Looking for Miracles (4 page)

“I’ll find out.” Lori pushed the call button, preparing herself for the storm that would envelop her when the nurse found out she had a five-year-old for company in her hospital room with no one to take care of him. Maybe nearly giving birth in an ambulance would be the easiest part of her day after all.

“Okay, it’s all fixed…” Mike came into the room talking. He stopped once he crossed the threshold and noticed that nobody was listening to him. Lori and Tyler were both on the bed, cuddled together and asleep. A video played on the TV, sending bright, cheerful cartoon music into the room. A few feet from the bed the top of a swaddled bundle rose and fell in a hospital bassinet.

Mike walked over to look at the baby. She was so beautiful. He saw the card for her name had been filled out at the bottom of the bassinet. Mikayla Hope. Ouch. Why did Lori have to saddle such a beautiful baby with that first name? He wasn’t even sure
he
liked Michael after all these years. It still felt funny much of the time, as if it ought to be something else that was just beyond the tip of his tongue.

He’d talked about changing his name as a teenager,
but his mom had protested. Every teenager hated their name. And everyone that changed it legally had regrets, according to her. Maybe she was right. When he thought about his high school classmates, almost all of them had reverted to their given names by their recent ten-year reunion. All but Sunshine Feathers. And he couldn’t blame her a bit.

There was noise behind him. Mike turned around to see Tyler slip off the bed. “Hey, Mike. That’s my baby sister. That’s Mikayla Hope.”

“I see.” Mike motioned to the name tag on the end of the bed. “Her name’s written right here.”

“Yeah? That says Mikayla Hope? Cool. Does it say anything about me?” Tyler looked at the card. “I don’t think so, ’cause I don’t see a big
T
anyplace.”

“You know your name starts with that big
T
. Pretty smart guy.” Mike ruffled the kid’s blond hair. It felt good under his hand, almost as good as Lori’s would feel. He pulled back his hand. Now why was he making that comparison? He had no right to put a hand in Lori Harper’s hair. He would never have that right. No sense in even thinking about it.

“Hey, you guys, don’t wake her up,” came a sleepy voice from the bed.

“Don’t worry. I know that much.” Mike crossed
the room and sat in the bedside chair. Tyler launched himself onto Mike’s lap. “So how’s the patient?”

“Good, I think. I needed the sleep. What time is it?”

“A little after one. You hungry?”

Lori nodded. “Starved. I don’t know if I could really eat if there was food in front of me, but I’m starved. Does that make any sense?”

“It does, actually. I can remember times after a fire when I was so hungry, I couldn’t think straight. I also didn’t have the energy to lift a burger to my mouth once I stopped for one. And I imagine giving birth is a lot harder than putting out a fire.”

Lori laughed. “I don’t know about that. It is plenty of work. Is that what you do? Work for fire-and-rescue?”

“Only volunteer. Dogg and I are part of the search team when they need us. Mostly he chases goats and I help manage the family property rental business.”

“Oh.”

“I know. It doesn’t have nearly the excitement level as putting out fires. But that’s okay most of the time.”

Lori colored. “I didn’t mean to put down the family business…”

“Good, because I think it’s about to come in
handy. I don’t think you’re going to have to go back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m not? Why?” She sat up straighter. Great. She was going to argue with him.

“Because I’ve got a better idea, and I’m sure it will be okay with my mother. She’s the other half of the property business. When I tell her I found the right client for the property she’s most finicky about, she’ll thank me.”

“Not when you tell her the client can’t pay any rent.” Lori’s chin stuck out defiantly. “I can’t let you do this.”

“And I can’t let you go back to that place alone with no phone, a five-year-old and a day-old baby.” Mike tried to keep from shouting. Surely she would listen to reason.

“You can, and will, let me do anything I want. It’s not like you’re responsible for me or anything.”

“I feel like I am.” Why did she have to be so defensive? Why couldn’t she just thank him and be grateful? “Besides, this is property that adjoins our home. A lot of times we’ve rented it out to somebody who either farms a chunk of ground behind both places where my mom doesn’t run her goofy herd of Nubian goats, or who can come in and do some of the heavy cleaning and stuff.”

Lori brightened. “Well, I don’t know a thing about farming, but I sure can clean.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Not for a month or two anyway.”

Lori laughed at him. “A month or two! Do you really think giving birth is that strenuous?”

Mike felt himself blushing. “I don’t know. On TV and in the movies, the women always look so fragile, and lie in bed…”

“Not me, my friend. I’m too young to do that.”

“And too alone.”

Lori shook her head. “No, not alone. The Lord is always with me.”

Mike just barely controlled a snort of derision. “Some help He is. If it was up to the Lord you would have given birth in that trailer with Tyler for company.”

“Nah…” Tyler’s answer surprised him. Mike had forgotten the boy on his lap was probably paying attention to the conversation. “Remember what I told you? Mom said you were her miracle. That means God sent you, silly. He doesn’t leave us alone, right, Mom?”

Lori smiled. Mike kept the rest of his opinions to himself on the subject. All he knew is that if God had sent Lori Harper a miracle, He would have done a lot better than him. “Whatever. Can I really
not convince you to move in to the house next door to ours?”

Lori’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “It’s tempting. I don’t really want to go back out to the middle of nowhere, especially now. And I could do that heavy cleaning you talked about, probably by next week.”

“Oh, no. We’re not going to go there for a while. Just having somebody in the house will make Mom feel better. She is sure somebody’s going to break in over there when it’s empty. Kids partying or something.”

“And a widow with two babies is so much better than kids partying.”

Tyler looked up. “I’m not a baby. An’ what’s a widow?”

Lori got paler and swallowed hard. “Oh, boy. Here comes the hard part. Ty, come up here on my bed, okay?”

“Okay.” He slid off Mike’s lap, taking his warmth with him. Mike didn’t know what to do next. Did he stay, to give Lori support? Or would it be better if he slipped out of the room to let her do this alone? He tried to convey his confusion without saying anything. Lori wasn’t watching. She was reaching out a hand to stroke her son’s blond hair.

“He looks so grown up after the baby. But not
grown up enough for this.” There was a pain in the depth of her eyes that Mike could only imagine.

Is this what his mother’s face had looked like when she broke similar news to him? He hadn’t been much older than Tyler when his dad died.

“Mind if I stick around?” It took him a moment to force out the words. “I kind of have some experience here. From Tyler’s perspective.”

“How old were you?”

“Six.” It all came rushing back. At least Tyler wouldn’t have the guilt Mike had borne for years. At six he was sure he’d killed his own father. It had taken years more maturity than a first grader possessed to know that his father’s fatal heart attack hadn’t been Mike’s fault.

Tyler cocked his head. He was an astute little kid, and he knew something was going on. “Where’s Daddy? When we looked at that place where some of the new babies were, when Carrie was bringing me up here, there were some other kids looking. They were all looking with their dads.”

“That’s what we need to talk about.” Lori stroked his hair again. “Remember when Carrie came this summer? With the truck and the other guy?”

“Mr. Bart? Yeah. He was cool. He let me play with the siren.”

Lori swallowed hard. “That’s right. And remember they told us something about Daddy? Something I tried to tell you?” Mike could hear her voice shake.

“Right. That he wasn’t coming back. But last time he went away it was different. You said he wasn’t coming back for a long time, but then he did. Isn’t he coming back to see Mikayla?”

“No, Tyler, he isn’t. Not the way you mean it. Daddy had an accident on the way to work. His car went into a lake, and he couldn’t get out by himself.”

Tyler looked at him, and Mike felt his heart make an elevator ride to his shoes. “Did you help get him out? You and Carrie?”

Mike leaned forward. “No, Tyler, we didn’t. We got there too late to help him get out.”

“Daddy’s dead, Tyler.”

“Like Max?”

“A little like Max.” “A puppy,” Lori mouthed in Mike’s direction. “It will be like Max because Daddy won’t come home again. The part of him that made him walk and talk and be Daddy isn’t here anymore. Being dead means he went to heaven to be with Jesus.”

That wasn’t an assumption Mike would have made about Gary Harper, but Mike forgave Lori for the fib. After all, this was Harper’s kid.

“Do you think Max bited him when he got there?”

“No, I think they’re friends. In heaven nobody remembers the bad things you did,” Lori said simply.

“So Daddy’s still in heaven with Max and Jesus? Can we call him on the phone there?”

“No, Tyler, we can’t.” Lori was fighting tears now.

Tyler looked puzzled. “Last time he went away, we could talk to him on the phone.”

“That’s true. But this time is different.”

This was raising a lot of questions. Mike felt an ache in his chest at what Lori was facing. “I think I’d better leave both of you alone for a while. Can I go talk to my mom about the house?”

Lori looked up from the bed. “I think you’d better. I’m going to need more help than I thought. Maybe you’re going to be the answer to a prayer twice in one day, Mike.”

The answer to a prayer? It was the first time he’d ever been called that. Mike wasn’t sure it fit. But looking at the glowing eyes of the young woman in the room, he was willing to be the answer to any of her prayers. He’d never been part of a miracle before. But for somebody like Lori, trying to explain the finality of death to a child too young to understand, he could try. She needed all the miracles she could get.

Chapter Four

M
ike rehearsed his speech to his mother while he drove home. It earned him a few strange looks from Dogg, who sat in the cab of the truck with his head tilted sideways. True, he’d told Lori everything was worked out and Mom would be fine with her renting the house next door. Now he just had to make sure of that.

He pulled into the drive that circled the house. Parking the truck in his accustomed spot off to the side, where he could pull out any time night or day that a volunteer fire call sounded, he held the door open until Dogg leapt down. He still looked mightily relieved to be rid of those antlers.

“Wipe your feet,” he told the beast as they both entered the kitchen. Dogg looked as tired as he did,
except the animal’s tongue was hanging out farther. Still, he didn’t have to worry about the dog’s manners; Mike swore Dogg was better about neatness indoors than he was.

The kitchen smelled wonderful. There had to be either veal stew or beef Stroganoff in that pot on the stove for Christmas Eve dinner to make his nose twitch like this. My mother loves me was his first thought. She showed it in a variety of ways, but as a savvy woman, Gloria Martin knew how to get to her son through his stomach.

“Hey,” Mike called through the house, knowing where he’d find her anyway, even on Christmas Eve.

“Hey, yourself.” Gloria was in stocking feet, black pantsuit made festive by an enameled pin in the shape of a holly sprig. As she stood up from the desk in her office, Mike marveled that this tiny woman had borne a big brute like him, and put up with him for all these years.

“I was beginning to think we had to call out the search party. Except you usually are the search party, so that didn’t leave me with many options.” Her red lipstick was unsmudged even this late in the day. Her lacquered nails were the same glossy red. She looked the picture of the successful middle-aged woman.

Mike shrugged. “Well, we had plenty to do. Remember
that water rescue we did in August? The department decided his widow should be our Santa Claus case this year. When we went to tell her, we nearly delivered a baby that was a surprise to everybody involved except the mother.”

Gloria’s hand flew to her mouth. “So what will that woman do? Are there other children? And didn’t you tell me that man was a drug dealer? Obviously there’s no insurance or anything…”

Mike knew his job would be far easier now. “There’s another kid, a little boy about five. He and his mom and his new sister are all as well as can be expected. And as far as what they’re going to do now, I think I solved that, as well.”

Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “You rented them the house in back, didn’t you, Michael? Or knowing you, the use of the house has been promised, but this woman has no hope of paying rent.”

“Got it in one, Mom. She does promise to do the heavy cleaning. In fact if it was up to her, I think Lori would be doing the heavy cleaning before the first of the year.”

Gloria’s artfully tinted brown curls bounced as she shook her head. “Not that soon. I’m glad you did it, Mike. It will be good to have children around. Especially since I seem destined to be without grandchildren until I am too old and feeble to hold them.”

Mike scowled. “Okay, it’s Christmas Eve. We are not going to get into that tonight. You going to open your present before supper or after?”

“After.” Gloria laughed. “It’s not even dark yet. I don’t open presents before dark on Christmas Eve. And you need a shower before dinner anyway. Go wash up and come back presentable.”

“Okay, but no decorating Dogg while I’m gone. He’s had enough of that today.”

“Not even one plaid bow?”