Bless the Child (3 page)

“But it would take so little effort for Him to cure her, Mother. Why doesn’t He take better care of His friends?”

She’d been sent to the convent to do extra chores for that bit of irreverence. So she’d scrubbed the sisters’ kitchen until she’d repented her outburst, but that didn’t mean she’d changed her mind.

With a sigh, Maggie pressed the beloved picture to her lips before replacing it on the nightstand.

“Tell you what, God,” she said fervently, the old habit of holding conversations with Him as ingrained as breathing. “I’ll take care of this baby, and you take care of Jenna for me.”

M
aggie paced the floor with Cody in her arms. She strove not to think about the escalating ache in her back, arms and shoulders, from the weight of the hefty fourteen-month-old.
She ain’t heavy, father, she’s my granddaughter . . .
The thought almost made her laugh aloud.

Cody was teething. And she had the flu. Maggie could feel each rattling breath through the child’s back, with frightening intensity. “You mustn’t worry so much about her breathing Mrs. O’Connor, “ the pediatrician had said yesterday. “The antibiotics will do the trick.” But Cody wasn’t his baby, and what kind of grandmother wouldn’t worry about so major an enterprise as breathing? For two nights, Maggie had awakened every half hour to listen for Cody’s labored breath in the darkness. Tonight she hadn’t had to worry about waking up.

The cold from the floor crept up under her nightgown and her feet were icy, but she couldn’t stop the walking now. Cody was nearly asleep, the fitful kind of sick babies, where the slightest deviation from your strolling, crooning, soothing, pattern sets them off again. She held the child tighter in her arms, as if to ward off danger and illness with sheer strength of will.

I
can
do this! Maggie pulled herself up sharply as she began to buckle toward fatigue. No wonder God gives babies to twenty-three-year-olds. The clock read 3:38 and she was bone-weary. I can live without sleep, she told herself sternly. Saint Simon sat on top of a flagpole for thirty years. He couldn’t have slept much.

But then Saint Simon didn’t have to get up in the morning and earn a living, did he? A little voice inside her nagged.

She sighed and kept on walking. Raising this baby alone was the toughest task she’d ever attempted, tough tasks always looked scarier at night. Teething and flu were a snap compared to what lay ahead, she thought dispiritedly. Measles and multiplication tables, play days and PTA meetings with women half her age, were yet to be faced. To say nothing of college tuition and calculus and trying to do everything right in the meantime. Get a
grip
, Maggie! She chided herself, as she gingerly placed the now sleeping Cody into her eyelet-trimmed crib. You’re just daffy from exhaustion—everything will look fine in the morning.

She pulled up the covers, then stood a moment staring down at the cherubic face of the child she loved so much. “I don’t care how hard it is, or how tired I am, “she whispered to the sleeping baby. “You’re worth it all.”

Maggie
yawned, picked up her third cup of coffee of the morning and struggled to keep the paperwork on the London acquisition in correct order. The little bronze statuette of the God Ptah was one a favorite client had lusted after for a decade; it had been a great stroke of luck that the man who owned it had decided to thin his collection.

“I’ve finally figured out one of the great riddles of life,” she said wryly to Amanda, who sat on the other side of the small office area of the shop. “The components of success in business are: talent, humor, quick wit, endurance, dedication, ambition, salesmanship, intuition, flamboyance, wardrobe, hard labor, and getting enough sleep. The latter being the most important.”

Amanda looked up from her notes with an amused expression, and added, “It doesn’t hurt if you’re born into the right family, go to the proper schools, belong to the best clubs, and are male, or seriously oversexed with bodacious ta-tas.”

Maggie laughed out loud. It was hard to ever get the last word in with Amanda.

M
aggie pushed the swing and breathed in the pleasure of the splendid day. The sound of Cody’s laughter always thrilled her. How fast three years can flit by, she thought, as she saw the confident way the little legs pumped to keep the swing moving between pushes. Three years of reinventing a life, and letting joy back in. Of loving and laughter, of unselfishness and kissing boo-boos, of teaching little competencies , and million other “mother” things that had given her life real purpose once again.

The crisp, clear weather was exhilarating, the sky bluer than it had been all winter. She buttoned up the old Irish fisherman’s sweater that had been Jack’s favorite, and listened to the gleeful sounds of Cody’s happiness ringing like Soleri bells against the late January Wind.

“She loves you dona Maggie,” Maria Aparecida had said judiciously over breakfast. “Beyond the ordinary, this child loves you. I am her friend, but her heartstrings are woven into yours with cords of steel. You will see. My words are true.”

Maggie knew it was true. She and Cody intuited each other’s moves like dancers . . . ebbing and flowing with each other’s rhythms. When the were together, all was right with the world. “How different life is from our perfectly sensible expectations,” Jack had said wistfully, as he lay dying . . . he was right of course . . . but sometimes the surprises were good ones. Like the gift of this laughing, loving child who had come so unexpectedly into her leftover world.

“Higher, Mim. Higher!” the little voice piped between giggles. But, on impulse, Maggie stopped the swing instead, and lifted her granddaughter into a sudden bear hug. She stood there clasping Cody tightly for a long moment, needing to hold and be held.

“Do you have a boo-boo, Mim?” Cody asked, concerned over the tears in Maggie’s eyes. She wiped one away with small chubby fingers.

“I’ll kiss it,” the little girl offered, relieved she knew how to heal the pain. She pressed her sweet lips to Maggie’s face and kissed away the hurt with confidence.

“Let’s go home and see what goodies Maria has baked for us today.” Maggie responded, restored by the child’s love. “I hope it’s brownies.”

She buttoned up Cody’s jacket and kissed her lightly on the perfect velvet cheek.

I love you, pumpkin,” she said, meaning it with every fiber of her being.

“I love you, too” the child replied happily, and they set off toward St. Luke’s Place hand in hand.

“
She
is too smart for her own good, dona Maggie. This little one could mind rats at a crossroad.” Maria shook her great head, a profound gesture halfway between annoyance and admiration. Her hair was gray as a battleship, and captured in a vast braid that bounced down a back that was straight enough for West Point. She had grown to love Cody fiercely in the years she’d contributed to her upbringing.

“She told the butcher today to give the slice of bologna he offered her to the poor children at the orphanage. Can you imagine? Like she was forty years old, and a benefactress to the poor.”

Maggie laughed, envisioning the scene. “She’s such an old little duck, Maria,” she said lovingly. “Her nursery school teacher told me Cody always tries to be the peacemaker in disputes among the children. ‘You’d think she was sitting on the Supreme Court, Mrs. O’Connor,’ she mimicked the teacher’s voice. “’The other little ones always turn to her with their troubles. I’ve never seen anything like it.’”

Maria swiftly blessed herself. “She has the magic this one. You will see, dona Maggie. She has the Gift. There was one in my village who had it . . . born with the caul over his face, he was. It is the sign of the Gifted Ones..”

Maggie sighed. “Only Jenna would know if this little munchkin had a caul or not, Maria. And after so many years, I doubt she’ll ever come home to tell us.”

“My lady goes to bed each night in sorrow,” Maria murmured, caring genuinely. “Not knowing if her daughter lives or dies.”

“No, Maria,” Maggie said hastily, “she’s still alive,
somewhere.”
That was the only thing she was sure of. “I’d know if anything terrible had happened.” Death would have severed the psychic cord that bound her to Jenna and the cord still tugged at her, keeping the memory vibrant, keeping the hope alive.

The housekeeper crossed herself and made a swift sign against the evil eye. I’ll have to keep a weather eye on Maria’s superstitions when Cody grows old enough to understand them, Maggie thought absently. She had no quarrel with the woman’s peasant religious devotions, even if they were a little extreme, but she didn’t want Cody frightened by eerie stories of the Unknown.

“Do you know Cody gave her lunch yesterday to that homeless man on University Place, Maria,” Maggie said, suddenly remembering. “The one who lives in the cardboard box. We were on our way to the playground with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when she spotted him and decided he looked hungry. So she scooted over and dropped her little bag into his hat so fast I barely knew what was happening.”

“The heart is big and there is softness in the soul, dona Maggie,” Maria intoned reverently. “It is the best gift, the generous heart.”

The housekeeper’s words surfaced another recent memory, and Maggie laughed as she recounted the story. “There’s a little blond boy in the playground, Maria. And every day, for the last few weeks, he’s been coming up to me and climbing onto my lap. He plays with my hair and nuzzles his face into my breasts, then climbs down, say’s, ‘
Fank you
,’ to Cody, and goes away. So I finally asked her what it was all about, and she said very sweetly, ‘His mommy has short hair and a hard chest so I lent you to him to make him feel nice.’”

Both women laughed at that; they’d made a habit of sharing anecdotes about this beloved child. Their little family, odd thought it might seem by ordinary standards, was an exceptionally happy one.

Cody
held the broken bird tenderly in chubby, cupped hands, almost too small for the task. The damaged sparrow didn’t struggle in her grip, so Maggie thought it must be dead.

“I can fix it,” Cody said, more to herself than to Maggie.

“I’m afraid that little bird may be dying, or he wouldn’t let you hold him like that, sweetheart,” Maggie said sadly. “We may not be able to save him.”

Cody looked up at her grandmother, thoughtfully, like an adult trying to decide how much to tell a slow child. “I know how to do it, Mim,” she said softly, but with absolute confidence. “Don’t worry. I can fix sick things.”

Maggie frowned, puzzled, not knowing what to say. “You can, cupcake?” she asked surprised. “How did you learn to do that?”

Cody smiled, still holding the bird in one small hand and petting it gently with the other.

“I didn’t l
earn
, Mim,” Cody said patiently. “I just knew how.”

Without further discussion, she proceeded into the house in search of Maria. When Maggie had helped the child ensconce the bird in a shoebox, she took her housekeeper aside.

“Do you know anything about this business of fixing sick things, Maria?”

“Oh yes, dona Maggie. She has the healing hands, the little chicken. Did you not know this? When my rheumatism makes the great pain in my leg, the little one, she puts her tiny hands around it and soon the pain is nothing. You will see, tomorrow the little bird will fly.”

After Maria went back to her work Maggie stood a moment, pondering what to do about this lovely healing fantasy, but since it didn’t seem harmful, she simply went about her business.