by Edie Ramer
Gabe kept his mouth shut. How could he pick out one thing? To him she was interesting when she scratched Happy behind her floppy ear. When she was nervous of the camera. And when she was naked. Then she was very interesting.
“She loves what she does,” Heidi said. “That’s always interesting.”
“You’re right.” Don slid his hand on the back of Heidi’s neck.
“I’m always right.” She and Don laughed, sharing a meaningful look before she turned back to Gabe. “Maybe pies aren’t the most important things. Not like building a hospital or catching murderers, but she has a passion for it. That’s why I liked watching her. Her passion and love shines through everything she says. You should do more of that.”
Looking at them, the two of them in perfect harmony, he knew. His mojo. It was here, right in front of him. Not the whole picture, but a little piece of it.
Telling Heidi and Don to wait, he headed for his camera. There was no sound man around, but he set up the boom himself, telling them to sit on the couch. He checked the sound and the lighting. Made adjustments. Finally he was ready.
“What do you think is love?” he asked.
Chapter Twenty
“I live on a farm, not in a barn,” Trish’s mother’s stern voice scraped into the kitchen with the gleaming white appliances and the black and white squared vinyl floor that Katie remembered from her childhood, as spotless as ever.
Watching Trish put tea bags in two mugs filled with microwaved water, Katie winced and wished she could bake a pie that would cure Mrs. Brauer’s OCD. But though her pies made people feel as if the world wasn’t a bad place, they didn’t cure diseases or meanness.
The TV went on. Katie peered into the living room to see Mrs. Brauer glare at Trish’s two boys then head to her bedroom. Katie grimaced and turned back to her friend. Trish was a good six inches shorter than her and she used to be a wisp of a girl. She still had stick-figure arms and legs, but her belly stuck out like she’d swallowed a small blimp.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked.
“Nothing.” Trish handed Katie a mug. They both stood by the fake wood counter. “I’m six and a half months pregnant.”
“How many?”
“You can tell?”
“It was either that or you ate a baby whale.” Katie forced herself to keep her eyes on Trish’s face instead of her belly.
Trish’s mouth turned down. “Quads.”
“Four.” Katie put her mug on the counter to keep from dropping it. Holy coconut pie! Katie couldn’t imagine having six dogs in her house much less six kids.
“And we didn’t use any drugs,” Trish said.
Katie stepped back. “I never thought you did.”
Trish rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe how many times people asked me that in California. I used to think I should wear a big sign when I went to the market, like on organic chicken packages, saying it was all natural, no additives, no fillers. Free range.” She smiled crookedly. “It wasn’t even supposed to happen. We were using birth control.”
“Whatever happens, I’ve got your back.”
“Good thing you’ve got my back, because my stomach’s already covered.” She patted the top of her belly. “I feel like I’m carrying a Boy Scout Troop.”
They both laughed, but it sounded hollow. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Katie asked.
“I felt so...” Trish frowned and shook her head. With dark circles under her eyes, she looked haunted. “Things weren’t going well. Gunner was laid off. He tried to find a job, but there weren’t any. His work insurance ran out. We had to pay it ourselves—so much can go wrong with quads. But our money was running out.” Her lips curved down. “So was our pride. We packed up and drove back to Miracle.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Katie felt her own mouth and eyes sag into a sad face. That wouldn’t help Trish’s morale, and she grabbed the box she’d set on the counter when she entered the kitchen. “For you.”
Trish smiled crookedly again. “Let me guess. Animal, vegetable, mineral or pie?”
“Mineral.”
“Liar.” Trish was opening the box already, bending over to see the flaps better, her fingers busy. “I’m probably not supposed to eat this, but I will anyway. What do you call the pie?”
“A Welcome Home Pie. It might be a little frozen still. I took it out of the freezer this morning.”
Trish stopped pulling the pie out of the box and stared at her. “When did you make it?”
“Two weeks and two days ago.”
“That’s when we decided to come home. You’re spooky.”
“Am I? Then maybe you want to give me back my spooky pie.”
“No way, José.” Trish turned back to the box and drew the pie out. It was a two crust, and she turned to Katie with her eyebrows up. “What is it?”
“Pumpkin apple pie.” Katie made a face. “That’s why I didn’t think it was for you. I know your favorite is French silk.”
“My favorite used to be French silk. It changed. Now it’s apples and pumpkins. You know what you are? A pie psychic?”
“I guess that’s better than being a pie whisperer.”
“I think you’re that, too.”
“This pie psychic says that before you serve it, you should probably put it in the oven for about ten minutes on 300 degrees.”
“Or I could put it in the microwave for one minute.”
Running footsteps came from the living room, and at the same time a car door slammed outside.
“What do you got, Mom?” The two boys both resembled their sturdy, brown-haired dad. The six-year-old was only a couple inches taller than his brother, but the four-year-old still had the toddler freshness on his face.
“Nothing.” Trish turned to stand in front of the pie.
The boys separated, like water in a river splitting to go around a large boulder. “Pie!” they shouted at the same time.
From deeper in the house, a door slammed and Trish winced. Then the back door opened and Gunner walked in, took one look at Katie and grinned.
“Hey, girl,” he said. “You look the same. I think you have flour on your top.”
“Welcome home,” Katie said. “And thank you for pointing out my poor grooming.”
“Dad! We’ve got pie,” the oldest boy said. “I don’t know what kind it is.”
“Doesn’t matter. If Katie made it, it’s delicious.” Gunner raised his brows. “You got a man yet?”
“After knowing you? Who could compete?”
Trish laughed and the boys giggled. Gunner stilled, looking at them. His face...it seemed to Katie that it filled with hurt and love and sorrow and more love. He put his hand on Trish’s belly.
“C’mon, boys.” He gestured to them, and the boys stopped reaching for the pie and stepped in front of Trish. They placed their smaller hands on Trish’s belly, one on each side of their dad’s. Staring from him to their mother.
“We’re going to make it,” he said.
“We’re going to make it,” the boys said loudly, the youngest shouting.
Trish spread her hands over theirs, connecting all four of them. “We’re going to make it,” she whispered. “All eight of us.”
Tears warmed Katie’s eyes, and her throat ached. She felt like an intruder. She took a step back, and Trish smiled at her, lifting her hand. “Let’s have pie,” she said.
They insisted Katie have pie, too. There were only four chairs, and she and Gunner fought over who would stand. Gunner won, and when Trish cut the pie the boys stared at the pieces, as if they hadn’t had a treat in a while.
It occurred to Katie that maybe they hadn’t. Not if things were so bad. The stupid ache returned to her throat, and she sat. Even if she could talk without sobbing, she couldn’t think of anything to say that would make things better.
“I got a job,” Gunner said.
“Good.” Trish’s mother appeared in the entryway from the formal living room without any warning, and Katie
jerked back, having forgotten that freaky trick of Mrs. Brauer’s. “That means you’ll be able to leave soon.”
The boys stared at their grandmother, their faces showing their shock and fear.
Trish set her fork down, her face paling two shades.
Gunner’s face turned red.
Katie stood, a pulse in her neck throbbing. “They can leave right now,” she said, hearing the winter coldness in her voice, a reflection of the iciness in her heart. She glanced around the table at her friend and her family, their faces shocked, and her heart warmed with love for them. “You’re coming to my place.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Heidi had to comb her hair before allowing herself to be filmed. She came back with her lips a bronze color, complaining that she didn’t have any other makeup on, and at least he should’ve warned her.
Don called her a diva. She punched his arm, and he decided he needed to comb his hair. She called after him, “Who’s the diva now?”
Gabe double-checked to make sure the lighting was flattering. If it wasn’t, his mom would complain for the next forty years.
Finally they sat on the turquoise couch. He played the off-screen moderator again, repeating, “What do you think love is?”
Heidi looked at Don. “I’ll answer first.” He nodded, and she turned to Gabe, leaning forward slightly to look straight at the camera, though it wasn’t necessary. “Love is action.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means being there for the other person.” Her gaze flickered to him. “It means sitting at the bedside of your dying child and praying and loving. And when you’re there for him...” Tears gathered in her eyes and she pressed her lips together. After a second, she inhaled and continued, “When that happens, all the other little things that used to bother you so much...none of it matters. Only this boy matters.” She pointed at him, and the tear swelled over her lower eyelid and slid downward. “And when a miracle happens, when he gets better...” She stopped to swallow, then gave him a trembling, watery smile.
“Do you want to break?” Gabe asked.
She shook her head and looked at the camera again. In a whisper, she said, “That’s everything.”
Don leaned sideways, out of camera range, but Gabe didn’t follow him. He kept the focus on Heidi as she smiled at him with her glistening eyes and her trembling mouth.
Then Don was back, handing Heidi a handful of tissues. While she patted her cheeks and blew her nose, Gabe shifted the camera focus to him.
“What’s love to you, Don?”
“That’s easy. Love is your mom and your sisters and you. You all mean everything to me.” His voice lowered. “I’m one of the lucky ones that enjoy what I do for a living. But that’s not my happiness or my life. They are.” He paused, frown lines creasing his forehead. As if he made up his mind, he craned his head toward the camera. “I never told you this, but I come from a family that was very strict. They rarely hugged. My mom was depressed and on medication. My dad was in sales, traveling most of the time. When he was home, he would spend most of the time with his buddies.”
Heidi rubbed his shoulder. “You’re a great dad and husband.”
“I didn’t want to be like him.” He spoke to Heidi now. “I didn’t want to be like either of them.”
“You’re nothing like them. Nothing.”
They clasped each other and held on tight, as if they were holding onto life itself, their eyes closed tight.
Gabe waited a few seconds, then turned off the camera and set down the boom. Only then did he sit back in his chair, stunned. And something more. Uplifted.
This is it. This is what I need to do.
Show the heart of people. The best of them...and sometimes the worst of them.
He didn’t know what or how...
But where... His heart thumped. He knew the place, though dammit, it was a place he’d sworn to never return. A place where emotions were raw and tears sometimes flowed like blood.
Chapter Twenty-two
Tears stuck in her throat, Katie trudged home down the country road. It was sunny out, warm for late September—the weather changing wildly every few days—but in her heart it was dark and cold.
This wasn’t supposed to happen in Miracle.
She didn’t cry. Tears didn’t come easily to her. She suspected she’d held back tears too much when she was young because she didn’t know what her mother would do. And then she was in this new place where people loved her. Afraid to cry here. They might think she didn’t appreciate them, and maybe they would get mad at her.
When she realized it wasn’t going to happen, that they loved her even when she made noise or dropped something by mistake, and when her dad and grandmother didn’t expect her to stay in a corner and not make too much noise and not bother them, then she had no need to cry.
That was a long time ago. Of course sad things had happened since then. Her grandmother’s death. Katie had cried then. She missed her. And just this last year, a lot of sad things had happened. Not just to her, but to everyone.
Or was it always happening, and she was finally at the age to notice?
She was kicking a small rock in the road when a bark brought her head up and she spied a tall man in black jeans and a navy T-shirt striding her way. An unleashed English Setter raced toward her. Katie’s spirits, as low as the cut corn on the side of the road, lifted as she held her arms out to the Setter with its mouth open in a big smile.
“Tuck.” She crouched down.
Forty-five pounds of dog raced into her. Laughing, she fell back onto her butt, hugging the dog’s neck. Tuck licked her chin as she grinned up at her father who gazed down at them indulgently.
She kissed Tuck’s nose, then scrambled to her feet. As she brushed dirt off her backside, her lightheartedness melted away. Her dad was holding a square pan. He wore sunglasses, and the sides of his face creased in a smile.
“I guess you saw Trish and Gunner already,” he said.
“Dad, it was awful.” A big ball of hurt in her throat made it hard to talk, and she swallowed. “Trish is going to have quadruplets, Gunner lost his job, and now Mrs. Brauer says they can’t stay at her place anymore. I offered my house, but Trish said no. They’re going to see if there’s someplace they can rent.”
“You only have two bedrooms,” Sam said.
“I could sleep at your place.”
“You could. But with quads, they’ll need more rooms soon.”
“I know.” She frowned, thinking what Trish said about quads coming early and all the problems she might have. “They kept their insurance. I think it costs a lot.”
“At least Gunner has a job now.”
“You heard?” She rolled her eyes, not at him but at herself. Of course he heard. This was Miracle, the place where gossip made an Indy 500 race look slow. “Never mind. I doubt Earl will pay for their insurance. It’s going to be a while before they can afford a home.” She shook her head. “What’s wrong with Mrs. Brauer? I know it’s a full house, but why doesn’t she have Trish’s brothers go somewhere else until Trish and Gunner find a home?”
“She probably has her reasons. Tim takes care of the farm.”
“Ben doesn’t. And he must make decent money as a paramedic.”
“It will work out.” Sam gestured with the square pan, and Katie squinted at it.
“That’s your brownies, isn’t it? You’re not bringing that over to Mrs. Brauer’s.”
“I am.”
Putting both hands on her hips, she narrowed her eyes. “It’s got weed in it, doesn’t it?” The fact that her dad grew weed for his recreation and a bit extra for anyone who needed medicinal help was probably the best kept secret in Miracle. “Mrs. Brauer is going to have a fit.”
“No, she won’t.” He lifted his sunglasses, and his eyes didn’t have their usual smile. “Honey, it’s for her. She asked me to bring it.”
She jerked back. “Is she sick?”
“Terminal.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that’s the word.”
“Cancer?”
“Colon. She’s not going in for chemo. Far as I know, she hasn’t told anyone but me.”
Tears burned Katie’s eyes. “The miracle that was prophesied, maybe it will be for her, and she’ll live.”
He shrugged. “You have to hope for a miracle to get one. Mrs. Brauer doesn’t hope for anything.”
“Except something to ease the pain.” Katie nodded at the brownies. “So that’s why she needs Tim and Ben. Ben will take care of her at the end.”
“I expect so. Trish and Gunner will work something out.”
“How?” Katie heard the way her voice shook. Her dad was so smart and so calm. When she first met him and in his deep, resonating voice, he told her she was his child, she thought he was God. But it was more than his voice; it was the calm inside him, the sureness, as if he saw everything—the good and the bad—and didn’t judge.
That outlook made her want to do better. She thought it made everyone who spent time with him want to do better. Maybe that was why the news about his illicit crop never made it out of the village. Besides, everyone in the village knew someone who used it to help them through a bad stretch.
“How?” she repeated. “How will Trish and Gunner manage?”
His eyes seemed to bleed sadness. “I don’t know, honey.”
“Neither do I. But she’s my best friend, and I have to do something.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The car seemed to drive itself to the hospital. Gabe parked in front of it, across the street, and stared, ignoring the No Parking sign. Gabe had thought he remembered the hospital, but in his mind it was cleaner and more solid. Now it looked browner and shabbier. As if he remembered a strong young man and now he was looking at a shuffling old man.
The dead feeling he’d had for so long seeped back. He put the car in gear to leave when a bus pulled up a short way ahead of him. In the side view mirror he could see traffic coming. Relaxing, his hands still on the steering wheel, he watched the passengers step onto the sidewalk. First a heavy woman wearing sneakers. Her purposeful stride in her sensible shoes as she headed to the crosswalk in front of him made him think she was a nurse. A couple seconds later a thin older man with a cane hobbled off the bus. Behind him came a boy with a cap and a woman whom Gabe guessed was his mother.
