Miracle Woman

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Thea didn’t care what the reason was, all she knew was that the Good Lord was giving her more time to spend with her husband and boys, more days to sit in the sun and enjoy his greatness, and that somehow the healer, Martha, was connected with it . . .

  Chapter Forty

  MARTHA’S TIME WAS taken up by her healing work. Many people were so sick, their conditions gone too far for her to be able to heal, that instead they needed the gift of acceptance. Wounds and injuries, twisted muscles and nerves, responded best to her touch, and like her forebears she seemed to be able to stop bleeding and encourage scars and tears and breaks to the body to renew and mend. Other diseases proved more difficult, the willpower and faith of the sufferer determining much.

  She was surprised to get a call from Soul and Spirit, the network’s popular daytime TV show which looked at new age therapies and ways to enjoy life as it explored the human mind, body and soul. The programme’s producer asked Martha if she’d be prepared to take part as they would love to have her on the programme. At first reluctant to place herself in the public eye again, she agreed to do it only when the producer told her that Catherine Morgan the healer had already agreed to present five of the shows and had suggested inviting Martha on. Talking to Catherine later on that night at home, Martha hoped she’d made a wise decision.

  ‘Martha, half Boston is talking about you already! This way the viewers will get the truth and find out about your work and your dedication to it and make up their own minds,’ Catherine assured her.

  The show was a great success, Martha at ease with Catherine as they discussed many aspects of healing and the aspirations of those who came to her. Catherine got her to talk about her childhood and the influences they shared. Long after they were off the air they continued the discussion when they had supper with a few of the crew in a restaurant near Catherine’s home.

  The days after the show saw a fresh wave of people in search of miracles and hope contacting her, from Texas to Utah, from Baltimore to Sacramento. Martha was unfortunately unable to meet even a tiny percentage of those who pleaded their case. Kim and Kathleen handled the huge amount of enquiries and diplomatically wrote and said no on her behalf.

  Glenn Harris, a stockbroker and investment dealer, the darling of Boston’s business press and financial community, was among them. Martha was amazed when she was approached directly by his personal assistant and asked if she would make an exception and meet Mr Harris for lunch. Politely she refused: wealth and prestige had absolutely no bearing as far as she was concerned and the man was welcome to join the huge waiting list if he wanted to.

  She was busy in the upstairs room working on a small baby that suffered from terrible colicky pain when Glenn Harris in person came knocking on her door.

  Excusing herself for a minute, she stepped outside, annoyed at the interruption. Politely she asked him to leave as she was busy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harris,’ she said, ‘but I thought I’d made it very clear that I can’t see you.’

  ‘My, but you are a hard woman to track down,’ he interrupted, standing in his immaculately tailored suit looking totally out of place.

  ‘Please, Mr Harris, I am very busy with people who need my help,’ she insisted. ‘If you want to see me I’m afraid you will have to join the waiting list.’

  She could sense his annoyance and his struggle to contain his anger. ‘Is there any exception to this list?’ he asked.

  Obviously he was used to bribing his way to the top of every queue, just dangling his chequebook in order to be seen.

  ‘The only exceptions are those that are extremely sick and in desperate need,’ Martha added firmly.

  ‘Then this definitely meets your criteria,’ he said emphatically.

  Martha looked directly at him. Silver haired and of average height, with a muscular build, which perhaps veered on being overweight, Glenn Harris looked otherwise fit and healthy. She waited for him to confide his problems to her.

  A serious expression crossed his face.

  ‘I’m not talking about myself, woman! It’s about my son.’ All his bluster and arrogance suddenly disappeared at the mention of his son’s name. ‘I need to talk to you about Joshua.’

  Martha gestured for him to take a seat in the waiting area.

  ‘I will be about another twenty minutes or so with the little fellow inside,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we could have a quick word then.’

  Glenn Harris was still waiting for her. She sat across from him in the other chair. ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ he apologized, obviously trying to control his feelings.

  ‘Mr Harris, just tell me about your son, tell me about Joshua.’

  ‘I guess Josh was the best kid any man could have!’

  She passed him a glass of water as she could see how emotional he was.

  ‘My wife Wendy and I adore him, and everything he has ever wanted or needed I have been lucky enough to be able to provide for him. That is . . . until recently. Two, maybe three years ago, when he went to college he got mixed up with a bad crowd, well, a wrong crowd! They started experimenting, messing with drugs. He had the money, and my son developed a very expensive habit and dropped out. It’s been a nightmare ever since. His drugs, his uppers and downers, quack doctors, leeches of friends, hangers on, I refuse to pay one more red cent for the tools that are destroying my son.’

  Martha sighed. The same old story – a kid gone off the rails and the parents expecting someone else to clear up the mess. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I want you to help me get my son back, work one of those famous miracles of yours and restore my son to me, cured of these addictions,’ he said emphatically.

  ‘With the best will in the world, Mr Harris, it needs to be your son sitting in this chair, not you.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘God knows I know that, but to get him to come to you, I’m not sure. He’s been in and out of every rehab and detox centre on the East Coast. There’s always promises, programmes and . . .’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then – then he falls off the wagon.’

  Automatically Martha reached for his hand, feeling the struggle within him.

  ‘I love my son, Mrs McGill. Wendy and I had only the one child and I guess we poured all our love and energy into him. They say it’s tough being an only child. Being the only child of a very wealthy man is even tougher.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do, what are you expecting? I have no actual experience of dealing with drug addiction or addicts. Most of the people I see are in extreme pain and have severe and chronic illness. Any alleviation of their distress is an improvement; with someone like your son I’m not sure if I can help at all.’

  Glenn Harris stayed motionless in the chair.

  ‘You’re all he’s got right now, Mrs McGill! That’s why I want you to see him.’

  Almost as soon as the man had walked out the door, Martha regretted impulsively agreeing to meet him and his son later that week.

  The lunch was supposed to be casual, a meeting of old friends, and although Glenn Harris had offered to send his driver to collect her Martha had insisted on making her way to the famous glass-fronted seafood restaurant right on the harbour.

  It was packed at lunchtime with well-groomed young men and women in expensive designer black and cream. Martha was glad that she had chosen to wear a simple jacket and an above the knee black skirt and tights. She glanced around and as soon as she mentioned her host’s name was shown to one of the best tables overlooking the waterfront.

  Glenn immediately ordered a drink and Martha asked for a sparkling mineral water; wine at lunch always made her fuzzy and relaxed, and she felt this was most definitely one of those occasions when she needed to keep her head. Glenn welcomed her warmly and she noticed people at one or two other tables glance over in their direction curiously.

  The menu was extensive and she read through it deciding to opt for snapper, with shrimps to sta
rt. Glenn once he’d ordered began to fill her in with details about his son, who was due to meet him in about ten minutes’ time.

  ‘How are you going to explain me?’ she asked, slightly amused.

  ‘I’m going to pretend you’re an old friend, and that we just bumped into each other and I insisted you join me for lunch.’

  Martha was about to ask a hundred more questions when her eyes were drawn to the tall intense-looking young man talking to the waiter and then making his way to the table. He was the spit of his father, a younger, maybe less attractive version. Glenn Harris jumped out of his seat and threw his arms around his son, directing him to the chair beside him.

  ‘Hey, Josh, you’re on time!’

  The boy nodded and sat down, staring over at Martha.

  ‘Josh, let me introduce you to Martha McGill, she’s an old friend. We haven’t seen each other for years, and then we go and bump into each other up near the Hancock building. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve invited her to have lunch with us.’

  Josh Harris looked over at Martha, weighing her up: her face, her figure, her hair, her style. She could read the contempt in his eyes, as if he was used to his father introducing him to a series of different women.

  She smiled and stretched out her hand to shake his, picking up on the nervous energy that exuded from him. He ordered quickly, barely interested in the food, and complained that they were sitting in a non-smoking area.

  His father made it clear that he had no intention of moving table.

  ‘How’s your mom?’ enquired Glenn.

  She could see the dart of anger flicker in the young man’s eyes.

  ‘She’s OK, I guess. She’s planning a trip to Italy to visit the famous cities – Florence, Rome and Venice. She’s got all the guidebooks out and well, you know her, she’s planning her itinerary and all the palaces and churches and paintings to see that will tie in with her fine art course.’

  ‘That should be interesting. I hope that she’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘She should, John is going with her.’

  This time Martha could see the pain in Glenn’s eyes. She should have remembered that the Harris divorce had filled the papers and the courts for days about four years ago, Wendy Harris citing her husband’s appetite for affairs with a host of younger women as leading to the breakdown of their marriage. Martha felt she was involved in a weird tit-for-tat match like a tennis game where the players were throwing balls of resentment and misunderstanding between them and she was the umpire in the middle of it all.

  Martha’s eyes drifted off to the distance where a group of schoolchildren queued with their teacher to visit the aquarium. Her kids had loved it, and no doubt these young students would too.

  ‘It’s an amazing location,’ murmured her host, looking out the window. ‘One of my best investments was an old warehouse property over there to the left which got turned into a multimillion luxury hotel. Can’t beat the waterfront, it’s what people want.’

  Bored, Joshua, was tearing up a fancy type of bread roll and spreading it thickly with golden butter.

  ‘Josh!’

  ‘I’m starving, Dad, I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast, so this will fill me till the food comes.’

  ‘My son Patrick goes through a mound of bread and butter every day, he always seems to be hungry, no matter what I cook.’ She laughed, trying to ease the situation.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Martha,’ smiled Glenn as if they were genuinely old friends, just catching up.

  Cautiously she told him briefly about her three children.

  Josh looked bored.

  ‘Family is everything, I’m sure you agree!’ Glenn said, running his hand along the edge of the table.

  ‘What about you, Josh? What do you do?’ Martha asked politely. The young man shifted in his seat uneasily, keeping his gaze on her face and ignoring his father.

  ‘I used to work here in the city for Morgan Bank in the stockbroking section but now I’m involved in a start-up of my own, over in south Boston. It was an old mill and we hope to convert it into a few studio apartments, once we get the planning and the costs right.’

  ‘Start small and grow big, that’s what I always say,’ smiled his father. ‘That’s what I tell all those hotshot Harvard kids and just hope they listen to me. You’ve got to walk before you can run!’

  The chowder, calamari and shrimp were served. Martha squeezed the fresh lemon juice all over her large plate of delicious shrimp and the special house dip. Glenn tucked into his calamari with gusto and noticing two business colleagues at a distant table waved over to them. As soon as he had cleared his plate, he excused himself for a minute and went over to say hello.

  ‘No matter where we go he knows somebody or they know him, it’s always the same,’ complained Josh.

  Martha said nothing, she herself had studiously avoided meeting the eyes of one or two of the diners around, who she knew had probably recognized her, and hoped by doing so to convince them they had mistaken her identity.

  ‘Do you work, Martha?’ enquired the young man as he lifted the spoon of creamy chowder to his lips.

  ‘I stayed home when my kids were small, but now they’re getting older I guess I’m trying to develop new things for myself.’

  ‘That’s kind of like my mom. She’s got her art.’

  ‘I do a bit of healing,’ she said softly.

  ‘Is that how you met my dad?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Is that how you met Glenn? Did he come to you for a massage or something?’

  ‘No!’ she insisted. ‘Not that kind of thing, I work with people who are sick or injured, or in need of help.’

  ‘Well, that lets my dad out, he’s as healthy as a horse unless you can cure an over-active dick!’

  Embarrassment flooded Martha’s cheeks. She was glad that Glenn was not sitting at the table at that moment for he’d probably have floored his son. She chose to ignore the remark and rinsed her fingers in the water bowl, drying them on her napkin. She wanted to make contact with this angry young man, ease the burning resentment within him, but had no idea how to take that first step which would earn his trust.

  ‘It must have been hard on you when your parents separated?’

  ‘It happens.’ He shrugged. ‘The all-American family is dead and buried in its grave.’

  ‘You don’t believe that,’ she said, appalled.

  ‘Ask the offspring,’ he replied sarcastically. ‘You still married?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied hesitantly, unsure of herself. ‘How is your mother?’ she asked, changing the conversation.

  ‘My mother is doing fine, better than when that bastard humiliated her leastways. Not that it’s any of your business,’ he added argumentatively.

  Martha sighed to herself. Joshua had obviously been deeply hurt by the break-up of his parents’ marriage, no matter how much they each claimed to love him.

  ‘I know how tough it is on kids when their parents break up,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘My husband and I recently separated.’

  Josh seemed bored.

  ‘Your father’s concerned for you,’ she offered, finding herself unusually irritated by his attitude.

  ‘What the fuck would you know about it, Mrs whatever your name is! He’s put you up to this, it’s another one of his frigging set-ups to try and manage the mess of my life!’ Joshua shouted at her.

  In the distance Glenn Harris spun around. Taking in the scene, he started to return to the table.

  ‘No, Josh! It’s not like that – honest it’s not,’ she argued. ‘I’m just offering you some help if you need it. When I lay my hands on people sometimes it happens that I can lessen their pain, whatever that pain may be.’

  He seemed withdrawn, but she could tell he was listening to her.

  ‘It’s up to you if you want to try the healing or not. There are no guarantees, no magic wands, just you and . . .’

  ‘How you two doing?’ interrupted Glenn. �
��Sorry it took so long but I wanted to say hi to my good buddies over at the back. Ray Donnard and I used to run an investment portfolio together when we first left college.’

  Their main courses were served and Martha busied herself enjoying the almost blackened, seasoned snapper with sweet potato and fresh green salad. Joshua toyed with his blue fin special, while his father finished off the large tuna steak.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Josh announced abruptly, pushing back his chair from the table. ‘I’ve a meeting in about twenty minutes’ time.’

  ‘Hey, we’re barely finished eating,’ his father reminded him. ‘And what about some pie and a cappuccino?’

  ‘No, Dad, thanks, I’m full. I’m not used to eating such a big meal at lunch,’ he excused himself.

  ‘It was nice to meet you, Joshua,’ smiled Martha. ‘Remember what we were talking about, well, here’s my number.’ She took out one of the fancy new cards with her office number on that Ruth had insisted she get printed, and passed it up to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ was all he said before placing it in his jacket pocket.

  Both of them watched him push his way frantically through the crowded restaurant, lighting up a cigarette the minute he stepped outside.

  ‘Well, what did you think?’ enquired Glenn as soon as their cappuccinos arrived. ‘Did you have enough time to talk?’

  ‘Enough time?’

  ‘Why yeah, while I went over to talk to those two guys in the back.’

  ‘Your friends.’

  ‘Friends, why heck, Martha, I had no idea who those guys were! I just went up and introduced myself and told the tall guy that I was admiring his suit and asked him who is his tailor. I was just trying to give you two time to get to know each other a little, that’s all.’

  Martha couldn’t believe how he constantly managed to manipulate situations to get what he wanted.

  ‘We talked a bit, but I’m not sure that Josh is interested in my help, Mr Harris. There is nothing more to do but sit tight and wait. Josh himself must decide what he wants next.’