Miracleville (22 page)

Hopeful. That's something I haven't felt in a while.

Marco can tell something's up at our house. When he comes by to help Mom with her weight-training routine, his eyes dart from her to me and back again. “Something feels different in here today. Lighter,” he says.

Mom's eyes have a little of their old sparkle back— and for a moment, I'm afraid the cramping may not be anything more than some random thing, and not a sign that she is regaining sensation below the waist.

“I've been feeling some pain. In my thighs,” Mom tells Marco. She says this in a quiet voice, and I wonder if it's because, like me, she is worried about how Marco will take the news.

I know if it was me and I'd spent more than half my life trapped in a wheelchair, it'd piss me off if some woman who's only been paralyzed for less than two months suddenly shows a sign—even a little one—that she might recover. I'd feel like it just wasn't fair, that the woman should take a number and wait her turn and that she'd be way behind me—twenty years behind me—in the recovery sweepstakes. I don't think I could stand the unfairness of it all.

But Marco doesn't seem pissed off. He wheels his chair next to Mom's. “Thérèse,” he says, pumping his hand on her back, “that's great. Show me where you feel the cramping.”

When she shows him the spots on her thighs, I expect Marco to look down at his own useless legs—that's what I'd do—but he doesn't. I think he's really happy for Mom. Too happy to think about his own troubles.

I ask Marco about it later when I'm helping him down the ramp from our house. “Is it hard for you? The news about Mom, I mean.”

Marco looks me straight in the eye. “That's not the kind of question I expect from you, Ani. It's more of a Colette question.”

He's right, but I feel like I know Marco well enough now to ask it. Maybe what he just said is his way of not answering. But a minute or so later, he says, “Sure I wish it was me, but you know what, Ani? I've had twenty years to make peace with being paraplegic. It took a long time, but I did it. And I can still be happy for your mom. For all of you.”

Marco doesn't look anything like the bronze Jesuses at the stations of the cross. Those Jesuses don't have slicked-back, dyed black hair or bulging biceps or skin that's gone leathery from too much sun. But even so, right now, I'm remembering the look on the bronze Jesus' face when he was first condemned to death.

There's something Marco still wants to say. I know because he's watching me. “Besides,” he says, “I've got something of my own to celebrate.”

I wonder if Marco and his boyfriend are getting married, but that's not what it turns out to be.

“A guy I know is opening a gym on Avenue Royale, not far from your shop. He's offered me a job, working with disabled people. I told him yes.”

“You did? That's amazing!”

“I know what you're thinking—that I'm not exactly a people person,” Marco says.

“I wasn't thinking that. You're good with people. When you want to be.”

“D'you really think so?”

“Uh-huh, I really do.”

I'm starting to get better at hugging people in wheelchairs.

The pilgrims have mostly cleared out of town. I can see the sidewalk again, and without all the cars, the air smells crisper. On my way to the basilica, I spot a porcupine crossing Avenue Royale. He's fat and funny-looking, with brown spikes, and I'm sure he's been hiding in the woods the last couple of weeks, waiting till now to cross to the other side of the street.

There's no line outside the Blessings Office. No pilgrims waiting with statues, nobody with a new puppy.

Emil…Father Francoeur…Father—I still don't know what to call him—is sitting behind the desk, scratching his temple with the flat end of a ballpoint pen.

He looks glad to see me. “Ani,” he says, getting up from his chair, “I was hoping you'd come by.”

“I didn't bring a toaster for you to bless.”

The sound of Father Francoeur's chuckle fills the little room. Do I really laugh like him?

“Have a seat.” Like always, I can feel him looking at my hair and eyes. I know that when he sees me, he is remembering Mom.

Father Francoeur sits back down in his chair and gestures for me to take the seat across from him. “So are you missing the pilgrims?” he asks me.

“Not really. They brought us a ton of business this year, that's for sure, though. But now, well, it feels like I can breathe again. Or almost, anyway.”

Father Francoeur's eyes seem to darken. “You're not having trouble breathing, are you?”

The way he asks makes me wonder if he's figured things out. If he knows I'm his. “I'm allergic to mangoes,” I tell him. It isn't what I planned to say.

“Just like me,” he says, pulling his chair a little closer to the desk and extending his hands along the desk until they're only a few inches from mine.

“It's kind of an unusual allergy,” I say.

“I know.”

“It can run in families.”

“I've heard that too.”

I slide my hands off the desk and fold my arms over my chest. Father Francoeur's face is very serious.

“In a way,” I tell him, “I wish you'd never come back to town.”

I expect Father Francoeur to look hurt, but he doesn't. When he nods, I know it's because he's feeling bad for me. He's imagining what's going on inside me, and for a moment, I try imagining what's going on inside of him.

I uncross my arms. “I always thought I knew who I was, but now everything's different. From the first time I saw you, I felt there was something between us. Something familiar. And then that day at the museum—after your talk—I got confused.” This part is hard to talk about, but I know I have to do it. I have to make things right. Not for Mom, not even for Father Francoeur, but for me. “I guess I needed to feel close to you. Only I didn't understand why. I didn't know that you were my fa—” At first, I stumble over the word.

“Father.” We say it together, without stumbling.

I put my hands back on the edge of the desk. Father Francoeur reaches all the way over and lays his hands over mine. Colette was right. We have the same long fingers.

“Your parents came to see me last week to fill me in on”—I can tell from how slowly Father Francoeur is speaking that he wants every word to be the right one— “who we are to each other. Like you, I felt a connection the moment I saw you. I thought it was because you look so much like your mom used to. But then, Ani, I started realizing it was something else. A heart connection I'd never felt before. Something quite different of course from the feelings I had for your mother. And then… and then…I didn't dare to hope that you were mine.”

“I am yours,” I tell him. “Biologically, I mean.”

Father Francoeur nods. “I understand what you're telling me. That you have a father. A real father who's been there for you all your life. But perhaps, when you're ready, you could make some room for me too?”

“Aren't you going back to Africa?” My voice quivers when I say Africa. Part of me wants Father Francoeur to go away so I can pretend I never met him; the other part wishes he would never leave.

“I fly out next week. But I may be back before Christmas—depending on how things go.”

“You mean in Liberia?”

Father Francoeur looks down at his hands, which are still over mine. “No,” he says, looking back up at me. “Not in Liberia. Depending on how things go here.

With you. On how you feel. On whether or not you can handle having me around.”

“What if I don't know yet?”

Father Francoeur squeezes my hands. “I can live with that.”

Twenty-Eight

C
olette and I are both lying on our beds, reading. I'm reading
The Life of Saint Anne
, only this time, I've got a pencil in my hand so I can scribble notes to myself in the margins. Such as,
Didn't Saint Anne want to kill her parents when they dropped her off at the church so they could keep their promise to consecrate her to the Lord?

Colette's got her nose inside an
US Weekly
magazine. It's Saturday night and Mom and Dad are out on a date— their second one since Mom's accident. Mom's been getting a little more cramping in her thighs. The doctors are “cautiously optimistic” and they've recommended she step up her workout routine. They've given her exercises for her legs and so the three of us have been taking turns helping her do leg lifts.

Marco's convinced the weight training made a difference. He wants Mom to write a testimonial he can hang on the wall at his friend's gym. Tante Hélène says it was her nerve tonic. Father Francoeur says it's God's plan.

Hope's a funny thing. A little hope can go a long way, and yet, there's something painful about hope too. If what we're hoping for doesn't happen, we might end up feeling even worse than we already did when the accident first happened. And yet the hope that Mom might regain some movement in her lower body has lightened the atmosphere in our house, just like Marco said. Hope is making us kinder with each other and more patient.

And that's when I realize that maybe it's true that the real miracle isn't when someone throws away their crutches or stops being paralyzed. Maybe the real miracle is way simpler than that. Maybe the miracle is not giving up. Maybe it's staying hopeful even when you're not sure how things will turn out.

Which may be why, even though I am concentrating on
The Life of Saint Anne
when Colette puts down her magazine and says, “So I was thinking…,” I don't get upset with her.

I rest my book on my lap, using my pencil for a bookmark.

“Uh-huh,” I say to Colette.

“I was thinking maybe I'll be a nurse.”

“That's a great idea,” I tell her. “Except you'll have to wear those hideous white nurses' shoes—with the rubber soles.” Then I remember how good Colette has been with Mom and how she was the first one to get Mom to wash her hair. “I think you'd make a really good nurse.”

“But what about my adhd?”

I think in all the time we've known about Colette's adhd, this is the first time she's ever mentioned it and it occurs to me now that Colette's adhd isn't only a burden for all of us who know her, it's a burden for Colette too. A way heavier burden than it is for the rest of us. And yet, Colette never complains about it.

“You know,” I tell Colette, “there could be a plus side to having ADHD—benefits that could come in handy if you're a nurse. Nurses need a ton of energy and they need to be able to bop around from one task to another. Check a patient's blood pressure, help them do leg lifts, change their bedpan.”

“Uck, that part's gross,” Colette says. She picks up her magazine. “Even with the bedpans, I think I still want to be a nurse,” she says.

Maybe it's because Colette has told me her dream that I feel like telling her mine. “I want to be a historian,” I tell her. “And the first thing I want to study is the real story of Saint Anne. I'm researching it now.”

Colette kicks at her blanket so that one of her feet pokes out. “What do you mean by real story?” she wants to know.

“Not just the goody-goody stuff. How perfect she was, what a good daughter, what a good person and all that. I want to know how she felt when she was in a terrible mood, when she had mean thoughts, when she questioned everything—even God. And I want to know about her bad dreams.”

Colette sighs from behind her magazine. “I'd read it,” she says, “and not just because we're sisters.”

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Pat Norris for reading the first draft of this book; to Vincent DiMarco for his careful reading of the second draft and for his insights and useful suggestions; and to Elisabeth Klerks for responding to medical questions while we were both hanging out laundry.

Thanks also to Dr. Thanh Nguyen and to Anita Simondi for answering more medical questions; to Monique Lamarche and the welcome team at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica; and to my dad, Maximilien Polak, for his careful reading of this book and for responding from his heart. Thanks to Katherine Walsh for her clever suggestion, and to Ryan Sheehan for helping me understand how miracles work. Thanks to Elaine Kalman Naves for her professional and personal support, and to Viva Singer for letting me talk another story out. Thanks to the many people I met on my visits to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré for sharing their town with me. Thanks to the Canada Council of the Arts for their support and for believing in this project. More thanks to the team at Orca, and especially to my editor, Sarah Harvey, for giving me the push I needed on this story. And, as always, thanks to my husband Mike Shenker and my daughter Alicia. I love you both.