The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

by Stephanie Knipper

  “Is she seizing?” Lily asked. She had never seen a seizure before, but she thought there should be shaking involved. Antoinette was still.

  “No,” Rose said. “She’s sleeping.”

  Then Rose’s earlier words flashed through Lily’s mind: “Don’t let her seize this time.”

  “You knew.” Lily gestured to the now-brilliant yellow pansies. “She’s done this before.” Everything she had seen since coming home flashed through her mind: the clematis over the porch, the wisteria draping the gazebo, the lavender at the farmers’ market—all flowers blooming out of season.

  Rose kissed her daughter. “Yes. I knew.” The anger in her voice had evaporated. “Flowers. People. She fixes them all. Antoinette’s the reason I’m still here. I would have died long ago if not for her.”

  Lily stared at her niece, numb with wonder. One thought went through her mind. If Antoinette could do this, she could heal Rose.

  She could heal Rose.

  “The healings are temporary,” Rose said, dashing Lily’s hope before it could fully form. “She seizes with more complicated healings, like my heart condition. And the seizures are getting worse each time. She’ll die if she keeps doing this.”

  Tentatively, Lily stroked Antoinette’s hair, unable to believe what she had just witnessed. Lightning flashed, and automatically she started counting. “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mis—” A crack of thunder stopped her.

  Rose touched Lily’s shoulder. “The storm’s getting closer. We need to get her back to the house. She’ll sleep for a while now.”

  The wind had begun to roar and rain had started to fall, but Lily couldn’t move.

  “Come on, Lily,” Rose said. “I need your help. I can’t carry her anymore.”

  Slowly, Lily lifted her niece and followed Rose back to the house. As she did, she counted each step away from the spot where Antoinette had performed a miracle.

  ROSE’S JOURNAL

  June 2008

  I MISS MY sister.

  More than a year has passed since I spoke to Lily. Every time I pass the phone, I chant, Ring! But Lily doesn’t call.

  I’ve started talking to her in my mind. I tell her about the flowers we’re growing. I tell her that Seth keeps an old picture of her in his back pocket. I tell her that Antoinette loves flowers the way she does.

  Then I remember the way she shrank from Antoinette during Mom and Dad’s funeral, and I feel a rush of anger. I love Lily, but I live for Antoinette.

  Right now, Antoinette toddles toward the Bakery Barn. I count her steps as if, like Lily, I need numbers to make the moment last. A small garden filled with purple petunias, pink zinnias, and yellow daylilies frames the bakery entrance. The zinnias and daylilies are bright, but the petunias have wilted. The sun is directly overhead. It burns my shoulders and the top of my head.

  As Seth and I walk to a metal table, I shield Antoinette’s view. If she notices the flowers, she’ll have a meltdown. When she sees a flower bowed under the summer heat, she stomps her feet and flaps her hands. She seems to have an emotional connection with nature. She only calms after I water the plant.

  The patio is empty. Seth selects a table next to the door. His skin is tanned a deep brown, and his hair is streaked with gold. When we were kids, he walked as if he carried a heavy burden, and he rarely smiled. Now he sings while he works, and sometimes Antoinette hums along with him. It seems he has found his place in life.

  “Can you watch Antoinette?” I ask him. “I need to talk to MaryBeth.” I want to head off Antoinette’s meltdown if she notices the plants.

  “Sure. But when you come back, I want to hear what the doctor said.” Since returning home, Seth has driven me to the cardiologist every three months.

  I nod, then pop into the bakery. A young girl with spiky hair and a nose ring mans the counter.

  “Is MaryBeth around?” I ask.

  The girl rubs her nose ring, a small diamond stud. “I think she’s in the back.” She points to a room separated from the front of the store by a thick brown curtain.

  I walk around the counter and sweep back the curtain. “Eli? MaryBeth?”

  The room is well lit. MaryBeth leans over an antique desk that’s covered with receipts. Half-moon glasses perch on her nose. Her short hair is messy. She looks like she’s been working since the dark morning hours. Judging by the rows of cookies and cupcakes in the bakery case, she probably has.

  “Rose!” Her arms are thin but strong, and her tight hug reminds me of Mom. I don’t want to let go. “Is my favorite girl with you?” she asks.

  “She’s outside with Seth. That’s why I’m here. Your petunias are a little droopy. Antoinette can’t stand seeing flowers in distress. If you’ve got a watering can, I’ll take care of them.”

  MaryBeth drops her glasses on the desk. “Well, we can’t have her getting upset, can we? I’ve got a can under the sink.”

  I don’t mean for MaryBeth to stop what she’s doing, but she waves away my offer of help. “Go sit with Seth and your daughter. I’ll be out in a minute.” She steps back and looks at me. “And get something to eat. You look hungry.”

  I’ve lost weight, but I didn’t think it showed. Between working the fields and caring for Antoinette, I’m so tired I often go to bed without eating. Seth’s help makes it easier, but he’s not the one who wakes when Antoinette has a nightmare. He’s not the one who lies in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering who will care for her after I’m gone. I stop at the counter and order three cupcakes from the girl with the nose ring.

  Antoinette is sleeping on the ground beside the garden when I come outside. Her hands are covered with dirt.

  “Did she scream herself out?” I set a cupcake in front of Seth. It’s his favorite, chocolate cake with vanilla icing.

  “No,” he says as he peels back the paper wrapper. “She saw the flowers, stuck her hands in the ground, and started humming. After she finished, she leaned over and closed her eyes. I think the heat got to her. No one’s here, so I let her sleep.”

  I set the other cupcakes on the table and kneel beside Antoinette. Her eyelids flutter when I stroke her shoulder. “Wake up, sleepyhead. You can’t just lie down on the sidewalk and take a nap.”

  She smiles, and I feel full of light. Antoinette isn’t an easy child, but she’s my child. My past, present, and future are in each breath she takes.

  I don’t notice the petunias until I help her sit. When I do, I blink twice. “Did I miss something? They were droopy and brown before, right?” The flowers beside the door are a purple so bright it almost hurts my eyes.

  Before Seth answers, MaryBeth arrives with a watering can and walks to the flowers. “I thought you said they were brown. I’m no gardener, but they look okay to me.”

  I shake my head and guide Antoinette to the table. She grabs a cupcake and squishes her hand in the icing. “I must be seeing things. I could’ve sworn they had wilted.”

  June isn’t Kentucky’s hottest month—that would be August when the air burns your lungs—but sweat popped out along my arms as soon as I walked outside. I chalk up my confusion to the heat.

  Antoinette shrieks—her happy sound. White icing coats her hands and her mouth. I laugh. “You like that?”

  Antoinette flaps her hands. Then she takes another bite of her cupcake. Most of it makes it to her mouth. When she grins, chocolate crumbs coat her teeth.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from,” MaryBeth says. “Eli will be sorry he missed you. He went home after the morning rush. A bakery’s not the best place to be during the summer. All that heat.

  “Speaking of which, I’ll bring out a pitcher of sweet tea,” MaryBeth says. “Y’all can’t sit out here without something to drink.”

  As soon as she leaves, Seth says, “What did the cardiologist say?”

  I hear him, but I can’t get my mind off the flowers. “Did you see the petunias when we arrived? Were they wilted?”

  I don’t know what I
want him to say. If he says no, I’m seeing things. If he says yes, well, I don’t know what that means.

  “The cardiologist?” he insists.”What did he say?”

  I take some napkins from the dispenser on the table and wipe Antoinette’s hands and mouth. She finished her cupcake, but more of it is on her face than in her stomach.

  “He did an echocardiogram. My ejection fraction was thirty-five percent.” Somehow I keep the fear from my voice.

  An echocardiogram measures the amount of blood the heart pumps out. Anything over fifty percent is good. Thirty-five percent is low. It means I’m at significant risk for a heart attack.

  Thinking about it makes my chest constrict. I take deep breaths and tell myself I should be happy. It’s been a little over five years since my heart gave out during Antoinette’s birth. My time should already be up.

  “I’m sorry.” Seth squeezes my hand, and I wonder whether I look as sad as he does. He would have made a good minister, I think. I say so, but he shrugs me off.

  “Too many sacrifices,” he says.

  I wonder if he means Lily.

  I pick at the cupcake in front of me. MaryBeth makes them fresh every day, so I know it’s good, but I can’t eat. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. I can’t talk about my health. If I do, I’ll start crying and never stop.

  I look at the flowers again. In the year that Seth’s been at the farm, we’ve rarely talked about the things that happen around Antoinette. Flowers blooming out of season. The fact that I’m still here.

  Voicing my thoughts seems silly, but I plunge ahead. “You saw them too.” I nod to the petunias. “They were wilted before.”

  Seth folds his cupcake wrapper into a small square. He turns it over and presses the sharp corner into his thumb. “We’re both tired from working in the fields today. Or maybe it was a shadow.”

  It’s the closest he’s come to admitting that he’s seen the peculiar things that happen around Antoinette. I think about the snowdrops in the night garden. The cut that disappeared from my finger. The bird that hopped into the sky after Antoinette’s touch.

  “It wasn’t a shadow,” I say, “and I’m not that tired.” Then I blurt out what I’ve been thinking for the past several months: “What if Antoinette’s causing these things to happen?” I know I’m grasping at straws, but if Antoinette made those things happen, then maybe she can fix me.

  MaryBeth returns holding a tray with a pitcher of sweet tea and three glasses. She sets the glasses in front of us and pours the tea.

  Seth and I fall silent. I’m embarrassed by my outburst.

  “I’d stay to chat,” MaryBeth says, “but without Eli, I’m the only one keeping an eye on things.” She hugs Antoinette before she leaves.

  When Seth speaks, his voice is filled with pity, and that hurts more than his words. “She’s just a little girl, Rose. She’s not causing anything.”

  “I’d think you of all people would believe,” I say in a stubborn last-ditch attempt to persuade him.

  “That’s not fair,” he says. “There’s a difference between faith in God and believing that Antoinette can do miracles.”

  Why? I want to ask. But I don’t say anything, and we finish our cupcakes in silence.

  THE BACK OF my legs stick to the wood bench running along the gazebo, which Seth painted purple and yellow last week. The colors are happy, but they don’t help my mood. A bucketful of strawberries sits at my feet. Antoinette is in the middle of the gazebo, stretched up on her toes, twirling.

  Seth sits beside me. He hasn’t said much since we left the Bakery Barn. I can’t blame him. I don’t know what to say either.

  My chest hurts.

  I pluck a strawberry from the bucket, pop off its stem, and bite into it. Fresh strawberries are my favorite part of June. I study Antoinette as she dances, trying to see past her awkward movements. Seth’s right—she’s just a little girl.

  “Earlier, at the Bakery Barn . . . I mean, it’s obvious Antoinette isn’t making these things happen,” I say.

  Ever since Dr. Ketters told me to institutionalize Antoinette, I’ve been looking for some great good to balance out all of the heartache. I used to imagine Antoinette listening to one of Mozart’s symphonies and then picking out the melody on the piano at Seth’s house. I’d dream of her taking my old paints and producing a perfect replica of the striped fields behind the house.

  “I just want to believe something good will happen.”

  “It already has,” he says. He nods toward Antoinette, who is waving her fingers before her eyes, giggling.

  He picks up a strawberry and turns it over before dropping it back into the pail. He and Lily used to spend hours picking strawberries. I haven’t seen him eat one since coming home.

  “Do you miss her?” I ask. I don’t want to embarrass him, so I look at my feet. My ankles are swollen, one of the perks of a damaged heart. I make a note to take a water pill when we go inside. Then I steeple my fingers and press them into my chest, trying to dispel the pressure that started building earlier at the Bakery Barn.

  “Every day,” Seth says softly.

  It’s getting hard to breathe. “You should call Lily,” I say. I haven’t talked to her in years, but I’m still her big sister. The need to watch out for her never left me.

  “Maybe someday.” Seth straightens and stretches his arms over his head.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He stares out over the hills. His hair falls over his eyes. “Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to stay away from them. She has a new life. I don’t want to disrupt it.”

  It’s dusk; the fireflies are out. We should be in the night garden. This past spring, Seth helped me fix it up. The weeds are gone and the trellis is heavy with moonflowers and climbing hydrangeas.

  Antoinette stops dancing. I hold out a strawberry. “Want it?”

  My chest squeezes again. I should go inside and lie down, but Antoinette is happy, and I love seeing her that way. I want to prolong this moment.

  She bites into the berry and red juice trickles down her chin.

  I laugh. “Between the cupcake and the strawberries, we’ll have to hose you off before we go inside.”

  When I lean forward to wipe her mouth, my chest tightens. It feels as if someone is crushing my heart. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, focusing on expanding my rib cage and filling every inch of my body with air.

  Seth touches my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  I force my eyes open, but I keep taking slow, deep breaths. The pressure builds, and I shake my head. My nitro pills are at the house.

  Antoinette comes closer. My focus narrows to the strawberry she holds. I stare so hard I can count the seeds running up its side.

  I breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

  “What can I do?” Seth asks, an edge of panic in his voice. “Your lips are blue. Should I call the paramedics?”

  I try to say Call 911, but my mouth isn’t working.

  Antoinette drops the strawberry. It rolls toward the stairs, leaving a trail of red juice.

  I need to go to the house. I try to stand, then stumble to the ground.

  Seth yells my name, but I block out everything except my daughter. I fight to keep my eyes open, wanting her face to be my last sight.

  She crouches beside me, and her long blonde hair touches the back of my hand. Her face is too serious for a five-year-old. My vision starts to fade. I open my eyes wider.

  Antoinette caresses my cheek. I remember how strong her grip was as a baby. How could I have ever wished her to be more than she is? I want to tell her that she’s perfect, but the pain has crawled into my jaw. Suddenly we’re both mute.

  Then Antoinette hums, and I feel like I’m being turned inside out. The pressure in my chest builds to a single concentrated point, and then it explodes outward. I arch my back and scream.

  Antoinette hums faster.

  I burn with pain.

  Just when I think I will bur
st, everything stops. I lie still for a moment, afraid to move. Then I feel Antoinette’s hand against my cheek.

  I open my eyes. She’s smiling at me.

  “What happened?” Seth is beside me. He tilts my face to his. “The color is back in your face. Your lips aren’t blue.”

  But I don’t speak. I’m focused on my daughter.

  I put my hand over hers. “Did you do this?”

  Antoinette gives me one more brilliant smile before her eyes roll back, and she collapses. Her arms shake, and her heels thud against the gazebo floor.

  “Oh God,” I say.”What’s happening?”

  Seth doesn’t hesitate. “We need to get her to the hospital.” He scoops her up and runs to the truck. I hurry after him, my heart beating as easily and smoothly as it did when I used to run through the fields with Lily.

  “I DID THIS to her,” I say. I lean over Antoinette’s bed in the emergency room. Seth and I stand on either side of her, keeping watch. She had a grand mal seizure. The medicine that stopped it made her fall asleep.

  “You didn’t do this,” he says. “The doctor said seizures are common in children with Antoinette’s disabilities.”

  Antoinette’s seizure lasted thirty minutes. Far too long, the ER doctor said. The longer a seizure lasts, the greater the possibility for brain damage.

  An IV snakes out of the back of her hand. The nurse had to bandage Antoinette’s arm with surgical wrap to keep her from yanking it out.

  “The flowers. The bird. And now me. Antoinette’s disability didn’t cause her seizure, healing me did.”

  Seth says, “You couldn’t have known,” and I know he believes now. Antoinette saved me.

  When we arrived, Seth told the doctors I had been having chest pain. They did an EKG, an echocardiogram, and drew blood to check for cardiac enzymes. Everything was normal. The echocardiogram—my second today—showed my ejection fraction at sixty percent.

  Better than normal.

  But at what price? I brush Antoinette’s hair from her forehead. I don’t know how, but I’m convinced she healed me and that the effort caused her seizure. Which means that I can’t ever let her do this again. A broken body I can bear, but a broken heart, well, even Antoinette can’t fix that.