Acceptance was important—I’d learned that, too. I asked, “How did you get hurt in the first place?”
Now that he could stand, I had to look up to him. His shoulders were broad—probably from pushing that chair. When he flexed his elbow, I saw a prominent vein the length of his biceps. “I got this disease. It attacked my nerves. One day I was fine, the next my legs felt funny. Pretty soon, I couldn’t walk.”
Dave said, “There are a lot of diseases that cannot be cured. Science isn’t God.”
Brian seemed to like that logic. “For a long time, I blamed God. It was a terrible time.” The elevator stopped, and this time, Brian almost fell into me. “I’m not used to that,” he said.
“It’s okay.” I had to admit: seeing him move was both thrilling and contagious. When he walked, I thought he looked like a baby deer.
Vulnerable.
Innocent.
Dave told Brian, “Just take your time. You don’t want to wear yourself out.” He opened his suite door. “Don’t you think we should give thanks?” We walked into his room. There was a kitchenette. TV and couch. A table next to the window. In the next room, I guessed, I’d find a bathroom and a bed. Brian’s mom and Emma sat at the table. Even though it was a little cramped, we all sat down. Dave asked us join hands and close our eyes and pray together.
Holding Brian’s hand was hard enough, but there was no way I could close my eyes. Every time I did, I got a headache; I got scared. It was hard to balance. Worse, if I kept them closed long enough, I knew what would happen. I’d go back to that day. I’d see the boy named Emir. He’d step into the aisle. And then I’d see his eyes. Then the walls would come down. I couldn’t risk it. I opened my eyes.
Emma’s face was so pale, so pretty. Dave’s lips were permanently shaped into a smile. Brian squeezed my hand. There was that dimple. They all looked happy. Content. Grateful.
I wanted to feel that, too—without any resentment or fear or anger at all.
“Dear God,” Emma said, “thank you so much for bringing Janine to Brian. For giving her the strength to help and heal him. Dear God, whatever you ask, we are your servants. We will do whatever you need us to do. Let us pray silently.”
Their heads tipped back to face the sky. Even though their eyes were still closed, they looked like they saw something—something perfectly beautiful. They looked happy. They looked like they were strong.
I stared out the window. I saw people walking down the street. A store was having a sale. In the sky, I saw a cloud shaped like a horse’s head. Then a flutter caught my eye—it was a dragonfly on the balcony railing. Dave said, “This world is a miraculous place. We are all God’s grateful children.” The sun dipped behind the biggest cloud. It looked like an elephant, like a cloud I saw a long time ago.
I was four or five—a little girl with loose wavy hair and chubby, happy, unscarred hands. My dad was there, too. I saw him. He wore jeans and a loose shirt, untucked. He had big worker hands, and he leaned against the tree with his legs crossed. I almost shouted—I never had a memory come to me before—not like this—not so fast and sudden.
I didn’t move. I never wanted this memory to end.
We sat under a tree, and I was drawing. He hummed while he worked on his laptop. In my memory, he tickled me. “What do you see up there, Binky?”
I pointed to one particular cloud. “Elephant baby holds balloon.” I heard myself burst into laughter.
I never remembered my dad before the explosion. Now I could see him and hear him. I couldn’t wait to tell Lo. The moment was a perfectly nice memory. No fear. No death. Just me and my dad. I had a nickname. Binky. I wanted to get up and cheer.
As Dave continued to pray, I searched for more memories. More calm. I wanted that hope. I wanted it so bad. I looked at their faces and the clouds and a thousand what-ifs raced across my brain.
What if I did heal Abe and Brian? What if I could help other people? What if all this was real? What if Emma was right—what if miracles did happen? I looked down at my hands and stared at my scars. When people saw them, when they touched them, they always called them a sign of my strength. They looked at my scars and told me that I should thank God every day. That I should feel grateful.
Emma opened her eyes and looked at me. I waited for her to say something—to tell Dave I wasn’t closing my eyes and praying—but she didn’t. She didn’t give me away when she saw my open eyes staring back.
I mouthed, “I just remembered something.”
She smiled and nodded. Put a finger to her lips. Under the table, we reached for each other. Her hand was bony, but warm. As Dave continued to pray, I thought about the clouds. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but the way she was smiling, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a prayer.
This was our secret.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When I got home, no one was around. I opened the refrigerator door and grabbed everything that looked good. I ate an entire half-gallon of rocky road frozen yogurt. Leftover salad. Three slices of turkey on one piece of bread.
Brian walked.
The whole thing was crazy. It didn’t make sense. There was no reason why the feeling and strength in his legs returned. No reason that didn’t involve some sort of faith. And miracles.
And me.
I ran upstairs and looked at the half-finished dress. I needed something to do—something to calm myself down—but I had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t know how to make it authentic. I didn’t know how I was going to figure out what I wanted to say now that I knew my mother didn’t want me, now that it seemed my hands might have just healed two people.
She said, “You have a holy soul.”
This couldn’t be what she meant.
I was halfway through a slab of cheese and some crackers when Lo walked in the door with Abe and a whole lot of pissed-off body language. “Hey,” I said, ignoring the slamming door and hands over her chest, his disappointed posture. “Sit down. I have so much to tell you. You aren’t going to believe what happened.”
“That’s funny,” Lo said, although she wasn’t laughing. Abe limped to the kitchen table. His hair was sweaty. His face looked flushed. He looked mad, too, although neither of them was willing to say why.
“Did something happen?” The usual scenarios flashed across my mind. Another bombing. Another article. Had I healed someone else?
Lo tapped her finger on the table. “No. Nothing much.” She wouldn’t sit down. “Did you forget something? Something you were supposed to do?”
“I don’t think so.”
Lo looked at Abe. Abe looked at Lo. I shrugged my shoulders. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried not to smile, but it was tough. I was too happy. “If you’re not going to tell me, can I tell you what happened to me?” I put some water on the stove and took out three teacups. And some sugar.
“Sit down,” Lo said. She didn’t want tea. She didn’t want me to say another word. “Janine, this isn’t a game. Did you arrange for Roxanne Wheeler to come to Miriam’s protest?”
The protest. Crap. “I’m such an idiot. I completely forgot.”
Lo stomped past me and took the kettle off the stove.
“I told you she spaced,” Abe said. He shook his head. “Whatever you were doing, it had better be good, because we were all freaking out when you didn’t show up. Miriam was sure something terrible had happened to you.” Abe could be so dramatic. “The thing was a total debacle. Roxanne couldn’t believe she brought out her crew for nothing. She really does not like being stood up.”
I smirked—couldn’t help it. All things being equal, this served Roxanne (and Miriam and Samantha) right. I said to Lo, “This is not my fault. I was trying to do Miriam a favor. I thought you would be proud—I put her needs ahead of mine.”
Lo—of course—was not proud. She was furious. “Miriam had me calling all over town. Why have a cell phone if you don’t keep it on?”
“It was on.” I pulled out my phone—ju
st to prove to her that I was not as irresponsible as she thought I was—and of course, the thing needed to be charged. “Look. I’m sorry I said anything. They wouldn’t leave me alone until I called Roxanne and told her I’d be there.” I wanted to tell her about Brian. “Trust me—I didn’t mean to blow her off. I was going to go. But then I got distracted.”
“You got distracted.” Lo poured herself a drink that wasn’t tea. “And what if you hadn’t been? What were you going to do then?”
Abe said, “If I were you, I’d call Miriam right now. You should listen to your messages. And come up with a better word than ‘distracted.’ That is, if she’ll talk to you.”
I plugged in the phone. Crap. I had twelve messages. Message #1 was short: Miriam sounded excited. “Hey J. Where are you?” By Message #8, her voice was shrill. By Message #12, she sounded like she’d been crying or shouting or both: “Where were you? What happened? How could you just ditch me? The protest was a total disaster. When you didn’t show up, people left. They called me a fraud. Roxanne didn’t take a single note. No pictures either. She accused Samantha of stealing your phone and pretending to be you. She called her in over her head. And a poser.” At this point, Samantha said something not so nice about me and our friendship. “You should know Roxanne told Samantha to grow up. She told her she had better things to do than write about a bunch of spoiled, entitled kids and a stupid old tree.”
That wasn’t nice.
I called her cell, but no surprise, Miriam didn’t answer. I tried her house. Her mom told me to give her a little more time. “I’m sure you can understand. She’s very upset.”
Abe took her side. “So where were you anyway?”
I turned to Lo. “Before you start screaming at me, let me tell you, I didn’t do any of this on purpose. My plan was to go to the protest, even though I didn’t want to be in the same room as Roxanne.” I looked at my scars, and I wasn’t imagining it—they looked like they were fading. “But when I left school, I ran into Dave. He took me to his hotel. That boy in the wheelchair? He can walk. I went to see him, and it’s incredible.”
Abe looked confused. “The young guy? The one who held your hand?”
Lo picked up the empty teacup and slammed it on the counter. She told Abe to get into the car. “I’m taking you home now.” To me, she said, “You went to his hotel?” I looked at the cup. It was chipped. She said, “I’m going to try and calm down. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
I went up to my room and lay on my bed. I refused to feel guilty. I should have been honest—really, I should never have agreed to call Roxanne—but now that it was over, I didn’t feel all that bad about letting Miriam down. The truth was, she and Samantha used me. They talked about doing the right thing, but it was easy for them—no one knew who they were—their cause was so not complicated. They didn’t consider my feelings at all. They should have asked Roxanne directly instead of trying to trick her into talking to them.
I reached down under my bed and picked up the retrospective and reread the article. Then I looked at the pictures. They were not public property. This reporter got them from someone—someone who had access to my personal property—someone who knew me pretty well.
I thought about it. I considered every ex-boyfriend, every girl who’d ever looked at me the wrong way.
Dan?
No. It couldn’t be him.
The more I thought about it, the more I was sure it had to be Samantha who leaked them. She probably stole those pictures from Miriam. All this time, she didn’t want to be my friend. She was just looking for ways to make me look like a fool.
I looked at the half-finished dress hanging from my closet door. Ms. Browning said I needed to respond to my world. I think she meant that day. The day I became the Soul Survivor, the day my parents died.
Could I put what I was feeling into this dress? Could I reference my story and create something authentic?
I looked at the lines and the fabric. I picked up a swatch of extra material and rubbed it against my cheek. Then I looked at my hands. I really looked at every line and every scar and every angle. I forced myself to be completely honest.
I listened for Lo to come home, to hear her familiar stomp around the house. I waited for her to come upstairs, but she didn’t. She stayed away.
1:00 A.M. 2:00 A.M. Still no Lo. No phone message. She probably went to Sharon’s. I stared up at the skylight. It was impossible to sleep.
When it was early morning, I got up and picked up the phone and called Israel. My grandmother answered on the second ring.
“Shalom, Janine.”
Even though I almost never called, she knew who I was. Even though she knew it was still dark here, she didn’t sound surprised to hear from me. At first, I didn’t know what to say. It was awkward. She told me my grandfather wasn’t near the phone, that he was already out … working. “I put those boxes in the mail,” she said. “I hope they’ll help you get to know your mother a little better.”
“What do you remember about her?” I asked.
My grandmother probably had a hundred answers to this question. “She was always full of energy. She always wanted to be the best, no matter what she did.”
That didn’t mean much. “No,” I said. “What was she really like? What made you mad? Did she make you laugh?” I didn’t want to hear sound bites. I wanted the truth. Details. Stories. “Tell me one thing she did that no one else knows about.”
I listened to her breathing.
There were miles between us.
“Of course, she made us all those things,” my grandmother began. “She was our daughter. We loved her very much. She always had to be the center of attention.” Then she began to laugh. “Once she signed up to play piano for a talent show. But she didn’t know how to play. When I asked her what she thought she was going to do, she just shrugged. It didn’t matter.” Now she sighed. “Even when she was very young, she was determined to be famous.”
Blah. I had hoped she’d wanted more. But when I thought about it, I couldn’t say I didn’t want to be successful, too. It was natural. We all wanted to do things that would leave a legacy—to be remembered for. No one dreamed of leaving this world in total anonymity. The problem for me: anonymity wasn’t possible. Publicity was a hassle, and it wasn’t even reliable. The picture they’d drawn of me wasn’t right. I didn’t want to be the Soul Survivor. I wanted to do something. I wanted to be known for something other than that day.
I didn’t want anything that came out of that day.
My grandmother said, “I’m sure you know that we didn’t always understand or agree with her, but we were always proud of her accomplishments—especially when she decided to return.”
That was so sad and ironic. “Do you think she knew that?”
“Yes. In my heart, I know she did.” My grandmother said she believed that, even though she also accepted that she would never really be sure. “We were devastated when she died. We wish we could have had even one more chance to see her, one chance to make things right. That’s one reason we want you to visit. And why we gave you the hamsa.”
After we hung up, I could finally sleep.
I didn’t dream. When I woke up, I didn’t even peek in Lo’s room. I didn’t want to tell her I called Israel. I didn’t put on the hamsa. The only thing I wanted to do was get to Bethlehem. Forget school. I called a cab. When I told him where I wanted to go, he stepped on the gas a little too hard. “Aren’t you that girl, the one they were talking about on TV?”
I wished I could drive. Or had sunglasses. Or had changed my hair. I considered telling him to pull over and let me out. But I needed to see Dave. I tried not to sound like nails on a chalkboard. “Yes I am. And I’ll say a prayer for you if you don’t tell anyone. Just take me to the Hotel B. As fast as possible.”
The rest of the trip, he didn’t say another word. I tried not to think too much about what I was doing. I knew I had to see Dave and Brian and Emma, but I had no clue how all th
is fit together.
There was something I was missing. I was sure of it.
Lo would probably be angry, but Dave wouldn’t. He would say, “You have to trust your gut.” And then he’d clasp his hands together and thank the Lord. “This is the meaning of faith.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
When she opened the door to Dave’s suite, Emma said, “I knew it was you.”
I said, “You look great.” I meant it. Her hair was blown out loose, and it framed her face. For the first time, she looked older. Her makeup was impressive, too. Her eyes totally popped. Good girl—she’d kept her lips a shiny neutral.
From the door, I saw at least five other people. Three at the round table—now moved back to this side of the room; two more at a low coffee table. Classical music played in the background.
Emma could tell I was hesitating. “Come in. Don’t worry. Nobody here is going to mob you. We have too much to do.”
A man in the corner said, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”
“Matthew,” Emma said. When I looked confused, she shrugged. “From the Bible.” She told me that the man had just found out that he had more time to live than the doctors had originally given him. “It’s a very liberating thing,” she said. “To have no more doubts. He feels the power of God. He prayed for these results for a very long time.”
I had doubts. The man should be thanking his doctor.
And yet, I wanted to know how you could trust in something that you couldn’t see. So I walked over the threshold into the room. I reminded myself there was something here I needed. I had to find it.
No buts.
I met a guy whose daughter was shot in a school and a woman with four kids with AIDS. Both of them were stuffing envelopes—invitations to hear Dave speak. An older man sat down next to me and showed me a flyer he was making on the computer. He told me that, three years ago, he had dedicated his life to Dave’s mission and he’d never regretted it. “When my strength was gone, God gave me strength.” He said that my story helped him find a reason to get up in the morning. “Listening to Dave makes me want to be a better person.”
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