The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

by Stephanie Knipper

  “I did. I was a single mom with a bad heart and a special-needs kid. After Mom and Dad died . . .” She leaned back. Her short hair fell in messy spikes around her face. “Being mad at you was easier than dealing with everything else. Plus, I needed help, and I was afraid to ask you again. Now I don’t have a choice.

  “Seth is here, and Antoinette loves him. He’s been a father to her, but he’s not you.” Rose’s eyes looked tired, as if decades had passed instead of only six years. “I don’t have time to worry about the choices I’ve made in the past. I miss you. You’re the only family Antoinette has left. Will you help me this time?”

  Lily didn’t say anything. She was afraid she would open her mouth and the wrong words would fall out again. Instead, she reached into the basket and held up a piece of lavender bread. She handed it to Rose, hoping that one act spoke for her.

  Rose took a bite and looked up. “Funny,” she said. “It still tastes like love.”

  ROSE’S JOURNAL

  December 2006

  THE WAITING ROOM at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics is too small. Children are everywhere. Some shove beads through a wire maze bolted to the floor in the center of the room. Others bounce on their toes, hands curled against their shoulders, as if afraid to touch anything. One boy stands in the corner, banging his head against the wall while a woman—his mother?—tries to hold him still.

  I can’t watch.

  Antoinette sits on the chair next to me, bouncing. Her small green coat is folded over the armrest. She is three and a half. Her feet don’t reach the floor. To bounce, she pushes against the armrests, lifting herself out of the seat. Then she lets go. Gravity does the rest.

  It took three months to get this appointment. Now that it’s here, I want to be somewhere else, anywhere else.

  This morning, Dad held Antoinette as he paced the kitchen. She arched her back and groaned. In the past three years, he has grown soft around the middle and most of his hair is gone. He puffed as he tried to calm Antoinette. “What do you want, sweetie?” he asked. He is big enough to wrap his arms around her twice, but Antoinette is difficult to contain.

  “She wants to get down,” I said. After scheduling this appointment, I started making lists. The first time Antoinette walked. The first time she crawled. Her first bites of solid food. There had to be something that would prove she was normal. The lists were in my purse somewhere, but I needed to find them.

  “We can cancel our trip,” Mom said. They were attending a commercial flower growers’ conference in Missouri. It was the first weekend in December and a light snow had fallen.

  Antoinette rocked back and forth in Dad’s arms like a metronome. I found the crumpled pages on the bottom of my purse and flattened them on the kitchen table. “We’ll be fine, Mom.”

  Antoinette shrieked.

  “Just put her down, Dad,” I said as I dumped everything back into my purse.

  As soon as Antoinette’s feet touched the ground, she toddled over to me, her gaze locked on something over my shoulder. When she reached the table, she buried her face against my knees and wrapped her arms around my legs. Then she sighed with contentment as if I were her whole world.

  Now, in the waiting room, she sighs the same way and stops bouncing. She leans into me, and despite the pressure building in my chest, I smile. She’s happy. That has to count for something.

  Finally, the waiting room door opens, and a nurse in pink scrubs says, “Antoinette Martin?”

  I pick up Antoinette’s green coat, take her hand, and follow the nurse out of the waiting room. As I walk, I remember the last thing Mom said before they left. “You’re still her mother. Nothing can change that.”

  But that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. What if I can’t mother a broken child?

  SOMEONE PAINTED BLUE and yellow fish on the walls of the exam room. White bubbles float from their mouths to the ceiling. All of a sudden, I’m Lily. I count the fish. Five. Then I count the bubbles. Seventeen.

  Not good. My chest tightens, and I slip a nitroglycerin pill under my tongue.

  “Is she always so tactile?” Dr. Ketters asks. She is at least sixty. The gold buttons on her purple dress gap about the middle, and two inches of white slip show beneath her dress.

  Antoinette sits on the exam table, scratching her fingers across its surface. Phft. Phft. She laughs at the sound her fingers make. Her green coat is next to her. It’s so tiny.

  Dr. Ketters stands in front of Antoinette, studying her. She hasn’t listened to Antoinette’s chest or looked in her eyes or ears.

  “She touches everything,” I say. That must be normal. Kids grab things. “I have lists.” I give the crumpled sheets to the doctor. “When she walked. What she eats. Textures she likes . . .”

  Dr. Ketters glances at my papers, then puts them aside. “Does she make eye contact?” Like a magician, she pulls a pink feather from her lab coat pocket and waves it in front of Antoinette.

  Antoinette ignores it. She looks up and to the left. “She stares at paintings for hours,” I say. I stopped painting after Antoinette was born, but I still have my art books. Antoinette and I flip through them at night. “And music. She loves music.” The nitro pill has dissolved, but my heart still hurts.

  Dr. Ketters jots some notes in Antoinette’s file. She has been in the room for less than five minutes. When she looks up and smiles softly, I know something is wrong.

  “Antoinette displays a lot of autistic behaviors,” she says. “She’s not classically autistic. She’s affectionate.” Right now, Antoinette is leaning into me, lacing her fingers through mine.

  “You don’t see that a lot in autism,” she says, “even though it’s a spectrum disorder, and people can be anywhere from high functioning with Asperger syndrome to severely impaired.” With the words severely impaired, her eyes slide to Antoinette.

  I nod as if we are talking about the weather, but I don’t want to hear anything else. I set Antoinette on the ground, ignoring her upraised hands. I gather her green coat and hold it out to her. “Thank you for your time. Come on, Antoinette. Put your coat on.”

  Antoinette flaps her hands and pushes the coat away.

  Dr. Ketters continues as if I haven’t said anything. “I can’t give an exact diagnosis. She doesn’t fit neatly into any one category. But I can tell you that she will most likely require lifelong care.”

  Please stop talking. The pressure in my chest grows until I think it might explode. I shake the coat at Antoinette. “Antoinette. Let’s go.”

  “Is her father in the picture?” The sympathy in the doctor’s voice is painful.

  Finally, I drop Antoinette’s coat and shake my head. I’m dizzy with grief. “It’s just me.”

  “Institutions are nicer now. Caring for her by yourself is going to be hard.”

  I lose my breath and I feel something crushing my chest. Then I feel a small hand in mine. When I look down, Antoinette’s eyes are closed and she’s humming.

  She hasn’t hummed since last September, and I realize how much I missed the sound of her voice. The pressure in my chest eases. Her touch has always made me feel better. When I pick her up, she closes her eyes and rests her head on my shoulder.

  Dr. Ketters is still talking when I walk out of the exam room, but I’m not listening. As we leave, I think of the second list I made. The one I didn’t show the doctor. On it, I listed the way Antoinette’s fingers clasp mine when we walk in the garden. The way my heart beats easier when she is next to me. The way she taps my back, and I know it means I love you.

  LILY’S HOUSE HAS a view of the Ohio River. I see a slice of the river through the window above the kitchen sink. It is late afternoon, and the day has turned gray.

  Antoinette slept briefly in the car on the drive from the hospital to Lily’s house. Twenty minutes. When she woke, I picked her up and whispered in her ear. “Do it again.” Then I hummed, trying to re-create the noise she made at the doc
tor’s office. She didn’t make a sound.

  Now in Lily’s house, she sits on the floor, tracing her fingers along the grout lines in the tile. Lily and I lean against the kitchen counter. I am too agitated to sit.

  “The doctor said something’s wrong?” Lily asks. She taps her fingers against her leg.

  I nod, because I can’t say the words out loud.

  Something is wrong.

  With my daughter.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. I see my pain reflected in her eyes.

  “Will she get better?” Lily starts counting. Her lips barely move, but I know what she’s doing. If I thought counting would help, I’d do it too.

  “No,” I say. “She won’t get better.” The words crush me. I drop my head to my hand. “Could I get a drink?” Though it’s cold outside, Lily’s house is warm.

  Antoinette is sitting in front of the sink, and Lily avoids walking near her. Irritation flashes through me. Antoinette isn’t contagious.

  I had hoped that stopping by Lily’s house on the way home from the doctor’s office would help me feel better. Instead, I feel worse. Lily is more reticent than usual.

  A holly wreath hangs from a brass hook on the door leading from Lily’s kitchen to her deck. I picture her walking alone through a parking lot filled with cut Christmas trees, selecting the wreath.

  Lily takes a glass from the cabinet next to the sink and drops some ice into it. She fills it with tap water, watching Antoinette the entire time. Then she hands me the glass.

  I set it on the kitchen counter. “I miss you.”

  “Is there a treatment?” Lily asks. She looks at Antoinette, who has closed her eyes and is rocking side to side.

  I don’t want to talk about it. “Mom and Dad are at a conference in Missouri. Come home with me. Just for the weekend.” I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to think about Dr. Ketters’s words. How can I provide a lifetime of care when I don’t have a lifetime left?

  Antoinette kicks her heels against the floor.

  Lily appears mesmerized. “I can’t,” she says. “Not this weekend.”

  “It’s getting late,” I say. “I need to get back to the farm.” I drink the water, and as I take my glass to the sink it slips from my hand and shatters on the tile floor.

  I kneel to pick up the glass shards and slice open my index finger. Bright red blood drips from my hand, staining the floor.

  “Are you okay?” Lily grabs a napkin from the table and presses it against my finger. In a minute, it’s soaked through with blood. She folds it until she finds a clean section and dabs at the cut. “I think you need stitches.”

  “I’m fine.” I don’t need her help. I take the napkin and press it against the cut.

  “I’ll wrap it for you.” She runs to the bathroom and returns with a Band-Aid. “It’s deep,” she says as she holds my hand under water. She dries it and applies the bandage.

  As she does, I feel a hand against my leg. Antoinette taps my leg and raises her hands. “It’s okay,” I say as I pick her up. “Mommy’s fine.”

  Antoinette rests her head in the crook of my neck and pats my cheek. Then, for the second time today, she hums, and I forget the pain in my finger.

  “How about next weekend?” Lily is saying. “I’ll come home then.”

  I nod absentmindedly and walk toward the front door. I’m fixated on the sound coming from my daughter’s lips.

  “I miss you too,” Lily says, but she sounds unsure of herself. She hugs me and holds on tight.

  A tall man with dark hair is standing on Lily’s doorstep when she opens the door. “Didn’t know you had company, Lils,” he says.

  He is handsome in a too-perfect kind of way. Not at all the type of guy I picture Lily with. “We’re just leaving,” I say as I carry Antoinette to the car.

  The man nods his head and waves his hand in a flourish as if tipping a cap. “Will Grayson, at your service.”

  I nod, but I’m not paying attention. I’m fascinated by the sound of my daughter’s voice.

  LATER, I PUT Antoinette to bed. She slept the entire trip home, and she was still asleep when we pulled up to the farm. I don’t blame her. It’s been a busy day.

  It’s only after settling her into bed that I remember my finger. I go into the bathroom and sit on the edge of the tub. It doesn’t hurt, but I want to clean it again.

  I undo the bandage, expecting to see a long gash on my finger, but my skin is intact. There isn’t a single mark anywhere.

  Chapter Nine

  Antoinette kicked off her shoes and curled her toes into the grass. The air at the farmers’ market was thick with humidity, and the canvas tent shading their booth only served to trap the heat.

  She turned in slow circles, listening for the land’s song. Today she thought it sounded like redemption—a French horn low and soft—but she wasn’t sure. Everything was muffled.

  Since her seizure at the Bakery Barn, her muscles had been tight, and the world often went silent. Yesterday she had shoved her hands wrist deep into the ground. That far down the soil was cool. She squeezed the earth between her fingers and listened, but she hadn’t heard a thing.

  Today she could hear the music, but she had to work to do so. If she didn’t concentrate, the sound slipped away completely.

  Three customers browsed their booth. Two women walked through the main aisle, and a man wearing a Go Green! T-shirt knelt among eight-inch pots of English lavender. Racks of pansies and violas lined the sides of the booth, at the center of which two white work tables formed an L. Antoinette’s mother worked at one, and Lily at the other.

  Gallon pots of azaleas and rhododendrons sat below the table where Antoinette’s mother put together an arrangement of white tulips and daffodils. She used an old steel watering can as the container and selected flowers from buckets of sugar water. The green buds had just cracked open. “Never use flowers in bloom,” her mother had said once. “They don’t last as long.”

  Lily sat on a metal stool behind the cash register at the second table. Cut yellow pansies lay scattered across its surface. She twirled one between her fingers. “I can’t remember the last time we worked the market together,” she said.

  Antoinette glared at Lily. Shut up.

  “Not my best moments,” her mother said with an awkward laugh. They seemed uncomfortable around each other—Lily fidgeting and Antoinette’s mother’s voice too bright.

  “I can’t believe you never told Mom I used to leave you here alone,” her mother said.

  Antoinette would have left Lily too. She’d leave right now if she could. It was Wednesday. She should be at home with her therapist. She’d rather spend the morning pointing at flash cards than at the market with Lily.

  That morning, her mother had looked at Antoinette and said, “How about we spend the day together? It’ll be a girl’s day. Just you and me and Lily. You two will love each other.” Her mother’s smile was too wide, and at Lily’s name the excitement that fizzed through Antoinette’s body died.

  Not Lily. She tried to shake her head, but her neck muscles wobbled, and her chin fell to her chest. Lily had only arrived yesterday, but Antoinette already knew she was not going to love her. She already had a mother. She didn’t need another one.

  Plus, Lily’s name was wrong. The lilies in the house garden were yellow and orange and pink, but there was nothing bright about her aunt. Her hair was brown like tilled soil, and her eyes were a deep mossy green. She was more oleander than lily. Antoinette imagined the flower blooming in Lily’s footsteps. Beware, it would say as she walked past.

  If Antoinette could bite Lily, she would. She opened her mouth and snapped it shut.

  Lily flinched. “I’m making things worse,” she said. “Maybe I should go home.”

  Antoinette flapped her hands. Yes! Go home!

  “Give her some time,” her mother said. “She doesn’t know you yet.”

  I don’t want to know her. Antoinette growled at Lily.

&
nbsp; Lily dropped the pansy she had been holding. It fluttered to the ground, and when she walked away from the cash register she stepped on it. “Are these from the greenhouse?” She stopped in front of the lavender. “I didn’t see them when I walked through yesterday.” She knelt and lightly touched each plant. Her lips moved, and it looked like she was counting. She whispered, “Twelve.”

  The strangeness of it made Antoinette pause.

  Her mother trimmed a dogwood stem and inserted it into her arrangement. The red branch was stark against the white flowers.

  Lily shook her head. “They shouldn’t be blooming now. Everything’s out of sync.” She pressed her hands into the grass as if the earth was spinning too fast.

  “Lily Martin!” Teelia Todd, who sold hand-spun yarn in the booth across from theirs, walked toward them. Teelia was wiry, and her skin as brown as a walnut. Her gray hair swirled around her head in a mass of curls. She carried a milk crate filled with yarn. Frank, one of her alpacas, trailed along behind her.

  Antoinette liked Frank. His white fleece was soft, and sometimes he pressed his nose against her shoulder. She shook her hands and wiggled her fingers. She wanted to touch him.

  “You found your way back to us,” Teelia said as she set the crate on a table in her booth. Frank was out of Antoinette’s reach right now, but she stretched toward him anyway.

  “I knew you weren’t a city girl.” Teelia tied Frank’s lead line to her booth and hurried over to them

  Frank hummed. Antoinette loved the sound. She pressed her lips together and sang along with him.

  “Is that Frank?” Lily asked as she stood up. “I can’t believe he’s still around.”

  Teelia nodded and hugged Lily. “I’ll be gone long before he is. We all missed you.”

  No. Not everyone. Antoinette stopped humming and again tried to shake her head.

  “Now that you’re home,” Teelia said as she released Lily, “maybe Seth won’t seem so lost.”

  “Oh, Seth and I aren’t . . .”