of her boys got hurt.’

  Martha turned around, relieved at being spared the onerous duty of being the bearer of such bad news.

  ‘Shall I give her a message?’

  ‘No thanks, it’s fine.’

  Pulling into her own driveway minutes later, she felt sapped of energy, depleted. She couldn’t take this heat and promised herself the luxury of a cool shower before the evening, as she and Mary Rose carried in the things from the car.

  Chapter Two

  THE McGILLS AND the Kellys gathered around the table that night and Martha’s mind was still haunted by the thought of the injured child as she crushed garlic and juiced lemons, automatically going through the motions as she prepared the chicken dish.

  Mike and the children had made a great fuss of her seventy-two-year-old mother when she arrived. Frances Kelly passed her overnight bag to Patrick, their eldest, to carry up to the guest room. Her brother Jack and his wife Annie and their eight- and five-year-old boys were making themselves comfortable as they first presented their grandmother with her birthday gifts.

  ‘You shouldn’t have! You just shouldn’t have gone and spent money on gifts! You all know I’ve got everything I need already,’ she protested.

  Annie’s eyes met Martha’s. Both of them knew how hard it was to buy for the ageing Irish matriarch, who was now unwrapping the fine knitted lamb’s-wool cardigan in a delicate heather colour that would show off her eyes and skin tone perfectly, and a bottle of lavender perfume.

  Frances sprayed a mist of it across the room.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Annie. You know I don’t hold with those fancy expensive French perfumes at all. The simple fragrances of nature are much better.’

  Martha could see Annie blush almost as if her mother-in-law had been at the counter of Neiman Marcus when she had chosen the inexpensive bottle over the classic French Nina Ricci one. Frances Kelly still had her wicked way with words.

  Alice was hopping up and down with excitement and Martha watched as she clambered on to her grandmother’s lap with their gifts. The specially wrapped and matched paper with its Celtic motif was torn and tossed unnoticed to the wooden floor.

  ‘I’ll help you to open them, Granny,’ offered their eight-year-old daughter with her green eyes and winning ways.

  Martha had bought a new Anglepoise reading lamp for her mother.

  ‘It’ll go beside your bed, Granny, and help your tired old eyes,’ said Alice.

  Martha bit her lip trying not to laugh as Jack winked at her.

  Then there was the new housecoat in a soft pink, which would be snug and warm in the winter, and a hell of a lot better than the tattered tartan one her mother had worn for about ten years.

  ‘And I suppose this is if I have to go to the hospital or suchlike. Between you all I’m gathering up a fine collection of night attire, a fine one!’

  Lastly was a book of Irish Country Dwellings, which Martha had managed to unearth in a small bookstore the last time she’d been to Cambridge. Her mother turned it over appreciatively, glancing at the photo spreads.

  ‘Look here, Alice, there’s an old farmhouse like the one where I lived with my mammy and daddy before we came to live in Boston.’

  Frances Kelly slowly flipped through the book filled with images of stone cottages and whitewashed farmhouses, and simple dwellings with thatched roofs, and slates and tiles. There were kitchen gardens, straggling floral borders, hen-houses and gateposts and warm pine dressers. All a reminder of her girlhood, spent watching out those tiny squared windowpanes, wanting to see the world.

  ‘Thank you, Martha love, and all of you for such a thoughtful present.’

  Martha busied herself in the warmth of the kitchen as Mike served drinks. Uncomplainingly he’d run out and gotten the remainder of what they needed. Now Jack and he were busy discussing the Boston Wolfhounds’ coming rugby season. Checking that all was ready, Martha smoothed down her pale blue Liz Claiborne soft denim skirt and co-ordinating round-necked shirt, before getting them all sitting down around the old cherrywood table talking. Lemon chicken and baby roast potatoes, a big dish of mixed salad and minted peas – even the kids were happy with the meal.

  The temperature had dropped outside and she’d been tempted to move the party to the wooden table and chairs out back, but knew instinctively her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Barbecues and insects were all very fine for Fourth of July, Labor Day and beachside gatherings but not for her mother’s birthday. Frances Kelly, if she was to sit and enjoy a birthday meal, wanted to sip her chilled wine from Waterford Crystal, and fold an Irish linen napkin on her lap and feel the weight of traditional Newbridge cutlery between her fingers. ‘Small things, but a part of who we are,’ she’d insist.

  Martha could remember a few glasses with a mishmash of patterns that had been called ‘the crystal’, when she was a girl, as well as a tablecloth and a few off-white almost beige starched napkins which her mother produced at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and other festive days, but otherwise she had no idea where her mother got her notions from. Fiercely proud of their heritage, Martha and her brothers had been raised to celebrate their Irish roots, not in a shamrock and shillelagh way, but in the quiet knowledge of who they were and the people they had come from. Her mother had been more delighted by the news that her new son-in-law Mike McGill had some Irish in him than that he was an
honours graduate from Boston College.

  ‘Go and get your granny’s birthday cake,’ Martha said to the children.

  Alice and Mary Rose were up in a flash. That was one thing that kids never outgrew – putting the candles on the cake and carrying it in. She hoped they wouldn’t overdo the candles.

  ‘Mom, you look great! Annie and I were just saying you’d never guess you were seventy-two – never!’

  Only her eldest brother Jack could get away with it. Her sister-in-law cast her a despairing glance.

  The candlelight highlighted her mother’s good complexion and softly tinted fair hair which made her look years younger than she actually was. Frances Kelly had always taken a pride in her appearance. Mike passed her mother a measure of Bushmills whiskey – only the best – adding water from a small crystal jug.

  ‘Easy, Mike, easy! There’s no point in drowning a good drop of whiskey.’

  Martha laughed aloud. Her husband should know by now that his mother-in-law’s glass of whiskey was sacred. One glass only, except on very special occasions.

  ‘Brian and that Lisa one sent me flowers. They were delivered this morning.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ murmured Martha, who had sympathy for her brother and his new wife. No matter what he said or did, Brian could not appease his mother, who still believed marriage was for life and divorce was a sin. She had virtually ignored his partner of two years and had refused to attend his re-marriage in California. They lived in San Jose in California.

  ‘And I didn’t even get a card from Sean,’ sighed her mother.

  ‘They must be having a good time then,’ joked Jack. Her brother Sean and his wife Carrie had gone to Maine with their children for a well-earned break. Her mother was put out at not having been invited to join them for a weekend, even.

  ‘Mom, you know he’ll be in touch the minute they get back!’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so.’

  ‘You know so.’

  Her nephews Liam and Tommy and the girls all arrived with the cake almost aflame with candles. Every bit of frosting was covered. Patrick, their fifteen-year-old son, who considered himself beyond such childish things was commandeered to photograph the family occasion.

  Her mother’s vague annoyance was overruled by her love of her grandchildren. She made a great to-do of huffing and puffing and trying to blow each and every candle out, little Liam giddy with the excitement of trying to help her.

  Martha had just finished slicing the cake and passing it around the table when the doorbell went. Mike automatically rose to answer it.

  When he ushered Paul Lucas into the room, Martha rushed over to greet young Timmy’s father. ‘How is he?’ she asked, keeping her arm around the dark-haired middle-aged man who looked exhausted.

  ‘They think he’s going to make it. But he’s on one of those breathing machines and from what they can tell he’s got a broken pelvis and they had to remove his spleen. He’s got cracked ribs, a tear in his lung and some internal bleeding.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘His right leg’s busted real bad too but at least he’s come through it.’

  ‘Oh thank heaven,’ moaned Martha, relief flooding over her.

  ‘Sue stayed with him. I’m on my way home from the hospital to check on the boys and to get some fresh clothes so we can stay the night. I felt I just had to drop in and let you know how my son is and thank you for helping to save his life.’

  Martha demurred, embarrassed. Her mother and the rest of the family gazed at her with curiosity.

  ‘I was there, that’s all, and only tried to help.’

  ‘You did more than that, much more. My older boy Ralph told me how they all thought he was dead but that you held Timmy and laid your hands on him, and all but brought him back to life.’

  ‘Paul . . . it wasn’t quite like that. I just couldn’t bear to see him in pain.’

  ‘Ralph said he never saw anything like it. Never. He said even the paramedics thought my Timmy was gone, and if you hadn’t been there and healed him he would be gone!’

  ‘I was only doing what anyone would have done, honest.’

  ‘I don’t believe there is anyone else that could have saved my son, Martha, only you!’

  Martha felt hugely embarrassed.

  ‘Anyways I wanted to thank you,’ Paul Lucas insisted sincerely. ‘We will never forget it, Martha, never.’

  She escorted her neighbour to the front door, promising to visit Timmy and sending every good wish to his wife Sue. Watching as he crossed the street and climbed into his car to drive to the hospital, she was grateful that her own children were safe under their own roof.

  ‘Well!’ said Annie on her return. ‘What in heavens was all that about, Martha?’

  ‘His boy Timmy got knocked down today, outside the Easton Market store.’

  ‘Aw, the poor kid!’

  ‘Mom and I were there,’ interjected Mary Rose, ‘and it was just awful. He was on his bike and got crushed by this big Jeep! He was right underneath it and it seemed like he was dead. Mom was amazing, she went straight over and helped him.’

  ‘And what’s this about you healing him, Martha?’ enquired her mother, concern in her voice.

  ‘Mom, I just did what I could. I wasn’t going to watch a boy not much bigger than Alice die before my eyes.’

  ‘God, the poor kid! It must have been awful.’

  ‘He was in a terrible, terrible state, crushed, lying there. We couldn’t move him. His life just slipping away, with all these gruesome strangers standing around watching and doing nothing. I had to help him.’

  ‘What did you do, Martha love?’ asked her mother.

  ‘All I did was to touch him, just like I’d touch any of the kids here if they were hurt or injured and try to ease the pain, rub it away. I kept talking to him too, while we waited for help. Just laying my hands on him I could feel his fear and pain, and I wanted to lift that from him. If that’s what you call healing then I guess that’s what I did! I wasn’t prepared to give up on him and have him die. I knew he was still alive. And somehow I could reach him. It was as if we were connected, linked, if that’s the right word.’

  ‘Didn’t you feel any different?’ enquired Annie earnestly.

  ‘This kind of energy surge seemed to flow through me and I felt real scared because I realized how bad he was and that he was slipping fast.’

  ‘They all said he was dead,’ interrupted Mary Rose again. ‘Then when the ambulance came and they were trying to lift and move him Mom said he was breathing and they put the oxygen mask on him.’

  ‘Like in the Bible,’ murmured Annie.

  ‘Come on, Annie. It was just one of those weird things like you read about in the papers, where some man gets the strength to lift a ten-ton weight off his trapped wife or a mother runs through a fire to get her child and doesn’t even feel the burn. A bolt of energy or light, an adrenalin rush – I don’t know! I was in a crisis and my body or intuition or whatever responded to it.’

  ‘Did you pray, Martha pet?’ asked Frances.

  ‘Believe me I prayed! I prayed to God, to whatever power controls this universe. I prayed for that little boy, cos I was not prepared to give up and watch him die.’

  ‘Thank God, then,’ murmured her mother, squeezing her hand. ‘Thank God that you were there.’

  ‘Maybe you have a healing gift or something, Martha, maybe.’

  Martha shook her head vehemently. Annie was into all this new age stuff, healing and crystals, of which Martha knew very little. She didn’t believe in any of that kind of thing anyways.

  Martha yawned. She felt tired. Maybe a cup of strong coffee would perk her up. A drooping hostess was no good to anyone. She was glad the boy was all right, relieved that his life had been spared and that Susan and Paul Lucas still had their son.

  ‘You OK, Martha?’

  Mike came over and bent down, his breath, like her own, smelling of garlic.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Ha
nds up who’s for coffee!’ she offered.

  ‘C’mon, I’ll give you a hand.’

  In the kitchen, she stacked some of the dirty dishes and set the kettle to boil. She got down the rich roast Colombian coffee that was kept for special occasions: no decaf tonight. She watched as her forty-two-year-old husband set out the cups and saucers on the tray, adding the cream jug and sugar. His fair hair was starting to recede ever so slightly but golf and trips to the local gym had ensured that he stayed in shape, his body still well muscled and lean. Still as handsome and even more attractive than when she’d met him eighteen years before.

  She filled the coffee pot and carried it back to their waiting guests. The kids had repaired to the den where they were likely already involved in some computer game battle of skill; their laughs and shouts filled the air.

  ‘Here you go, Mom,’ she said, pouring the coffee into a white china cup. She was glad to sit down by her mother and relax. Mike and Jack, at the far side of the table, were now talking about golf.

  ‘That was a lovely meal,’ said Annie. ‘It was good of you to invite us over.’

  ‘Family should be together, gather round the table,’ said Frances, ‘though you can’t help thinking about the ones that are missing.’

  Martha smiled, unsure if her mother was referring to her missing siblings or her father who had passed away over twenty-two years ago.

  ‘Anyways, you had a lovely birthday party, Frances!’ cajoled Annie.

  Martha knew that her mother held a grudging respect for the neat, blond-haired young woman who had managed to tie down her wild son Jack and turn him into a good husband and doting father.

  ‘That I did, that I did!’

  Frances regaled them with stories of her best friends, Bee and Louisa. It had crossed Martha’s mind to invite them over too but she had felt it would be tempting Mike’s patience too much to expect him to sit and listen over dinner to her mother and her friends’ stories for hours on end.

  ‘Bee had a perm at the salon, but they did it wrong and now her hair’s coming out in clumps.’