Uncertain (9 page)

About 15 minutes later, we pulled up to a small, quaint, tomato-colored house in the city of Oaxaca. The house was ranch style with a clay-shingled roof and lemon-yellow shutters around the windows.

Many bouquets of white flowers stood propped against the wall of the house and surrounding the porch. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but a feeling of concern came over me. What were we here for? I worried that I had no idea and that I didn’t know what type of people lived here or what was expected of me. Sweat began to form on my upper lip and forehead. What if I failed?

Max got out and opened my door.

“This is the place,” he told me. But I didn’t want to get out of the car just yet. I was sweating more now.

“What am I supposed to do here?” I asked Max. He took my hand, tugging gently until I stepped out. We walked a little way toward the front door, still standing in the yard. Kevin followed.

“Close your eyes
now
,” Max urged, softly.             

I hesitated, and then I closed my eyes. I saw a baby and a woman. My eyes snapped open, and I looked at him. His expression added to the weight of the situation.

“You’ll figure it out. I promise.” He started walking back to his car.

“Seriously? You’re not coming?”

“Nope. I’m sure I’ll see ya around, though,” he said, standing at the car door.

“Soooo, will we be met by more people with guns in here?” Kevin shouted over to him.

Max laughed. “Nah, we’re on track now. Just barely. You’re safe with this group.” He pointed at the house. “That’s for certain.”

I walked back over to Max. “I’m worried that I’ll screw it up.” I blinked hard, feeling overwhelmed.

“Won’t happen.” He cocked his head as he looked at me. “You think that fear and tears make you weak.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t. What matters is what you do
after
those reflexes.
That’s
what makes you fierce.” He patted my upper arm. “Now, get in there.” He touched my nose with his forefinger and opened the car door.

“OK, so what now?” Kevin said as Max pulled away.

Just then, a woman appeared, poking her head out the door and then walking down the steps of the porch. She wore a wide-striped, ankle-length orange and yellow dress—all the way to her ankles. She was barefoot. Her black hair was in a low ponytail, and her face was familiar. I needed a few moments to realize where I’d seen her before.

“Isn’t that…” Kevin started.

I nodded. I felt relief mixed with confusion at another recognizable face. The woman was Isa, who’d helped us deliver the baby in California. I felt myself smile. At the same time, Isa realized that she had seen us before.

“Oh, does this mean God has heard us!?” She had a beautiful grin and came with her arms extended. “Miss Amelia?” she said.

I smiled. “You remember me?”

She raised her hands up. “Oh! How could I forget,” she whispered and she leaned in and hugged me tightly. She stopped to smile at me and hold my face in her hands. Then she hugged Kevin. “Have you come to help us with Drina?”

“Drina?”

“I will explain. This is a baby you know. The baby from last time—in California.”

“Really?”

“Yes, please come inside. Seeing you gives me such hope. I worry that she is nearly out of time.”

She turned and went back up the steps, looking back a few times to be sure we were following. We rushed past the flowers into the house. Inside, the house smelled of something kind of like sage, but a little different. The place was small and clean, with tile across the whole floor. We passed through the foyer and turned left down a hall, entering the first room on the right.

Two women stood here on each side of a baby lying on a towel placed over a gold and cream bedspread. Above the bed was a crucifix. Isa walked in front of me and held her open hand out to gesture to the baby. “This is our Drina.”

“Is that the same baby?” Kevin asked.

I nodded and took a deep breath. I moved closer to the baby. My stomach felt squirrelly. Was I expected to do something? The little thing looked deathly ill. The circles under her eyes were dark purple and her skin had a gray hue. She breathed unevenly and didn’t move the way a baby should. The child just lay there, her eyes barely open, while the ladies made sweet sounds to her and touched her little legs.

“Oh God, is she sick?” Kevin whispered.

“Yeah,” I replied quietly as I moved closer.

Now what?
I thought. This wasn’t like last time. Last time I had pains in my stomach to let me know that something was wrong. This time I had just been dropped off and walked in to this. I closed my eyes to see if I had any visions or whatever, but nothing happened. I felt useless.

Suddenly, I was somewhere else. I was no longer in the bedroom. I was in a blank place with nothing there that I could describe—no colors or anything. I looked around, panicked, then I saw my mother right next to me in a protective stance. She wasn’t looking at me; she was looking somewhere else.

“YOU WILL
NOT
,” she boomed with daggers in her voice, as she held me. I couldn’t feel her, but I could smell her.

I felt my mouth form words to start to speak to her.

“No, sweetheart. I don’t think you’ll be able to speak. It won’t be too long. Everything is going to be OK. It’ll be OK.” She almost chanted the words with some artificial soothing baked in.

She turned her head in the direction where she had spoken earlier, then looked back at me. I straightened up fully and looked at her.

“Don’t talk. I’ll explain,” she said with a phony smile. I sensed fear in her voice as she spoke to me. She glanced over to her right again, and I moved my eyes to where she looked, but I didn’t see anything. “I guess they were really in a rush!” she said with fake enthusiasm and a forced laugh. Her face changed to serious again, and she looked at me. “They’re going to be done soon. They had to take over, Melly. It was almost too late.”

She looked back at me and forced another smile. “You’ll be OK. I’m sorry about this, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could hug you to make us both feel happier.”

I felt nauseated. What was happening?

I woke up—or at least that’s what it felt like. I was standing, so the whole feeling was wrong. I didn’t think that I’d been sleeping, but waking up now was the closest to what the shift felt like.

What had just happened? A feeling of deep exhaustion rolled over me and then left. The two women who had been standing in the corner when we walked into the room were kneeling at the side of the bed with their hands clasped and heads down. The gold-colored bedspread still had the baby on it with Isa next to her. Isa looked at me with a strange expression. I felt a hand on my back and turned to see Kevin, his forehead wrinkle firmly in place. The baby made cooing and excited sounds.

“Did anything just happen?” I whispered, mostly to Kevin, darting a look at the women who were now kneeling at the side of the bed.

He paused way too long before he answered. “Yeah.”

Isa spoke next, her hands clasped in front of her. “Miss Amelia, you healed Drina with a blue light. It came from your hands. She’s OK now. Look and see.”

I took a step closer to the baby and she locked eyes with me for an instant before looking at Isa, kicking both her hands and feet. She looked like a totally different baby. She now had rosy cheeks and a gummy smile for me as I stood over her.

The feelings I had at that point were complex. A mix of humiliation and a surge of energy filled my chest. Pride and anger were feuding inside me. Then I noticed that the women who were praying were looking at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. Their expressions combined maybe fear and expectation. As if I could do more than they could. As if they would line up all the sick people, and I would lazily stroll by showering them with my healing powers.  I’m sure if that were the case, it would’ve worked for Dave. The anger in me swelled.

I looked at the two women. “I can’t heal whenever I want. Just so you know, I for sure can’t. That was the first time, like ever.” My voice was rich with defensiveness. They nodded quickly, looking down.

I felt Kevin’s hand on my back again. He couldn’t understand our words as I was speaking Spanish, but he must have known the meaning by my tone. My heart started beating harder and harder.

For the first time ever, I felt afraid of myself. The feeling was like being strangled from the inside. The sensation was completely foreign and felt horrible. I slowly knelt down and leaned against the bed. I was sick with the feeling of total lack of control. I sat for a few moments. Then, I felt a tiny hand swatting my arm.  I looked over. Drina was happily batting at me and squeezing my arm when she could get a grip on it.

Isa scooped her up and hugged her gently. “Please, Miss Amelia. You fixed her. She’s better now. This is a time to be happy. Very happy.” She kissed Drina over and over, and Drina seemed delighted. Tears streamed down Isa’s cheeks, which were puffed in a constant smile.

“It wasn’t
me
,” I said, sounding far away.

“Yes, Miss Amelia, it was. You came here. You came to us. You had to be the one to do it. Or else it would’ve happened before you got here. You see? It
was
you.” She sat next to me on the floor, leaning on the bed, and handed me the baby. I was going to object to holding her, but I didn’t feel like it. So, I took her from Isa.

I prepared myself for the baby to start crying as soon as she was away from Isa, but she didn’t. I held her upright with her head at my shoulder and her petal-soft bald head nudged my neck over and over. She turned and rested her face against my neck, resting it there for a couple minutes before she began bobbing her head again, looking around the room.

Isa put her hand on Drina’s head, stroking it gently. “Just look at her. I thank God for you, Miss Amelia. I don’t want you to be upset. This is a miracle. You performed a miracle on this little baby. Just when we thought she was lost.”

“I just—I didn’t choose to. I don’t even know what I did.”

“It’s OK, someone else does. That part is sure. Yes?” Isa said with unwavering hope and happiness in her face as she looked at me.

I nodded.

She made a good point: Why me? Why not someone already here if Drina was meant to be saved?  And why her, instead of so many other babies who don’t seem to have her luck? 

If I had ignored the trip to California last time, would her mother have been killed while carrying her? This was the second time I’d been there for this baby. I couldn’t understand why at all. 

“Mel?” Kevin said, gently clearing his throat. “Can you ask her how they knew to come get us from the airport since we didn’t tell them beforehand.” Kevin looked at Isa.

I translated.

“Airport? I didn’t know to pick you up,” Isa said, confused.

“But those people who dropped us off here… You didn’t send them to get us and bring us here?” I asked.

“We didn’t send anyone. I didn’t know you were coming.”

I kept my eyes on Isa and responded to Kevin. “That’s weird. She says they didn’t know we were coming.”

He made a laughing-type sound. “Ha. Well, no weirder than, you know, the
rest
of this.” He laughed again and got up to sit at the table near the kitchen.

I turned to Isa. “I’m surprised that you still have the baby. Happy, but surprised.”

Isa smiled and looked at the baby. “It felt right. I got to the hospital where you sent me with the baby and decided to just go home with her instead. I knew that I’d take good care of her. She has brought me joy and then agony and now joy again.”

Although I didn’t feel like it, I held Drina for a while. She fell asleep after putting her tiny palm on my mouth as I bounced my lips together. I had never held a baby for this long before. The part that was strange to me was that I wasn’t in any hurry to hand her back. I felt at peace while I held her. It was only when I glanced around the room that my edginess returned, and I would find myself taking deep breaths.

“Miss Amelia, may we make you a nice dinner? Can you stay with us? We can make the bedroom up for you and your husband.”

I thought I should correct her about Kevin being my husband, but I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like explaining at all.  I knew we didn’t have a hotel for the night, and I thought that was strange when I realized that I hadn’t thought about a hotel until just then.

“Kevin, they’d like us to stay here for the night and make us dinner. Are you OK with that?”

“Yeah. That’s fine.” He shifted in his chair a bit. “Wanna go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

While Isa and the other women made dinner and Drina slept, Kevin and I went for a walk.

Oaxaca was busier than I thought it would be. We’d driven through the downtown area to get to the house, but I wasn’t sure how far away that was. Not far. I didn’t know what I expected, but I couldn’t get over the number of street vendors. The city had a great vibe, and I used the life of the streets as a way to distract myself. But I knew that I couldn’t make it last—as much as I wanted to. I needed to talk to Kevin about what had happened. So, we found a shady spot and sat down away from the people coming and going.