Aunt Casey squatted down next to me. “Yes. Yes, I see that.” She placed her hand on my arm. “Miracle.”
I let her keep it there.
“But then how did she know?” Aunt Casey turned her face to Dr. DeAngelis. “If we didn’t tell her, how did she know?”
“But you did, all of you did.” Dr. DeAngelis flipped through his notes as if the words he was saying were in them somewhere. “She could read the truth in your actions, your gestures, your words, even the words that were left out. Her mind simply filled in the blanks.”
Dr. DeAngelis let me go. He wanted to give me time to think, to remember. He said the two of us would work together for a while, work through the memories, fill in the rest of the gaps. He had patted my shoulder, said I’d done an excellent job. He was proud of me. I had gone through the first tunnel. Before I left the room he handed me a notebook. The pages were blank. He said I was going to write my life’s story in it. He said he had more if I needed it. He wanted me to write down everything I could remember, everything important to me. He said he’d help me work through some of the issues my writings brought out. Then he said I could go. I needed time to think.
I left Dr. DeAngelis’s room, and Aunt Casey came with me. We walked down the hall together and then, before we reached the end where it opened out into the dayroom, she grabbed my arm. “Wait, Miracle,” she said. “I need to tell you—I want to tell you how it was for me.” She glanced toward the dayroom, then turned back to me. “See, Gigi was right. That day when we were fighting over you in the wheelchair, she said I didn’t care about you. She said I was just feeling guilty, that it was all my fault. I was—I do feel guilty. Sissy was my responsibility. I gave her no other choice but to do what she did. When she died I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t accept what had happened, that it had anything to do with me. I used to come over to your house for’séances, remember?”
My body shivered. I turned away from Aunt Casey but she drew closer, hemming me in, forcing my back against the wall.
“I needed to talk to Sissy. I needed to know it was all right, that she was okay, you know? I mean, I never believed in that psychic stuff before, but I just thought maybe, if she could just tell me . . .”
Aunt Casey sighed and took my hand. She studied it, and I studied her face. She was biting down on her lower lip and blinking several times, quick little flutters. I thought she would cry.
She shook her head and squeezed my hand. “Your hands are just like hers, and your body—just like hers, another dancer. I knew it. By the time you were three years old, I could tell you had her body. I knew you’d be a dancer.” She looked at me. “I couldn’t stand it, all that guilt. Every time I saw you I felt such guilt. It was like a punishment to come for a visit, but I couldn’t stay away.” Aunt Casey sniffed. “I guess Dr. DeAngelis would say I needed to punish myself, so I hung around. You were my punishment. See, that’s how I always saw it, you were always there to remind me of what happened to Sissy.”
I didn’t want to hear any more. It was too much—too much. I tried to break free of Aunt Casey, holding the notebook Dr. DeAngelis had given me up to my face.
Aunt Casey grabbed my arms and pulled them down. “No, Miracle, it’s not like that now. See? It’s not like that. All that guilt—I see now. I know now. You’re not my punishment, you’re my opportunity. See?”
“Let me go,” I said.
“You’re Sissy’s child—her beautiful child. I have a chance to do it right. I want to, Miracle. I want to make it up to you. I want you in my life.”
“Well I don’t want you!” I shouted, pushing her away from me. I ran away, to my room. I shut the door and leaned against it, panting and staring down at the notebook in my hand. I opened it. So many blank pages, like silence, like the dark, so many pages to fill to keep the evil away. I closed the book, closed it on my thoughts and memories and stashed it under my pillow. I left the room and went to watch television.
Chapter 28
I DIDN’T THINK ABOUT anything all day. I watched the television, ate my meals, participated in group, fought with Leah, who gave me another warning, played Ping-Pong with Deborah because Rodger was on restriction and couldn’t cross over the red tape, and I read my poems.
That night, though, after lights-out, I couldn’t push down the memories any longer. I stared out at the shadows from beneath my blankets and heard Aunt Casey’s voice speaking in my head: “It wasn’t an accident—she didn’t want the baby—she loved to dance—Sissy was a dancer—you have her hands, her body.”
Sissy, my mother, was a dancer. An old memory flashed through my mind. I saw Gigi’s stricken face the day of the tornado when I had danced for her. I realized she didn’t want me to dance because she was afraid I would end up like Sissy, but she couldn’t stop me; I did end up like her. It was just as Dr. DeAngelis had said, the very thing they tried to keep secret was the very thing I had acted out. But I was still alive; I wasn’t Mama. Aunt Casey needed to know that. I needed to tell her, I wasn’t Mama. She was a dancer, a ballet dancer. I liked modern dance better. Yes, I liked that, knowing I liked modern dance better. “I like modern dance better.” I said it over and over until Deborah told me to hush. Then a new idea came to me. It slipped out from where it had been hiding, my own idea, an exciting idea. I wanted to make up dances, become a real choreographer. I wasn’t Sissy at all. I reached down beneath my blankets to my legs. The scars didn’t feel so hot to the touch anymore. I smiled to myself, pleased with my dream. Me, Miracle McCloy, a choreographer. No, I didn’t need Sissy, or anybody. I didn’t need Aunt Casey. I had my dances, and that’s all I needed.
The days passed and Dr. DeAngelis and I went over and over the story about Mama’s death the same way Gigi used to do, only we told the truth, and Dr. DeAngelis made me think about the baby in the story—me, what it was like for her. What did it feel like to be her? How did it feel? How did it feel? Every question Dr. DeAngelis asked was how did it feel, or how did I feel, and how do I feel now?
I didn’t know I had so many feelings. I didn’t know there were so many words to describe all of them.
Aunt Casey came to most of my sessions. I told her she didn’t need to come to any of them, but she came anyway. She said she wasn’t going to give up. She said we belonged together. Wherever I sat in Dr. DeAngelis’s room, she pulled up a chair next to me and held my hand.
When Dr. DeAngelis had me tell her my feelings, what it was like living with her and Uncle Toole, I did. I told her exactly what it was like, but she didn’t leave when I told her. She didn’t leave when I cried. She just squeezed my hand and cried, too.
In every session, Dr. DeAngelis asked me if I had started writing in my notebook yet, and each time I told him that I hadn’t.
What was holding me back, he wanted to know. What was still there waiting for me to face? Why was it safer for me to bury what I knew, tell myself I didn’t know? I could face it, he told me. I was stronger now. I could face the truth, all of it.
What about Dane? Did I remember Dane? What happened to Dane? Dr. DeAngelis wanted to know. Every session he asked me. I told him what I remembered. I told him Dane melted.
He said, “That’s impossible, Miracle. I know you know that.”
“No, I don’t know it. He melted, that’s all I know,” I said, hugging myself in my purple and thinking suddenly of Gigi. Where was she? I needed to see her. I needed to get away from Dr. DeAngelis and Aunt Casey and all their questions, all their words. I had something I needed to say to Gigi, only I didn’t know what. I thought if I saw her it would come to me.
Then I had a dream about Gigi. She told me to follow her, beckoning to me with her purple fingers. She led me to an empty room with no windows. We stepped inside and the door closed behind us and disappeared. We stood in total darkness. I couldn’t see Gigi or her purple fingers; everything was black. I stood there a long time waiting for Gigi to tell me what to do next, but she never did. I wanted to reach out and feel for her,
make sure she was still there. I wanted to say something to her so that she would answer me back, only I was afraid if I reached out, if I spoke, I would discover she wasn’t there anymore, so I just stood in the dark, waiting.
That dream stayed with me all through the next day. Dr. DeAngelis brought up Dane again during our session, and I asked for Gigi. Where was she? I needed to see her.
Dr. DeAngelis ignored my questions and asked me again, “Where is Dane?”
“I told you,” I said. “He melted,”
Dr. DeAngelis slammed his fist on his desk, startling me. He liked doing that. He’d startle me, get me angry, confuse me, so I’d say things I didn’t want to say.
“Miracle, you’re fourteen. You know the difference between fact and fantasy. You know what’s real and what isn’t.”
“I don’t,” I said, my voice rising, my hands in fists.
“Miracle, you know!” He pounded the desk again.
“No, I don’t know! Stop telling me I know!”
“But you do know!”
“How should I know what’s real? Ouija boards? Séances? Tell me, I want to know! What’s real? Love potions, wig heads, secret dance lessons? Black holes? Melting? Which ones are real? Miracles? Are miracles real? Tell me, Dr. DeAngelis, are you real? How do you know? How do you know? Did you ever set yourself on fire to see if you were real?”
I stopped. Dr. DeAngelis was nodding. I shoved back in my chair and turned away to stare at the wall.
“Is that what happened, Miracle? Tell me about that day. Tell me about the day your legs caught on fire.”
I turned my head and glared at him. “I don’t remember. Stop asking what I don’t remember.”
“You’re doing well, Miracle. It’s safe here.” Dr. DeAngelis’s voice was soft. “You can remember. I’m here. It’ll be all right. Your aunt said there were bottles with candles stuck in them. She said they belonged to Dane. Is that right?”
“No! That’s wrong. They were my candle bottles. I earned them.”
“Your aunt said . . .”
I jumped up from my chair. “Stop telling me what she said! Listen to what I’m saying. Stop pushing me. I don’t want to go there. Where’s Gigi? I want to see her.”
“All right, Miracle. I’m listening. You’re doing well. You’ve done an excellent job today.”
Dr. DeAngelis said that every time I expressed my angry feelings. He said my outbursts were good for me, but all I knew was that they left me rattled and confused.
I spent the rest of the day in the TV room and nobody got after me about it. Then the next day, Gigi came to see me. She didn’t come into the yellow unit. She waited for me outside and had Kyla come get me. She said she didn’t want to see “that Dr. DeAngelis man.” She said it the same way I always said “Mr. Eugene Wadell,” as if the words had a bitter taste to them. I wondered if words had flavors the same way we have auras, and the way colors and numbers have meanings. I asked Gigi and she said, “Of course they do.” She had been waiting for me out under the pine trees near the picnic tables in her green robe—green, for ceremonies concerning transcendent knowledge. She began walking and I walked with her, pleased to be seeing her, to be talking the way we used to talk. And Gigi seemed happy that I had given her something to talk about.
“Words come from the belly and up through the mouth,” she said. “So of course they have flavors—sweet, bitter, salty, sour. Different combinations of words create different flavors. And people can become ill if they use too much of the same flavor.” Gigi was leading me out toward the parking lot. I could see her van. It looked different somehow, but I couldn’t figure out why until we got a little closer; she had painted the bumpers gold.
“Word flavor is a whole big study,” she said. “Some people claim you can cure cancer in a person just by getting them to speak and think the right combination of word flavors.”
We had reached the van and Gigi was digging into the pocket of her robe for her keys. “Now, here we are,” she said. She was breathing hard as if we had run to the van, and her hands were fumbling with the keys so much she dropped them. I picked them up for her.
“Are you leaving already?” I asked.
Gigi unlocked the passenger’s door and opened it for me. “We both are. They said you could spend the day with me. Isn’t that nice? I see you’re still wearing your purple. It’s working, too, your aura is a nice lavender shade.” Gigi said all this in a rush, hurrying around to her side of the van and dropping the keys again before unlocking her door and climbing in.
I hadn’t kept track of my points. I never expected to go “off grounds” with anyone. I got in the van smiling.
Gigi huffed into her seat, slammed the car door, and said, “Now then, we’re off, huh?”
She started the car and zoomed back out of her parking space, slamming on the brake just before smashing into the front end of the Jaguar parked behind us. She hung her head over the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and then eased her foot off the brake. We rolled out of the lot and down the road, away from the yellow unit, the blue unit, and the hospital.
Gigi pulled out onto the highway headed north, took another deep breath, and switched on the tape already in the player. It was flute and harp music with birds and chimes in the background—one of Gigi’s subliminal tapes for losing weight.
“Where are we going?” I asked, knowing that Aunt Casey’s home was south, and Atlanta was west, knowing that Tennessee was north.
Gigi didn’t answer. She pretended to meditate on the tape. I sat back in my seat and stared out my window, watching the people in the cars watching us. We were the freak show, our purple van with the stars and the moon and the crystal balls. I thought about the saying on the back of the van, OPEN YOUR MIND AND TRAVEL BEYOND THE UNIVERSE. Beyond the universe, that was Gigi’s world—and mine. She had taken me there, taught me all the rules—about numbers and colors and incense, about contacting the dead—the same way she would teach me about word flavors and healing. That’s what she was talking about in the van on our way to Tennessee. She lowered the sound on the tape and said, “I’ve got the healing powers now, Miracle. When we were in Greece I saw a channeler and she took me back through all my past lives and, do you know, I was a healer in all my past lives? I was even Asklepios. That’s why I received all those healing dreams.”
Yes, that’s what I wanted to hear. “Tell me, Gigi,” I said, sinking into my seat, preparing to hear her story.
Gigi turned off her weight loss tape and pressed down on the accelerator.
“I can cure you,” she said. “How ’bout it? You’ll be my first cure. My miracle cure! You’ll be in all the papers. Everyone will come to see. Once people hear how I made all your burns just melt away, and your legs . . .”
My burns melt! No! I didn’t want to hear that. I sat up in my seat. Something hard like a tooth had clamped down on my stomach. I could hear Juleen Presque’s voice saying, “People see what they want to see, and don’t see what they don’t want to see. It’s all illusions and magic tricks.”
“No, I believe it. I believe!” I said, breaking into Gigi’s words.
Gigi glanced at me, startled. “Of course you do, baby. What’s not to believe? We’ll put you on the special healing bed. Oh, and I have the perfect spell for you. And you’ll go to sleep and dream the healing dream.”
Gigi held her right arm up in front of her, her palm open as if she held the healing dream in her hand, as if she were offering it to me right there. All I had to do was reach out and take it and everything would be all right again. Everything would be the way it used to be. Isn’t that what I wanted? I thought I did. I thought I could get back with Gigi and we could go on as before, talking about auras and contacting the dead. I thought I wouldn’t mind going to Tennessee with her. I could forget about Dr. DeAngelis and all his questions: “How do you feel about that? What does it mean to feel nothing? What happened to your mother? Where’s Dane?”
I looked over at Gigi?
??s right hand still held open for me. I wanted to reach out and take it, I wanted to believe in her, but as in the dream I had had two nights before, I couldn’t, and I awoke now with a sudden flash of understanding, a knowing that part of me had stopped believing in her the day Juleen Presque had come to see me. Juleen Presque had called Gigi a phony. I remembered that. I remembered! And I remembered I was determined to prove Juleen wrong. I would show her, and the wig heads, and everyone else. Yes, I remembered. I remembered!
I had taken out the candle bottles and lit them and had stood among them waiting to melt. I wanted to prove to everyone that Gigi’s world was real, that I was real. Then came that moment, the moment I had chosen to forget until then, riding in the van with Gigi as she held her world back out to me. It was the moment after the robe had caught fire and the flames seared my skin. I felt an instant of the cruelest pain, and in that instant, I saw the truth: Gigi was a phony, and Dane didn’t melt. Dane didn’t melt! He didn’t melt!
I turned to Gigi that day in the van and said to her, “I believed you!”
Gigi’s arm came down, her hand folded over the crystal dangling from the rope around her neck. “Believed me? Well of course you did, baby. What are we talking about here?”
“I believed what you said about omens and portents and miracles.”
“Miracles? Of course. You’re a miracle, born from the body of a dead woman! Of course you believe . . .”
“I was born from the body of a dead woman? A dead woman, Gigi! What is that? That’s not Mama! You never told me about Mama. She was just a dead woman who gave birth to me. She wasn’t Sissy. She wasn’t a person, a dancer. You didn’t want me to know she was a dancer. She was just a dead woman, a nothing! I was born from nothing! You taught me that, Gigi. Why?”
Gigi’s eyes were blinking as if they were trying to signal the answer. An angry flush grew from beneath the collar of her robe, rising up her neck and spreading out over her face. “Why are you shouting at me like this? I taught you good things. You were my apprentice, remember?”