Miracle

  “You promised!”

  Pop hurried out of the kitchen, hunched in a way that said his back hurt. The cramped posture made him move with apelike menace. “Out! Out! I’ll show you!”

  Amy and Maisie ran after him. Maisie made a keening sound of fear as Zack lurched into the living room and snatched his revolver from the coffee table. He entered Amy’s bedroom. She clutched the door frame behind him, ignoring Maisie’s garbled pleas to come away.

  “Leave my stuff alone! I’ll pack it myself! Don’t touch my stuff!”

  Her father waved the revolver. “You got nothin’! It’s in my house—it belongs to me. I’ll show you what the real world’s like!”

  He pointed the steel-blue pistol at a wall covered in movie posters and fired. The crisp explosions deafened Amy; their sound waves pushed terror through her skin. Maisie screamed.

  When the revolver was empty Zack slung it into a corner and began clawing the wall with his fingers. Amy wailed in despair. “No, Pop!” She tried to get in front of him, like a mother hen protecting her chicks.

  He shoved her aside. “Take this trash with you!” He grabbed at the dog-eared movie posters she’d bought for a dollar each at flea markets, recreations of classic Three Stooges ads, Mae West, the old film comedies, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby.

  Amy’s vision clouded with fury. He was violating her sanctuary, when she had asked only for a chance, for respect. She screamed at him until her throat ached, while he threw open her closet door and dumped clothes into the center of the room. Without thinking she grabbed a fly swatter from the window ledge. She brought it down on his shoulder.

  He made a bellowing sound of disbelief. Maisie shrieked from the doorway when he turned and swung one fist. It glanced off of Amy’s cheekbone, sending her sprawling across the bed. Shock obscured the pain as she stared up at her father. It was the last insult. Despite all his moods, he’d never hit her before. “I hate you! I’ve always hated you!”

  “I hate you, too! Get out of my house! Out!” Breathing heavily, he pushed her cheap stereo off its makeshift stand. Then he jerked the bedspread from under her and slung it to the floor. With one swipe of his arm he cleared her dresser onto the spread. The tiny television set bounced on the floor with an ominous cracking sound.

  Crying, Amy scrambled off the bed and hit him again with the fly swatter. The next thing she saw was his hand slapping forward with the dresser mirror poised like a Ping-Pong paddle. Then the mirror crashed upward on her chin, and she felt the sharp slice of glass. The mirror shattered and Amy’s jaw clicked together with a force that sent explosions of light through her vision.

  She staggered back and dimly heard Maisie screaming at Pop to stop before he killed her. “All right, all right,” he shouted, but there was a note of fear in it. “I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Then Maisie dragged him from the room, and the next sound Amy heard was the door slamming.

  Her legs collapsed and she sank to her knees on the floor. She stared at nothing for a few seconds, but when her head cleared she rose and numbly packed a knapsack with all it would hold. She took a towel from the bathroom, because blood was streaming down her neck. Her face throbbed all over. She sat on the windowsill and made herself breathe slowly until she stopped feeling sick to her stomach. Then she hitched the knapsack over her shoulders and climbed out the open window.

  Sebastien was cramming every bit of activity into his last two weeks at the hospital. At four A.M. he had wakened without an alarm and read medical journals in bed, with a percolator of coffee on the stark, black-lacquered nightstand and a dish of warm apple tarts on his lap.

  By five he was outside in nothing but his running shoes and blue jogging shorts, his long, purposeful strides taking him past the giant magnolias and perfect lawns of other townhouses, the most exclusive ones in surburan Atlanta. At 5:45 he stopped at the ivy-covered building that housed the complex’s spa-quality gym.

  There he allowed himself one reckless indulgence. He taped his hands, donned boxing gloves, and spent the next thirty minutes pummeling a weighted bag. It was dangerous to risk his hands, but he was careful. If medicine was his wife, then boxing was surely his mistress, and he loved both. In his teens he had won a few amateur titles, and had even talked about entering the ring as a professional, much to his father’s disgust.

  But boxing had never seriously sidetracked his dream of becoming a doctor. He was satisfied knowing he had all the right qualities to be a great boxer—the self-discipline, the ability to endure pain, the aggressive anger.

  By six-thirty he had showered, shaved, and dressed in custom-tailored gray trousers, a gray-blue golf shirt, and handmade leather loafers. After he arrived at the hospital he would trade the outfit for baggy surgical scrubs and comfortable running shoes. At 6:35 he drove past the guard at the complex’s jasmine-covered entrance, a briefcase beside him on the Ferrari’s seat.

  By seven he had parked the Ferrari in the staff lot behind the sleek granite tribute to fifties’ architecture that was Gregory University Hospital. Less than an hour later he was in an operating room on the fifth floor, preparing to assist a prominent senior physician in a cabbage—a coronary artery bypass graft, or CABG.

  It was the first of five surgeries in which he would take part during the next nine hours. In between and afterward he made his rounds, both alone and with other physicians, and attended a meeting with the head of cardiac surgery.

  He managed to visit with Tom for a few minutes, and told him tales of the ancient Breton forest, Broceliande, where King Arthur’s Merlin had been—and still was—imprisoned by enchantment. Tom was speechless with intrigue. Sebastien found himself looking forward to telling the boy more.

  Following a quick supper in the hospital cafeteria he walked in the dusky summer evening to a small auditorium in the university’s medical school complex, where he spent the next three hours attending a seminar on artificial hearts. University researchers had implanted the experimental units in several calves, and their success was a source of growing excitement among surgeons and cardiologists.

  He walked back to the hospital at midnight and checked on several patients again, particularly Tom. The boy lay sleeping, his chest rising and falling harshly, his arms tied to the bed frame, his life tied to the machines around him by umbilical cords of plastic that fed into his veins. Amy Miracle’s token lay on the stand beside his bed.

  As his last duty for the day Sebastien sat down in a small lounge reserved for physicians and, with a strong cup of coffee in one hand, began reviewing patient charts. Five minutes later he was paged to the phone. An acquaintance had asked for him downstairs, in the lobby. Amy Miracle.

  He found her standing in the shadows between the recessed lighting in one corner of the hospital’s opulent lobby. Sebastien was both worried and annoyed. He had tried to remove himself from temptation, but it had followed him. He decided to scold Amy for letting her infatuation get out of hand.

  But after he looked closer he was too puzzled to do more than study her odd appearance as he crossed the lobby. She was hiding beside a potted plant, and she didn’t step forward when she saw him. It was the middle of the night, but she was wearing her funny black sunglasses. A bright red scarf was wrapped around her head and neck, swallowing all but her eyes, nose, and mouth.

  “Can I help you?” Sebastien asked, frowning as he stopped in front of her.

  “I didn’t mean to get you out of the operatin’ room!”

  He realized how he must look in his green scrubs. “You didn’t. What’s wrong?”

  She glanced about as if afraid someone would overhear their conversation in the deserted lobby. Then she said in a soft, weary voice, “I need a doctor. I was hopin’ that you could help me.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “I’ve got money. Cash. I can pay.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “I, uhmm, I cut my chin. I just need it stitched up. I thought it would stop bleedin’ on its own, but it didn’t.”
br />   “Come. Sit down.” He took her hand. It was cold and trembling. He led her quickly to a sofa and sat down beside her. “Let me see.” She pulled back a little as he tugged the ridiculous red scarf down. A makeshift bandage as wide as his hand covered the underside of her chin. Plastered over the gauze was a clumsy shield of clear packaging tape. The gauze was so bloody that it was beginning to leak between the strips of tape. Gently he peeled the gauze away. Underneath was a deep, curving cut nearly two inches long. “Mon Dieu! Why didn’t you go to an emergency room?”

  “I don’t want to answer any questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Never mind. Will you sew it up for me? Please? Without tellin’ anybody?”

  He pressed the bandage into place again and watched her struggle not to wince. Lifting her sunglasses off with a catlike flick of his hand, he studied the ugly bruise beside her right eye. The outside corner of the eye was swollen shut. From the looks of both eyes, she’d been crying. Now she ducked her head and shielded her bruised face with one hand. “Don’t ask. Can you sew up my chin, or not?”

  “What are you afraid of? Are you in trouble with the police?”

  “No.” Obviously frightened, she leapt to her feet. “Nevermind. I’m sorry I pestered you.”

  “Stop. Calm down.” He grasped her hands and tugged. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong. I’ll try to help.”

  She wavered, looking tragic and confused. Gently but firmly he pulled until she sank onto the couch again. “My dad … hit me,” she whispered, every word filled with shame. “But I hit him first. What if somebody tells the police? I don’t want him to go to jail.” Her voice broke. “But I don’t want to go to jail, either.”

  “Oh, Miracle, that’s not what would happen.” Sebastien was silent for a moment, fighting anger and a sense of protectiveness that startled him with its intensity. “Did you hurt him, I hope?”

  “I don’t think so. I hit with with a f-fly swatter.” She laughed sharply on the last two words, the sound a little hysterical.

  “A fly swatter? That’s how you hit him first? And he did this to you, in return?”

  She nodded. “He was mad at me. He’s never hit me before.”

  “What provoked him this time?”

  “I … aw, hell. This sounds like one of my stepmother’s soap operas. I hate it. The Young and the Embarrassing.” She stared at the floor and shut her eyes, then took a deep breath. “I broke up with my boyfriend. Pop thought that was a dumb thing to do.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks I’ll be a burden to him if I don’t get married. I tried to tell him that I’d take care of myself, but he didn’t believe me.”

  “You have left home, then?”

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah.” She managed to chuckle, but fear shivered in it. “For good. I’ve got a little money saved. Tomorrow I’ll go up to Athens and get a motel room. Then I’ll look for a job. A night job. I’ll keep workin’ at the winery, too, until the harvest gets done.”

  “Where will you stay tonight? Do you have friends?”

  “Yeah. Uh huh.” When he looked at the knapsack sitting on the floor nearby then scowled at her, she crumpled and admitted, “I want to save money. I’m gonna hang out at a Waffle House all night. If I keep buyin’ coffee and pie, they’ll let me stay.”

  Sebastien stood and brusquely pulled her to her feet. “I have a guest room at my home. Why don’t you stay there tonight?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Oh? Do you fear for your reputation? Should I fear for mine?”

  “No! God, I just meant … I didn’t expect it.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “You don’t need a hick teenager around.”

  The tenderness he felt for her was a dangerous thing, and his impulsive offer already worried him. “Mademoiselle, I’ve had a long day. I’m not in the mood to play polite games. Do you wish to come home with me or not?”

  “I’m sorry. Thank you. I will. Come stay at your house, that is. God, I’m sorry—”

  “One more ‘I’m sorry,’ and I’ll sew your mouth shut.” He retrieved her knapsack and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll go upstairs and gather a few items I’ll need to care for your chin.” He tapped the knapsack. “I’ll take this with me, so I know you’ll be waiting when I come back.”

  Her shoulders slumped. She nodded. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Tell me, why did you decide not to marry your boyfriend?”

  Her chin, with its bloody, haphazard bandage, lifted, and her expression hardened. “That’s private.”

  “Ah. I probed until I found a backbone. Bon.” Nodding his approval, he walked away.

  Even in her dull, wounded state she was openly curious about his home. Her interest was a healthy sign; Sebastien encouraged it to distract her. After he cleaned and stitched her chin she took a shower and changed into a wrinkled sundress, then wandered around beside him, her good eye as unblinking as a cat’s. His bedroom and study were upstairs in the town house; below were the kitchen, two guest rooms, and a spacious living room that opened onto a small courtyard filled with pearl-gray lounge chairs and a manicured jungle of houseplants.

  She stared at the living-room’s interior walls, made of translucent glass blocks lit from inside so that they glowed. A floating staircase to the upper level dominated a corner of the room, and its streamlined metal railings gleamed in the light of white globes set on white walls. She walked among oblong tables of sleek, blond wood and unyielding chairs of spare lines.

  There were a few pieces of heavy, sculptured Depression glass, framed black-and-white posters advertising prize fights that had been fought long before Sebastien’s birth. Amy touched a beautiful sideboard of black enamel and chrome, then the tall, laminated cabinet of a vintage radiophonograph. She picked up a 1935-model telephone from the cradle of its wide pedestal base then listened carefully, as if fearful that it was only an object d’art. “Okay. I hear a dial tone,” she said.

  Sebastien realized how cold and strange his home must look to her. He found himself hurrying to justify it, something he’d never done before. “This is a style from the thirties,” he explained. “Some people call it art deco.” He smiled wryly. “But we purists call it Depression Modern. It takes simplicity to the level of art. But to many people it’s very forbidding.”

  She frowned, lost in thought. Then she brightened and said, “I know where I’ve seen this kind of place before! In a Marx brothers movie!”

  “I beg your pardon. I’ve never been called a Marx brother.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s a fascination I have trouble explaining myself. I suppose I like the style because it’s so uncomplicated and unemotional—it reminds me of a hospital.” He shrugged. “Such atmospheres are my life.”

  She shook her head. “No! I meant … I’ve seen rooms like this in lots of old movies. It makes me think of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It’s romantic.”

  “Big Band music. The swing.”

  “W. C. Fields in The Big Broadcast of 1938.”

  “Jazz and blues.”

  “Eleanor Powell and Busby Berkeley. Dagwood and Blondie.”

  He applauded. “Clark Gable. Mae West.”

  “Everything back then was so—so sophisticated, but innocent.” Her tired eyes lightened with humor. “Except … you know what?” She gestured around her. “In a lot of movies the villains lived in places like this. Real modern, real elegant.” Her voice became absurdly solemn. “Especially the wicked women.”

  “The wicked women?”

  “You know. Fast women. Gangsters’ molls! Now the good women”—she clasped her chest and pursed her mouth primly—“always lived in places with lace curtains and chintz upholstery.”

  Sebastien chuckled heartily. She was right. “Then I suppose you’re a gangster’s moll … temporarily.”

  “Nah. You be Fred, and I’ll be Ginger. Got your dancin’ shoes?”

  Sebastien r
ealized he was smiling at her. No one had ever looked beneath the facade of his home. “Come along, Ginger. I’ll show you the kitchen.”

  Once there Amy silently examined modular white cabinets and white countertops that swooped around the room. She ran her fingertips along the white Venetian blinds above a kidney-shaped metal sink. “No dust. I knew it.”

  “I have a rather compulsive maid.”

  She sniffed delicately at the herbs growing in ceramic pots along the windowsill, then studied the gleaming copper pans hanging over an elaborate gas range and grill. “You probably cook something besides hamburgers in this place.”

  “Yes. I’m a very good cook. What Frenchman isn’t? Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. In the bright overhead light he saw all the exhaustion in her body and in her pale, bruised face. “I think I’ll just go to bed.”

  When she swayed a little he took her elbow and guided her down a hallway where the unadorned cream-colored walls raised spareness to new heights. She stopped to gaze at metal-framed photographs of old cars and whimsical inventions. “Most people put up pictures of their families. You put up pictures of things. Me, I put up pictures of movie and TV stars. Strangers. I guess that’s as bad.”

  He didn’t quite know what to say to that, since she hadn’t sounded sarcastic or insulting. Did she think that he was lonely? unloved? unlovable? Before he could answer such disturbing insight his eyes caught an edge of blue under the face of the plain little wristwatch she wore. “What is that on your skin?”

  “What? Nothing. Just a birthmark.” She backed toward the door to the guest room, a coolly elegant place of white lacquered furniture and white satin bed coverings.

  “My payment, mademoiselle, for stitching that stubborn chin of yours, is to see what is tattooed on your wrist.”

  She halted, frowning, then jerked her wristwatch up an inch and stuck her arm out. “It’s a heart with the letters of my last name around it in a circle. A friend of my dad’s put it there when I was about five years old. She said it was a charm against evil. She was a fortune teller in a carnival. I didn’t ask for it, okay? I’m not a biker or anything. It’s the only tattoo I’ve got, okay? I try to keep it hidden.”