The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

by Stephanie Knipper

  Lily’s heart quickened. She was leaning into him when the phone rang again. Startled, she disentangled her hand from his and ran inside to answer the phone. She needed to get away before she did something she’d regret.

  “Hello?” she said, out of breath.

  Silence. Then, in a voice so soft it didn’t sound real, “Lily?”

  At first she thought she was imagining things.

  “Hello, Lily? Are you there?” Rose’s voice was the same, but beneath her soft Kentucky accent was an undercurrent of fatigue.

  The surprise of hearing her sister’s voice was so great, Lily’s knees wobbled. Her response came out like a question. “I’m here?”

  AFTER THE CONVERSATION ended, Lily remained seated on the cold tile floor, holding the phone, until a robotic operator voice said that if she would like to make a call, she should hang up and dial again.

  Will was still on the deck when she went outside, but he seemed far away somehow. She felt odd, like she stood in a bubble. Everything was distorted.

  “You okay?” he asked, surprising her with his concern. “What is it?” He closed the space between them and put his hands on her shoulders.

  She closed her eyes, wishing she could hide from what she had to say. “That was Rose, my sister?” Again, it came out like a question. “She has congestive heart failure. She developed peripartum cardiomyopathy when she was pregnant. Most women recover from it. She didn’t. I had assumed she’d be okay. She’s not.”

  Rose had already outlived the statistics Lily knew.

  Will brushed his hand across her cheek. “A transplant—”

  Lily shook her head. “She has pulmonary hypertension. She doesn’t qualify.”

  Blinking hard against the tears that stung her eyes, Lily said, “My sister is dying.” The words suddenly made it real, and she began to cry. Will reached out to hug her; this time, she didn’t pull away. She buried her face in his shoulder, her tears darkening his rough shirt. She could still hear Rose’s voice: “I need you to come home.”

  ROSE’S JOURNAL

  March 2003

  FEAR HAS A taste.

  I’m sitting at our scarred kitchen table, tulip and daffodil bulbs lined up in front of me. I should be working on my senior portfolio. It’s spring break, and I graduate in seven weeks. Instead, I’m writing in my journal and gulping lemonade, trying to wash the taste of copper pennies from my mouth.

  My baby is due in late May.

  My. Baby. I picture myself sailing across the stage at graduation, my black gown billowing like a circus tent around my belly.

  Yesterday, when we arrived home, Lily dropped our bags by the kitchen door, then ran outside and clambered down the porch steps.

  “Not going to give your mom a hug?” our mom asked. She stood in the kitchen waiting for us. It was March, but already her skin was dark from working in the fields. Her nails were bright red. Years of pushing seeds into the ground and ripping out weeds left them permanently stained. She always wore nail polish.

  Lily glanced over her shoulder. The wind lifted her long brown hair. She looked like something that sprang from the ground. “In a minute. I’ve got to check something in the greenhouse first.”

  She returned holding a bouquet of herbs. One plant had airy, fernlike leaves, the other, small scalloped leaves. “Fennel and coriander,” she said as she presented them to me. “Strength and hidden worth.” She smiled as if I were someone worth looking up to, instead of a pregnant college girl abandoned by her baby’s father.

  Now I pick up a daffodil bulb and run my fingers over its smooth white flesh. The kitchen is the best place to work. In early morning, light fills the room. I can pretend I’m in an art studio on campus, my stomach still flat, my plans to travel to Italy after graduation intact. In those moments, I’m not returning home to work on the farm to support my daughter—I am an artist.

  Briefly, my stomach muscles contract, and I can’t breathe. “False contractions. They’re called Braxton Hicks,” my obstetrician had said at my last visit. He claimed they didn’t hurt. He was wrong.

  When my muscles unclench, the taste of copper pennies returns. I take a drink of lemonade, but it doesn’t help.

  I try to focus on the daffodil bulb I’m supposed to be sketching for my portfolio. Earlier, I slipped one of Dad’s garden knives through the bulb’s brown papery outer layer. I undressed it, removing the paper scales. Then I cut it in half, exposing the flower bud.

  Most people don’t realize that a tiny plant lies inside of the bulb, already germinating. I plan to create a series of drawings that capture flowers in various stages of germination.

  The flower bud is folded over on itself. I set down the bulb and hold my arm out with my thumb up. I squint, aligning the tip of my thumb with the top of the first leaf. I measure the stem against the base of my thumb. The plant is a green so pale it’s almost white.

  I start drawing. I make my strokes thin and sparse. I concentrate on my arm moving in great swoops over the paper, on the feel of the bumpy cloth canvas under my charcoal.

  I’m not afraid when I draw.

  The charcoal makes a soft phft, phft across the page. I study the bulb and trace the bend of the stem, the pleat in the first leaf. As I work, I try to be the person Lily thinks I am, full of strength and hidden worth. I sit straighter, ignoring the slight pressure in my chest that developed when I hit the six-month mark and never left.

  Lost in thought, I jump when Mom puts her hands on my shoulders. She’s silent for a moment. Then she bends down and kisses the top of my head. The end of her long blonde braid tickles my cheek. “You’re still an artist. Coming home doesn’t change that.”

  When I don’t answer, she turns to the kitchen counter. “Do you like the crib?” she asks. Her back is to me as she pours a cup of coffee, but I catch the slight stiffening of her shoulders that says my answer matters. She was disappointed when I told her I was pregnant, but after the shock wore off she and Dad began a campaign to get me to move home after graduation.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say because it’s true. My father, Wade, made the white crib that now sits at the foot of my twin bed. I see his hand in the precise curve of the spindles and the solid feel of the wood.

  The thought comes before I can stop it. If Lily made furniture, it would look like this. Solid. Beautiful. Something that will last.

  “I’m glad,” Mom says. She looks younger when she smiles, and I wish she would do it more often.

  Another pain grabs me. I groan and hunch forward. “Braxton Hicks,” I say between clenched teeth. I clutch the stick of willow charcoal so hard it snaps in two.

  I hear Mom’s coffee cup clatter into the sink. “That’s not Braxton Hicks,” she says. “We need to go to the hospital.”

  MY ARMS ARE heavy, and I can’t open my eyes.

  “Rose?” My mother’s voice. “Can you hear me?”

  I try to turn toward her voice, but I can’t move. I can only flutter my eyes. Wherever I am, everything is dim. I don’t know whether the light is off or if I slept all day and it’s night now.

  “Is she awake?” My father’s voice. He sounds tired.

  “Almost,” Mom says. “Rose? Can you hear me?”

  Yes, I want to say, I can hear you. Something is blocking my throat. I try to lift my hand to my face, but my arm is weighed down by sleep.

  “Rose?” Mom says. She sounds far away.

  I can’t speak, and I am so, so tired.

  I try to move again, but I’m trapped. I struggle, shaking my head. The pillow crinkles.

  “Rose?” Mom touches my cheek.

  When she does, I force my eyes open and try to take a deep breath, but something is clogging my throat. I can’t breathe! I panic and slap my face. A plastic tube fills my mouth.

  “Don’t,” Mom says. She grabs my hands. “Stop. You’re in the ICU on a ventilator.” Fear is etched across her face and deep lines furrow her brow. Her nail polish is chipped and hair pokes out of her
messy braid.

  “You gave us a scare,” Dad says. Dark circles ring his eyes.

  My brain is fuzzy. Ventilator? ICU?

  Mom sinks into a chair next to me and drops her head to my bed rail. “You’re okay,” she says. The words come out in a rush.

  I’m not okay. I’m empty. I drop my hand to my stomach.

  It’s flat.

  Baby? I mouth around the tube.

  Mom doesn’t notice.

  Where is she? The familiar taste of copper pennies fills my mouth. I wrench myself upright, and yank at the tube. Where is my baby!

  “Stop,” Mom says. She stands over me, cradling my hands in hers. “Wade, help me.”

  Dad grabs my arms and pulls them down. “Be still, Rose, calm down.” His green eyes are rimmed with red.

  Baby, I mouth again. Baby!

  Mom, at last, understands. “Your baby’s fine,” she says, but I don’t believe her. Her eyes are so wide the white swallows the blue, and her lips are thin with the effort of smiling. She doesn’t let go of my hands.

  I can’t breathe. Something is crushing my chest.

  “She’s fine,” Mom repeats. “Lily’s with her. She hasn’t left her side.”

  “She’s little,” Dad says. “No bigger than my hand. But she’s fine.” He holds out his hand, palm up, and smiles.

  What? I mouth. My mind is white fog. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, drawing. Pain ripping through my abdomen. Then . . . nothing.

  What? I mouth again. This time, Mom understands I mean: What happened?

  She looks at the ceiling. “When we got to the ER, your blood pressure spiked. They had to deliver the baby. You had a heart attack on the table.” Her voice wavers.

  I shake my head. She’s wrong. I’m twenty-two. Heart attacks happen to old people.

  Dad takes over. “It’s called peripartum cardiomyopathy. The pregnancy caused your heart to enlarge, and the muscle was badly damaged.”

  If Mom weren’t holding my hands, I’d clap them over my ears. I am a child again. La, la, la. I’m not listening.

  Her last words are small, and I almost miss them. “You’re still here,” she says as if to convince herself. “I didn’t lose you.” Then she drops her head to my chest and closes her eyes.

  THE NEXT DAY, a doctor I’ve never met removes the vent tube. His long fingers curve around it, then he yanks like he’s starting a push mower, and just like that, I’m breathing on my own again.

  When he leaves, I press my hand against my heart. It beats like it always has, but now I know I’m broken.

  When a nurse brings my breakfast tray, I turn away. I keep my eyes closed when she checks my vitals. I keep them closed when a nurse’s assistant comes in to sponge me off. The girl lifts my arms and runs a damp cloth over them, chattering the entire time.

  “You’re a lucky one,” she says. “Still young enough to get better. Most of the people in here are old. They don’t have much time left.”

  I realize I’ve never thought about time before. My life used to stretch before me to a vanishing point on the horizon, the end always out of sight. Now it contracts until it’s a small dot. How much time do I have left?

  A week? A month?

  The aid moves to my legs, running the cloth against my skin in soft circles. I count my heart beats. Nothing seems different, but I can’t trust my body anymore.

  When she’s finished, Mom and Lily come in. Mom sways on her feet, and Lily’s skin is pale.

  I turn away from them.

  “Get up,” Mom says. She’s pushing a wheelchair. “We’re taking you to see your daughter.”

  I don’t move. What kind of mother can I be if my heart might give out at any moment?

  Lily sits on the side of my bed, and I roll toward her. “She’s two pounds fourteen ounces,” she says. “All even numbers, so it’s good. She looks like you.”

  My heart flutters. My daughter is three days old, and I haven’t seen her yet. “Really?”

  Tiny strands of brown hair have escaped Lily’s ponytail. Dirt fills the creases of her fingers and smudges her left cheek. She works in the garden when she’s upset.

  “Really.” She squeezes my hand.

  Mom guides the wheelchair toward the bed and helps me into it. When she bends down to ease my feet onto the footrest, I notice streaks of gray running through her hair. I smooth them down. Suddenly I don’t want to see time passing.

  “She’s a fighter, Rose. Like you.” Mom looks at me as if I’ve accomplished something great, instead of merely surviving.

  They wheel me out of ICU and to the neonatal intensive care unit. Mom pushes me to a double sink next to the doors. Several plastic scrub brushes are stacked in a cabinet over the sink.

  Lily grabs three of the brushes and hands them out. “Make sure you get under your fingernails,” she says as she shows me how to squirt soap onto the sponge and lather every inch of my hands.

  She’s fast, scrubbing her hands with the brush, then scraping under her nails with a tiny plastic file. She counts as she works, and I mouth the numbers with her. We stop at thirty-two.

  Lily blots her hands with a paper towel, and then dries mine for me. When we finish, Mom wheels me down an aisle lined with cube pods, each of which houses a baby in a plastic bubble. It looks like something from a science-fiction movie. Quilts in bright colors—orange, pink, and purple—cover the bubbles.

  “There are so many.” I whisper, afraid of disturbing the babies. I had expected crying, but other than the beeping monitors, the room is silent. Nurses bend over babies. Some of them sing. Some stroke tiny feet or hands. Others adjust IVs and oxygen sensors.

  Lily turns down an almost-empty row and stops next to a bubble draped in an orange quilt. A round nurse dressed in SpongeBob scrubs pushes buttons on a monitor. She looks up when we enter. “Is this Mom?” she asks.

  Mom. Hearing that startles me. I need to grow into the word.

  “We’ve been waiting for you.” The nurse adjusts something on the monitor and writes the displayed numbers on her palm. Then she folds the orange quilt down, opens a curved plastic door on the bubble, and I see my daughter for the first time.

  She is tiny, so small she looks more like a doll than a baby. She is asleep, lying on her stomach. Her hands are balled into fists. A purple plaid hat covers her head, but a fine mist of hair pokes out from under it. Blonde, like mine. I touch the tips of my hair and smile.

  Other than the hat, a diaper, and booties on her feet she is naked. “Can I touch her?” I ask the nurse.

  “Just slide your hand into the isolet. She’s having a little trouble regulating her body temperature today. It’s been low, so she needs to stay in there, but she’ll know you’re here.”

  I run my fingers along her back. At my touch, she sighs and moves her head to nuzzle my hand. I melt.

  “We took her off oxygen this morning. She’s been fine.”

  I nod as if the words mean something, but I’m only half listening. I’m too busy studying the eggshell pearl of my daughter’s fingernails, and her toes, which look like tiny peas.

  “She knows you,” Lily says.

  “How can you tell?”

  “She hasn’t reacted this way to anyone else. She normally doesn’t move much, even when someone touches her. I’ve never seen her lean into anyone. Have you, Mom?”

  “Never,” Mom says softly. I hear pride in her voice.

  My baby’s eyelids flicker. I lean forward, hoping for a glimpse. “Has she opened her eyes yet?”

  The three women glance at each other. “Once,” Mom says.

  I take in their glances. “What is it? What’s wrong?” A list of problems flash through my mind. Blind. Missing eyes. Cataracts.

  “Nothing. Her eyes are unusual. That’s all.”

  “Can she see?” I ask the nurse.

  She nods. “We think so. Some preemies have vision problems because of the oxygen, but we don’t think that’s the case with her.”

 
Lily says exactly the right thing. “Her eyes are just an unusual color. They’re not dark blue. They’re pale blue, like cornflowers.”

  “Like yours, Rose, when you were a baby,” Mom says.

  I run my fingers over my daughter’s back. Her spine is a string of pearls. “Does that mean anything?”

  The nurse shakes her head. “No, it’s just unusual.”

  Mom leans over me. “What are you going to name her?”

  “Antoinette,” I say. I picked the name two weeks ago after flipping through a baby name book Lily gave me. “It means praiseworthy.”

  At my voice, Antoinette opens her cornflower blue eyes and turns toward me. My heart stops again, but this time it’s from love.

  Chapter Three

  Lily sat on the edge of her bed, a well-worn book in her lap. Its white cover had grayed over the years, and the rose on the front was more peach than pink.

  Tomorrow she would drive to Redbud and see Rose for the first time in years. She had already called her boss to request a leave of absence. She knew she should be packing now. Her barely used black suitcase sat open on her bed, a pile of T-shirts and jeans beside it, but she was spellbound by the old book. She flipped through the pages until she found what she wanted. As she looked down at the artist’s rendering of honeysuckle, her mind drifted to the last time she had been home.

  Two years ago, on the first Friday in June, Lily had called in sick to work. She shoved T-shirts and jeans into a suitcase. Then she sat in her car and counted to fifty before heading south to Redbud.

  It was Rose’s thirtieth birthday.

  When they were children, thirty had seemed mythical, like a land they’d never visit. Like China, real but out of reach. They used to sit in the rafters of the drying barn, legs dangling over the beams, eating lavender shortbread cookies while conjuring their futures.

  “Paris,” Rose said once. Her daydreams played out anywhere but Kentucky. “I’ll paint the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. By thirty, I’ll be exactly where I want to be.”