Miracleville

by Monique Polak

  I look around our room. Has Colette brought him here? It doesn’t seem right that I didn’t know.

  “You’re not supposed to have sex before marriage,” I say into the dark, but already I know that Colette won’t care. She’s as interested in supposed to as she is in should.

  “We’re not having sex. Not exactly. We’re just having fun. Anyway, everyone has sex before marriage.” Colette makes it sound like she’s talking about what we’re going to have for breakfast.

  “That’s not true. Not everyone.”

  “Mom did.”

  Now Colette has gone too far. I won’t let her say something like that about Mom. “No, she didn’t,” I say, and for a second I wonder if I’m talking so loud I might wake Dad up. “Mom’s a good Catholic. She waited till her wedding night. I’m sure she did.”

  When Colette laughs, I know she’s laughing at me. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  I don’t say anything. I wish I’d never started this dumb conversation.

  “Well, why do you think she and dad got married when she was just eighteen?”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Because they loved each other.”

  “Sure they loved each other. But”—Colette lowers her voice—“I’ll bet you that wasn’t the only reason.”

  There’s really only one thing I’m sure of now: I’m never going to fall asleep tonight.

  Twelve

  I’m having my bowl of organic muesli (no artificial sweeteners) on the back porch when I notice the ladybug. She’s on her back on the edge of the wrought-iron table across from me. Are they all females? I wonder. Why else would people call them ladybugs? I wonder how she got stuck. Maybe she fell down from somewhere up in our old oak tree and landed that way. Or maybe a gust of wind blew her over. Her tiny legs—or whatever you call what insects use to get around—are flailing in the air. Ladybugs have wings too, but maybe they don’t work when they’re upside down.

  I want to help her out and turn her right side up, but I’m afraid if I touch her, I might squash her. I could try using the end of my spoon, but I’d have to be careful not to poke her, and besides, my spoon’s got milk on it. So I move my chair a little closer and lean over so I can blow on her.

  I take a breath and blow, but not too hard. I’m thinking of the wolf in “The Three Little Pigs”—and of how, in Genesis, God gave man life by breathing into him. The wolf used his breath to destroy the houses of the first two pigs. God used his for creation.

  It’s only when the ladybug flips over that I realize she’s one of those rare orange ladybugs. The kind Tante Hélène spotted that day we went on the picnic. The day of Mom’s accident. Somehow, starting my morning off with this orange ladybug and being able to turn her right side up with my breath feels like a good sign. It also feels like a good sign when a moment later she flies off, leaving only the memory of her bright orange shell behind.

  Mom’s coming home. It’s been almost three weeks since the accident. The doctors and physiotherapists at the hospital have done everything they can, and now, because the hospital is so overcrowded, they need her bed for another patient. Mom is still paralyzed from the waist down.

  Dad has put in a wheelchair ramp in front of Saintly Souvenirs too. He says he doesn’t know why he never thought of it before. Having the ramp will be good for business, and it’ll make things easier when, eventually, Mom starts doing some work in the shop.

  The three of us go to pick Mom up. Dad has rented a collapsible metal ramp. That way Mom can stay in her wheelchair and we can load her right into the back of the van.

  She’s sitting in her wheelchair when we come, her suitcase on her lap. Carole Tremblay, the social worker assigned to Mom’s case, is with her. “We’ll talk next week,” Carole tells Mom, leaning down to give her a big hug.

  “You keep your chin up, okay, Thérèse?”

  Mom pats Carole’s back. “I hope your son gets over that bronchitis soon,” Mom tells her. It’s so like Mom to know Carole’s son has bronchitis. Maybe Mom should’ve been a social worker.

  Carole shakes Dad’s hand. “One day at a time,” she tells him, “and remember”—now Carole turns to Colette and me too—“your mom is still the same person she was before the accident.”

  Colette has grabbed the rubber handles on the back of Mom’s wheelchair. “Of course she is,” she says.

  But as Colette wheels Mom down the hospital hallway, with Dad and me on either side, it feels to me like Mom isn’t at all the same person. My mom loved to hike in the woods and bicycle even in the pouring rain. My mom practically flew down the staircase in our house. My mom sang while she scrubbed the kitchen floor. What if this mom can never do any of those things again?

  When I hit the Down button for the elevator, I see Carole is still in the doorway to Mom’s room, watching us.

  Dad has made Mom’s favorite—chicken salad with cut-up apples in it—for lunch. Colette picked black-eyed Susans and I helped her arrange them in an old milk jug that we put out on the dining-room table. Colette wanted to make a banner, but I told her that would be overdoing it.

  “The wheelchair ramp is going to make things much easier,” Dad tells Mom once we’ve managed to get her into the back of the van.

  The fence is a surprise. Dad spent most of Saturday repairing it, and on Sunday he gave it two coats of white paint.

  “I want to stop at the basilica first,” Mom says as we leave Quebec City and get onto the 138.

  “Are you sure it can’t wait till tomorrow?” Dad asks.

  “I’m sure.”

  Dad sighs. “In that case, we’ll stop at the basilica first.”

  We’re not alone in the basilica today. There are several people in the pews, praying quietly. And there’s a cleaning person mopping one of the side aisles.

  Dad has come inside too. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in the basilica, though I know he was here when he and Mom got married and, later, for my baptism and Colette’s. He looks around as if he’s afraid someone might jump out from behind a golden pillar and mug him, or worse, try to convert him. Colette is holding on to his hand.

  “Except for the tv monitors,” Dad whispers, looking up at the screens on either side of the altar and the ones behind the pews, “everything still looks the same in here.”

  Mom wants us to wheel her as close as we can get her to the Miraculous Statue of Saint Anne. It’s a beautiful wooden statue painted gold. And there are real gems— amethysts, turquoises and corals—in Saint Anne’s crown.

  Dad brings Mom’s wheelchair right up to the marble riser. “Close enough?” he asks her.

  Mom nods. She drops her chin to her chest and begins to pray. She’s whispering, and though I could try to listen, I take a few steps back. Mom needs some private time with Saint Anne.

  I let my chin drop to my chest too. I want to pray. I want to pray harder than I’ve ever prayed. Please, Saint Anne, please, please, I beg of you, heal my good mother. Let her walk again. Please intercede on her behalf.

  I close my eyes and press my palms so close together they burn.

  I can just make out the hushed sound of Mom’s whispering.

  “All right,” Mom says, “I’m ready to go home now.”

  Dad wheels her down the center aisle. When I catch up with Mom, I run my hand over her skirt, along where her thighs are. But she doesn’t look up. Mom still can’t feel a thing.

  What was I expecting?

  I know it doesn’t make sense to feel disappointed, but I can’t help it. And when we’ve left the basilica, we pass the statue of Saint Anne in the middle of the pond, I turn away so I won’t have to look at the saint for whom I am named. The saint who didn’t come through when I needed her.

  I haven’t seen Mom cry really hard since the accident. But she weeps when she sees the work Dad’s done on the fence. “Oh, Robert!” she says, her voice cracking. “After all these years.”

  “I should have done it sooner,” Dad whispers.


  Mom doesn’t say anything about the wheelchair ramp though. But she doesn’t want us to help her. “I need to be able to do this myself,” she says, gritting her teeth as she uses both arms to make the wheelchair move forward. The wheelchair pulls to the right, and I rush over to straighten it out. “Don’t!” Mom tells me.

  I turn to see if Marco Leblanc is watching from his balcony. But for once, he isn’t there. His chrome weights glitter in the afternoon sun.

  Thirteen

  Dad’s in the downstairs bathroom, helping Mom. Because the heat duct in our bedroom is over the bathroom, I can hear every word. Frankly, I wish I didn’t have to. Mom and Dad haven’t been getting along too well lately.

  Truth is, Mom isn’t getting along too well with anybody. The first two weeks after she got back from the hospital, her mood was pretty good. But last week the weather in our house turned cloudy. Mom’s been getting crabbier and crabbier. Too crabby even to pray.

  Last night, when Clara stopped by to say hi, Mom wouldn’t come to the door, and she didn’t want us to let Clara in either. “Tell her to go away,” Mom whispered from her wheelchair, but I’m sure Clara heard.

  It was the same the night before when Monsieur Dandurand brought us supper from L’Église. “How about you phone to thank the Dandurands?” Dad suggested afterward. “They’ve been awfully good to us.”

  “I’m not up to it,” Mom said.

  I offered to help her write a thank-you note instead. Colette said Mom could use her favorite stationery. (Not that writing a thank-you note on skull and crossbones stationery would have been exactly appropriate.)

  “No.” Which I thought wasn’t fair, considering how strict Mom was about training Colette and me to write thank-you notes. I’m afraid if Mom keeps pushing people away, her friends will stop trying to visit and Monsieur Dandurand will stop sending over free food.

  “Let me do it myself,” Mom is saying now, and I can hear her spitting into the sink. “I’m not a child, Robert. I can still brush my own teeth.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” Dad says.

  “If you want to help, just let me be. And don’t come following me into the bathroom like a sad puppy.”

  “I’m sorry, Thérèse.”

  Mostly, I’ve been feeling bad for Mom, but I’m starting to feel bad for Dad now too. I know from the way he just said “I’m sorry” that his feelings are hurt. Mom shouldn’t have said he was acting like a sad puppy. Even if he is acting like a sad puppy.

  I’m beginning to think the accident has brought out another side of Mom’s personality—a darker side. Before the accident, I don’t think I ever heard Mom snap at anyone. And she used to care about washing her hair and looking nice. Mom hasn’t let us wash her hair for a week; some days, she refuses to change out of her nightgown. (“Why do I need to get dressed? It’s not as if I’m going anywhere!”)

  Is this angry, depressed woman my real mom, and was the other one, the mom from before the accident, an imposter? I wonder if, when people get sick or when they’ve been in some awful accident, they finally become who they really are. Or is it the other way around? Are we most ourselves when things are going fine? Or are we some combination of both?

  Will the real Mom please stand up?

  Maybe I should go downstairs and try to cheer Dad up, but I’m afraid I’ll make things worse. Besides, what if Mom starts snapping at me next?

  So I stay inside my room with the door shut. I’m sprawled on my bed, reading my copy of The Life of Saint Anne. It’s written by a priest, so he only says good stuff about her. Mom gave me the book on my tenth birthday and I’ve kept it on my night table ever since. I liked it more when I was younger and I didn’t have so many questions. Still, sometimes when I don’t have much to do, I like flipping through the pages and reading bits and pieces of the story.

  If I were Dad, I’d give Mom space, leave her alone the way she told him to, but I can tell from the way the floorboards are creaking that Dad is still down there, waiting outside the bathroom, trying to be helpful.

  Mom’s confined to the downstairs of our house. Dad took apart their bed and set it up in the living room. I helped him drag the velvet couch into the dining room. Now, the whole downstairs looks like we’re preparing for a garage sale—or moving. Luckily the entrance to the downstairs bathroom is extra-wide so we didn’t have to knock down part of a wall, so Mom can get into the bathroom in her wheelchair.

  I hear Mom wheeling herself out of the bathroom. She still has trouble maneuvering the wheelchair around corners, but she gets angry if we try to help. “I need to be able to do this myself,” she tells us, gritting her teeth from the effort.

  Dad clears his throat. “Maybe we should think about washing your hair today, Thérèse,” he says softly.

  “Not today.”

  If it were me, I’d take that as a sign to end the conversation, but Dad doesn’t. “Are you sure, Thérèse?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Now I hear the sound of Dad flipping through a magazine. “Thér…,” he says, but then he stops himself.

  “What is it now?”

  “Well, uh…I’ve been meaning to tell you about this article I read online. Some French neuroscientists are using electrical stimulation to get paralyzed rats to run again.” Dad’s voice sounds bright, but I can tell he’s forcing it.

  “Robert,” Mom says his name like it’s a warning.

  “I thought it was a very hopeful study. And there’s another group of researchers out in Alberta who’ve done some very interesting experiments with geckos. I thought you’d want to hear all about it.”

  “I don’t. Geckos, for goodness sake.”

  “You know, Thérèse, things could be worse. You could’ve died when you got caught under the garage door.”

  “You’re right,” Mom says. “I could’ve died. But that isn’t doing me much good now, is it?”

  Dad doesn’t say anything, but even from upstairs, I can feel the tension between them. It’s traveling up the stairway and through the walls. “All right then,” Dad says at last, “in that case, I think I’ll go to my office and work on the accounts. Can I make you a cup of tea first, Thérèse?”

  That breaks my heart—when he offers to make her a cup of tea. Even after she’s been so mean to him.

  If Mom answers, I can’t hear it. I try to concentrate on The Life of Saint Anne. Ominous clouds are darkening the sky of Anne and Joachim’s life. The priest who wrote the book liked using flowery language. Personally, I don’t know why he didn’t just say Anne and Joachim were having a hard time.

  I hear Dad trudging up the stairs and the click of the light switch when he gets to his office, which is just down the hall from our bedroom.

  Downstairs, Mom has started to cry. I think she’s trying to say something between the sobs, but I can’t make out the words. And I don’t really want to.

  I hear Dad breathing hard. He’s upset too. Then I hear him trudge back down the stairs. I can tell from the number of steps that he’s stopped halfway down. “What about the God you love so much?” Dad calls out. “Where is He now, when you really need Him?”

  When, after a minute or two, Mom still doesn’t answer, Dad goes back up to his office. I hear him sit down at his chair and sigh.

  How come now, when both my parents are hurting and I should be trying to do something to help, all I really want to do is pull the sheets over my head and pretend none of this is happening?

  “I’m home!” Colette calls out. I must’ve dozed off reading The Life of Saint Anne. If that priest had put in some of the more interesting parts of her life, maybe the book would’ve turned out better. I mean maybe Saint Anne didn’t just automatically get over things after Joachim took off to the desert. Maybe they didn’t talk for a while, or she got snappy with him. Maybe she had the hots for some other guy. And maybe, once she finally did get pregnant and gave birth to baby Mary, she discovered that being such an old mom was hard. Maybe taking care of the ba
by was so hard Saint Anne was glad to consecrate Mary to the church. These are all things the priest doesn’t mention.

  “I was over at Maxim’s,” Colette is telling Mom. I can imagine what Colette was doing at Maxim’s house. Making out, I’ll bet! I don’t understand how Colette can act like sex is no big deal, when, for me, the whole idea is so…well, complicated. Part of me thinks sex is scary and sinful, and even a little gross—people rubbing the most private parts of their bodies together—but another part of me is curious about it. Not just because I wonder how it’ll make my body feel, but also because I really do believe what they teach us in MRE: sex is a sacred mystery, kind of like religion itself.

  I think my life would be easier if Colette and I had more in common than who our parents are.

  I can hear Colette unzipping her backpack. “Tante Hélène made these brownies for you, Mom. There’s ginger in them. She says ginger’s good for your system.”

  I expect Mom to snap, but she doesn’t. Maybe she snapped enough at Dad before and she’s feeling mellower now.

  It’s probably safe to go downstairs. Besides, I wouldn’t mind a brownie, even one that’s good for my system. I hear Dad’s office door opening too. Maybe he’s also got a sudden brownie craving. Or maybe he’s hoping Mom’ll be nicer to him now.

  “What’s wrong with your chin?” I ask Colette when I see her. The skin on her chin is all red and bumpy-looking.

  “Nothing. It’s a little sore is all,” Colette says, covering her chin with her hand. But I know better. Josianne’s chin gets like that too. It happens when she’s been kissing Armand and he hasn’t shaved. I touch my own chin. I wonder if it’ll ever look like that.

  But neither Mom nor Dad seems too concerned about Colette’s chin. Or that she’s been spending so much time at Maxim’s.

  “Is Tante Hélène around when you and Maxim are hanging out?” I ask, hoping Mom and Dad will get the hint and start acting like parents again.