It's a Miracle!

by H. Claire Taylor

  He was the last patient in need of her miracles after a long morning shift, and she was ready to move on to something else, maybe some ice cream, a few episodes of classic David Attenborough narration, maybe a good makeout sesh with Chris.

  Once the bullets finally surfaced from the man’s open wounds (she’d never get used to the squelching pop it made), the nurses helped him sit up and began explaining to him what in God’s name, literally, had just happened to him. Jess wondered if he was a jerk. She’d promised not to bring back jerks, but it was always hard to tell once they were dead and she couldn’t have a real conversation with them. And of course everyone was always viewed as a saint immediately following their death, so talking with the patient’s family was never much use. They were all good, hard-working fathers, mothers, daughters, uncles who did the best they could until they were gunned down by a rival gang or drove their car—accidentally?—off an overpass with all their kids inside.

  Anyway, there was no telling. She’d lost count of how many people she’d brought back to life once she hopped into triple digits. And that was all within the first week. Why were so many people terrible at the simple act of not dying? She was only ever brought the untimely deaths, so perhaps that skewed her perspective slightly, but after a few repeat customers, she started to become a cynic. When she’d mentioned it to Wendy, the woman’s response had simply been, “Well, no one likes their first job.”

  Jess thought she might like it a lot more if she were getting paid, but this wasn’t that sort of a setup, Wendy had explained. “Think of it as an unpaid internship. Your reward is the knowledge that you’re helping people.” It wasn’t all that rewarding.

  “Confetti …” mumbled the man sitting on the table in front of her.

  “Huh?” asked one of the nurses. “Sir. Do you remember your name?”

  “Confetti!” he shouted more adamantly.

  Another nurse turned to Jessica. “What’s he saying?”

  Jess shrugged. “You know how they get sometimes. Anyway, I got to go.” At least she was able to end the day on a high note, knowing that perhaps one of her patients wasn’t a complete jerk.

  She washed her hands in the sink, then pulled out her phone and texted Wendy to let her know another day of her unpaid summer internship had gone off without a hitch. Then Jessica made her way out of her private room in a mostly vacant wing of the hospital, down the hall, and toward the elevator.

  “See ya tomorrow,” hollered Julian, one of the many orderlies she’d befriended during her month at Midland Memorial. She waved without looking up from her phone.

  The elevator doors were already closing in front of her when she glanced up to press the button for the ground floor and finally noticed who was standing next to her in the enclosed space. “Dr. Fractal?”

  The woman, who also had her head in her phone, glanced up and her eyes opened wide when she saw who was speaking to her. “Jessica.”

  “You know my name?”

  The doctor slipped her phone into the large pocket of her white coat and nodded as the elevator began its descent with a small jolt. “Of course. Everyone knows your name around here.”

  “Oh right.”

  “But I do also remember you from Marymoore.” She beamed. “That was quite a memorable day.”

  Jessica shuddered. “Yeah, it was.”

  The doors opened onto the lobby and both the elevator occupants stepped out. Jess paused, assuming it was time for them to part ways, since she was headed straight to the front doors, and she didn’t figure Dr. Fractal was done for the day, but before she could say her farewells, Dr. Fractal took a step closer to her, leaned in, and said, “Listen, what you’re doing here each day, it’s been really hush hush. I get that. And if you’re doing what I suspect you’re doing, I understand why it would be in the best interest of everyone working here and visiting here for it to not become public knowledge. But I have to know.” She paused and placed her arm on Jessica’s shoulder to move her out of the path of an oncoming gurney, then leaned in close again. “As the chief of obstetrics and gynecology here, I know better than anyone that once in a blue moon something happens and we lose a patient. We lost one last week. I was called into the room right after it was confirmed and saw it. Then I saw that same patient walk out of this lobby we’re standing in, right here, later that afternoon. And then an hour later, I saw you walk out of this lobby.” She paused. “Am I getting it right? Is that what you’re doing here?”

  Wendy had been clear in her directions not to tell anyone she didn’t have to about why she had a private room in a mostly empty wing of the hospital. But this was Dr. Fractal. She was solid. And she’d guessed it anyway.

  So Jess nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m doing here.”

  The doctor worried her lip, her eyebrows crowding in toward the bridge of her nose as she nodded slightly. “Good,” she said finally. “Thank you. And thank you for keeping it quiet.” She looked up and her expression cleared. “I’ll let you go enjoy your summer, then.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Jessica said.

  Dr. Fractal chuckled airily. “Yes, see you tomorrow.”

  She texted Miranda only to find that her friend was already waiting in the parking lot. It was normally Chris who picked her up from her summer internship and drove her the forty-five minutes home from Midland, but he’d called the night before to say he had something come up (he was vague on what had come up, but Jessica figured it was likely another college-related task his mother had set out for him, meaning he wasn’t actually sure what it was himself) and Miranda had been an easy choice for back up. With the hiding out and whirlwind of the past month and a half since school let out, she’d hardly been able to spend more than a few minutes with her best friend.

  Cheyenne Forte’s Corolla pulled around to the patient pick-up circle and Jess hopped in.

  “Happy birthday,” Miranda said, once Jess had shut the door. “You thought I forgot.”

  Jessica giggled. “I didn’t think you forgot.”

  “Good, because I didn’t.”

  Jessica wasn’t sorry to leave the hospital behind today. It hadn’t been an especially busy Thursday, but that didn’t mean it was slow. She’d thought about calling in sick when she’d woken up groggy and with a slight sinus headache. Of course that would’ve meant the four people she resurrected (with whom she now shared a birthday of sorts) wouldn’t have survived the day. It was that thought that got her out of bed every morning when she just as easily could’ve slept in and enjoyed her summer like most kids her age, because calling in sick was a decision to let people die, and who was she to play God, really?

  Well.

  “You know, if you’d just told Chris it was your birthday, I bet he wouldn’t have canceled on you.”

  She waved her friend off. “But it doesn’t matter, because I don’t celebrate it.”

  “But still. Don’t you think he’d like to know?”

  “Probably, but it’s not his choice. He’s only asked once and he understood why I didn’t tell him. It’s not even an exciting one. Nobody cares about seventeen.”

  Miranda wiggled slowly in her seat while she replied in a mischievous tone, “Age of consent in Texas …”

  “Consent for what?” When Miranda gave her an oh-come-on look, Jess thought harder about it. “Oh. Sex. Yeah, I guess it is. Not like I’m taking advantage of it.”

  “Really? Still not?”

  Jessica shrugged. “No. I just don’t want to yet.”

  “You don’t want to or you don’t want to with him?”

  “I don’t want to with anyone.”

  Miranda hesitated, then said, “It’s really not that bad.”

  “Yeah, probably—wait! What?” Jessica nearly gave herself whiplash with how quickly her head turned to look at her best friend, who was expertly holding back a mischievous grin. “What?!”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, what? When did this happen?” Jessica realized she was
shouting and tried to take it down a notch.

  Miranda just laughed. “Last week.”

  “Last week?!” Not that there was anything particularly special about last week, but it still seemed ludicrous anyway. “With who, Lewis? Are y’all back together?”

  Miranda fake gagged. “Ew. No, not Lewis.”

  “Wait. Quentin?!” Jessica gave up on controlling her volume. She’d been blindsided, and she felt as if she were slipping and sliding on ice, trying to get her feet back under her again.

  Miranda nodded. “Yeah, Quentin.”

  “Quentin!” Jess threw her hands into the air. “You had sex with Quentin!”

  Miranda was kind enough not to say anything else until Jess digested the new bit of information. Then finally, once her brain had stopped spinning, she was able to speak at a normal volume. “So how was it?”

  Miranda shrugged. “It was okay.”

  “Did you, you know … orgasm?”

  “Psh. Of course not. The whole thing lasted like five seconds.”

  While Jessica was no expert, that seemed a little quick. “Do you regret it?”

  Miranda glanced in the rearview mirror and narrowed her eyes at something as she replied distractedly, “Not at all. Glad I got it out of the way, actually.” She looked at Jess. “Sorry I didn’t tell you right away. I wanted to tell you in person, and this is sort of the first chance …”

  “Yeah, sorry. You know I suck at balancing my miracles with, well, with anything else.”

  “Yeah,” Miranda said airily, and when Jessica looked at her, she realized Miranda wasn’t actually paying attention. Instead, her focus had returned to her rearview mirror.

  “What is it?” Jessica asked.

  Miranda shook her head and refocused on the road. “No, nothing. Just the person behind us was … I dunno. Sorry, what were you saying?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jessica said. “I want to hear about you and Quentin. Are y’all a thing? What happens when he leaves for college? Are you gonna have sex with him again?”

  Miranda blushed and laughed, and then dove into the juicy details, most of which Jess immediately wished she hadn’t asked about.

  They were only a few miles outside of Mooretown when Miranda interrupted herself midway through a quite graphic and detailed description of the moment of penetration to say, “You know, I don’t want to sound paranoid, but this same car has followed us all the way from Midland Memorial.”

  “What?” Jess turned in her seat to look back at the car behind them.

  “Do you recognize them?” Miranda asked.

  Squinting to see through the glare from the late afternoon sun on their windshield, Jess tried to make out any defining features of the driver. “No.”

  “A reporter, maybe?”

  Jess shook her head. “None I’ve met before. And I’ve met a lot of them. Also, I don’t know any with a Mexico license plate.”

  “Could it just be a coincidence?” Miranda asked hopefully, though she didn’t sound convinced of the possibility.

  Jess knew better than to hope for coincidences in her life. “I doubt it.”

  “I mean, it’s probably nothing dangerous, right?” Miranda asked. “God keeps you pretty safe.”

  “Right. Of course.” She decided not to add that He made no promises for Jessica’s loved ones.

  The sex talk was dead in the water as a heavy silence took up most of the space inside the Corolla.

  As they passed the sign for Mooretown city limits, Miranda asked, “Should we head somewhere else? If we’re being followed, we don’t want to lead them to your house.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Where should we go then?”

  “The police station?”

  Miranda thought about it, then said, “Yeah, I guess that works.”

  They drove past the turn for Jessica’s neighborhood and turned a quarter mile further down, onto the street that led to the police station.

  The car that had followed them from the hospital didn’t turn, but kept on driving. Jessica tried to get a better look at the driver and spied a middle-aged Hispanic woman driving with a younger Hispanic male—possible her son or maybe a younger brother or, hell, a young lover—asleep in the back seat.

  “So maybe it was just a coincidence,” she muttered. “Huh.” First time for everything, she supposed. But her hackles didn’t go down.

  Miranda executed a tight U-turn and headed back toward Jessica’s house.

  Once they’d pulled into the driveway, Jessica invited Miranda inside to cool off with some of the massive cache of peanut butter cup ice cream she’d spotted in the freezer that morning. Miranda was more than willing to partake.

  But as soon as Jess stepped out of the car and closed the door, her brain, still on high alert, registered the sound of another vehicle driving down the street toward them, and she glanced up, already knowing what she’d see. “Shit. Miranda. It’s that car.”

  Miranda’s doe eyes became large saucers. “That can’t be good. Get inside.”

  Jess didn’t have to be told twice. She didn’t want to run, though—for predators, that was the wrong choice in the fight or flight response—so she began power walking toward the front door as if all the natural alarms in her body weren’t blaring.

  The front tire of the car hopped the curb a moment after the brakes screeched, and before it had even come to a complete stop, the woman jumped out from the driver’s seat and began yelling frantically in Spanish. “¡Espera! ¡No te vayas! ¡Ayúdame! ¡Ten piedad, por favor!”

  “Come on!” Miranda yelled.

  But Jessica stopped in her tracks. The woman was panicked and loud, sure, but she didn’t seem like a threat. Maybe she just needed help.

  Then a second later, the woman flung open the back door, reached in, and pulled out a limp body.

  “Jess! Come on!” Miranda yelled again.

  The woman continued to holler and plead as she strained to drag the young man’s body up the driveway toward Jessica. “¡Por favor! ¡Sólo tú puedes ayudarle! ¡Por favor, ten piedad, Yesica Crista!”

  Now that he was out of the car, Jessica realized that he was not, in fact, sleeping. Holy hell, the body was in bad shape. Jessica scrunched up her nose as she took a closer look at the thing. She felt Miranda’s hand touch her arm, but then the girl paused as she caught sight of the corpse in the begging woman’s arms. “Holy shit. What happened to him?” she said, apparently forgetting all about running.

  The woman dropped the body facedown at Jessica’s feet and started jabbering on again. “¡Tienes que ayudarle! ¡Te suplico! ¡Es mi jovencito, y no le puedo perder!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jessica breathed. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the horror of the corpse.

  “Are those all bullet holes?” Miranda asked, quietly.

  Jessica shook her head vaguely. “It’s like the bullet holes have bullet holes.”

  “Did he get shot and then drown, you think?”

  The woman leaned down and used her arms as levers to roll the young man closer toward Jessica, who had to take a step back to keep the bloated body from landing on her tennis shoes. The movement caused an overwhelming foul smell to escape the body, and Jess struggled to hold back the vomit that started creeping up her esophagus. It didn’t seem very godly to vomit on a corpse she was supposed to resurrect.

  “¡Mijo!” The woman was crying now. “¡Por favor, ayúdale!”

  “Oh,” Miranda said. “It’s her son. I remember that from Spanish class.”

  Jessica had taken three years of Spanish in junior high, too, but nothing about this situation made any more sense because of it.

  The woman lunged forward and fell onto her knees, tugging at the waist of Jessica’s shirt. “¡Por favor, Mija Divina!”

  The contact pulled Jessica from her stupor and time seemed to resume its normal speed. She nodded down at the woman. “Okay. Yeah. Si.”

  “¿Sí, me ayudarás? ¡Ay, gracias a Dios!” The woman l
et go of Jessica’s clothing and stepped back to wait for the miracle.

  This seems ill advised. She’d never brought back someone who was this bad off or had been dead for as long as this young man clearly had. But a miracle was a miracle, right?

  She crouched next to the body just as she heard the front door open behind her and turned to see Chris step out.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. She hadn’t seen his truck anywhere when they’d pulled up.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, taking in the situation quickly as he approached.

  Jessica moved to the side so he could get an eyeful of the bloated, riddled, water-logged body piled in a heap in the driveway.

  He jumped back and shielded his eyes. “Oh fucking hell!”

  “¿¡Vas a ayudarle o no?!” yelled the woman impatiently.

  Chris’s horror only intensified after hearing the Spanish. “What’d she say?”

  “I think she wants Jess’s help,” Miranda replied.

  Destinee and Rex hustled out the front door then. Destinee was the first to notice the strangers. “What the fucking shit?”

  Jess opened her mouth to explain, but clearly the desperate woman was done waiting and grabbed at Jess’s shirt again, shouting, “¡Basta! ¡Resucitale de la muerte, ya!”

  Destinee charged forward. “You lay one more hand on my baby and I’ll—”

  But Miranda stepped forward and held Destinee back with her shockingly strong softball arms. “It’s fine. She just wants help for her kid.”

  Destinee stopped struggling, but didn’t look happy about it.

  Jess swatted the woman’s hands from her shirt. “All right already. He’s not getting any deader …” She knelt down next to the body, and whether everyone had fallen silent or her mind had blocked out all the voices around her, she couldn’t be sure.

  Do I really have to touch this guy?

  There had to be two dozen bullet holes in his chest alone, and his face was blue and white, puffy in some places, skin dissolved from others.

  What the hell happened to you? She had a sneaking suspicion that he might’ve been a real jerk before he was killed. Rarely did nice people end up with this many bullets. It seemed like a waste of good ammunition unless the people who did this really hated him and added the last dozen into the mix for gratification. But it wasn’t up to her to judge. It was all conjecture anyway. And there was just no way this woman would leave if Jessica refused to give her what she wanted.