The Miracle Girl

by Andrew Roe

  “Middling.”

  “Yes. Middling.”

  And at this point Father Jim knows that that’s about all he’s going to get from Father Lewis for now. Eye contact becoming less frequent, fingers straying to documents and religious-­themed paperweights and beard hairs. He senses the old man shutting down; five minutes of one-­on-­one conversation is about his limit. Not because of age, but because of patience, his lack of it, which has nothing to do with the accretion of years and everything to do with temperament. Resigned, Father Jim says he’ll have a preliminary status update on Friday, and the old man picks up his pen, returns to the hermetic universe of his desk.

  When Father Jim gets back to his office, there’s Nancy again, fluttering like a bird in distress, a mother unable to properly feed and shelter her young. But before she can speak—her prefatory forefinger raised, leaning forward to hasten her query—Father Jim sneaks in his own question as he sits down at his desk.

  “Any news about what’s up with the network?”

  “Something with the server,” Nancy says. “It’s always the server. When in doubt, blame it on the server. They said we’d be back up by early afternoon.”

  “I’ve got to get this press release out this morning. Maybe I can run to Kinko’s and send it out using my Hotmail account. And at some point I need to get online to do some more research on our little Miracle Girl. I came across this website the other day that has a lot of articles and stories, looks like it might be a good repository. I wanted to print some of them out. The Happy Skeptic.com or something. The girl’s got her own website, too, of course. Who doesn’t these days?”

  “A man called while you were talking to Father Lewis. Not a reporter. I wrote his name and number on the message. He was distraught about his wife. Was kind of rambling. His name was Donald. He couldn’t say exactly why he was calling or who he wanted to talk to. From down in Orange County. Laguna Beach. Ever been down there, Father? They say it’s like the Mediterranean, which I’ve never been to, so I can’t really compare. I think he just wanted to talk to someone.”

  “I’ll call him back.”

  “What was she like, Father?”

  “The girl? I don’t know. I still don’t know what to make of it all. She’s paralyzed. It’s sad. That was the shocking thing. Even though I knew this, I’d seen her on TV and knew what to expect, a paralyzed little girl who can’t communicate either. But there she was. It was a shock. She just lies there in her room. That’s her whole world, that room. While all this whirls around her. You can’t tell what she’s thinking or how much she knows. That’s what the doctors say anyway. The people see it differently, though, and the people are there, Nancy. They keep coming. Lined up in front of the house and down the block. Part of this collective yearning that maybe before was general, not defined, and now it has a purpose, a focus. And they adore the girl. You talk to them and there’s no doubt about what they believe is going on. Miracles. No matter what the Church or the TV or anybody else says. Miracles. Like they’ve read about but thought they’d never experience firsthand. Or secondhand. In 1999. In Los Angeles. Miracles. Miraculum, to quote the Latin.”

  “Because I guess I’ve been thinking that with Darrel—well, with both Darrel and Kenny, Darrel’s ruptured disc and Kenny with the lupus—I was just thinking that why not, it couldn’t hurt. You never know.”

  “Nancy, I think that if you feel the need to go, then you should go. If that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Thanks, Father. Maybe I will. I’m just mulling it over. What else did I come in here to tell you? Oh. There’s someone who’s been holding for about ten minutes. Says she’s an agent or something. A woman.”

  “All right, I’ll take it. Thanks, Nancy.”

  Father Jim presses the blinking button on his phone. Tugs at his collar. Still some residual sweat that won’t seem to go away.

  “Good morning, this is Father Jim Hinshaw.”

  “Yes, Father, Father Jim, hello, hello. Just switching off speaker. Hello. This is Christine Benfer here. Of Benfer and Sloan Artists Management. Saw you on the news the other night, Father. Nicely done, I must say. Although you might want to do something about that wardrobe. Ha ha. Joking, Father, joking. Has anyone ever mentioned that you resemble a certain actor who I’ll have you know I once represented at one point in his career early on?”

  “You’re not the first. What can I do for you today, Ms. Benfer?”

  “Well, Father, it involves, as you might imagine, the Vincent girl. Incredible story, that. And I’m involved in the development of a script based on these events. And I was wondering if you’d consider coming onboard and becoming a kind of advisor slash consultant for the movie.”

  “A movie? They’re making a movie?”

  “In development, Father. It’s a complicated business. But things are moving faster than they normally do, which tells me something. A cable movie, it’s looking like. One of the newer networks.”

  The requests keep getting stranger and stranger, thinks Father Jim as he shifts the phone to his other ear. Christine Benfer’s voice is smooth, melodic, a well-­honed instrument.

  “And what would being this advisor slash consultant entail?” he asks.

  “Not much really. Reading the script, making notes, suggestions, offering feedback. Religion-­wise, we just want to make sure everything is up to snuff, that there are no major fu—foul-­ups. Of course—and full disclosure here, Father, because I believe in being as honest as possible with people—that doesn’t necessarily mean that what you say or recommend will find its way into the final product. No guarantee of that. Dramatic license and whatnot. Some of the rules and conventions of filmmaking do not always cohere with the rules and conventions of the world. That whole art-versus-reality thing.”

  “I’ll have to think about it, Ms. Benfer. We’re pretty swamped here right now with the investigation. But I’ll think about it and look at my schedule and get back to you. If it’s just a matter of reading the script.”

  “And how is the investigation going?”

  Father Jim pauses before answering.

  “We’re . . . making progress,” he says, trying to be as noncommittal as possible. “It’s coming along. It’s coming along fine. These things can’t be rushed like so much else these days.”

  “That’s all I’m going to get?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “I understand. Completely. Completely understand. Information is our most precious commodity, and this is after all the information age. Just think about it. Think about it and let me know. By Friday would be good. If you are interested, I’ll have Daniel FedEx a contract and the script once this latest draft is finished. All right then. Ciao.”

  Dial tone. That universal assaultive drone.

  Had he ever spoken to anyone who ended a conversation with the Italian word for good-­bye? Doubtful. Also doubtful: that while growing up in Ohio he ever imagined that he’d be reading scripts and talking to agents and showing up on the six o’clock news in the country’s second largest television market. He stands and goes to his tiny office window, gazes down on Wilshire and the buildings of downtown Los Angeles, everything bathed in a hazy, sickly light. You are being watched by an unknown source.

  And what about the Miracle Girl? He hasn’t yet fully sorted out what he thinks about it all, this cresting commotion that has taken over his life, at least not much more than what he told Nancy. There’s a resistance, sure, a skepticism that’s probably healthy, the legacy of Thomas, the famous Doubting Thomas, who questioned the Resurrection until he touched Christ’s wounds, and who said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”; but there’s also an elation, an expectant curiosity and delight reminiscent of childhood, when things hadn’t been decided and there wasn’t a name or word for everything you felt. In a way, he welcomed mystery back into his life. It was mystery, in fact, that had drawn him to the priesthood in the first place. As a shy little boy, then as an even more
bashful teenager, he had been fascinated by the priests whom his parents had over regularly for dinner, these solemn, mythic men (Father Sullivan, Father Díaz) with their wise foreheads and forgiving eyes, like they knew secrets, had knowledge that was painful but beautiful to bear. His family strict Catholics, scornful of the cafeteria variety; however, regardless of their devotion, his parents, particularly his mother, had always discouraged him from becoming a priest: you’re so talented, there’s so much you can do, as if such a life would be a disappointment, settling for less than what he was capable of.

  So yes: mystery. Which he found himself now savoring, not wanting to articulate his thoughts too much, to investigate too deeply—despite the fact that technically, yes, that was his job, his charge here at the Archdiocese—and therefore break the spell. And yet: even though the phenomenon of Anabelle Vincent had its questions and perhaps unanswerable Sphinx-­like riddles, on the other hand it also seemed like something tangible, and maybe that’s what has become so appealing for people. Here was this girl, this physical embodiment of pain and suffering and goodness and light and all the faith that has been diverted or distracted throughout the years. Karen Vincent, the mother, had told them a story about a woman who came all the way from Michigan. She was a widow, retired, no children, very little money, her health relatively good considering her age, her titanium hip implants, and her dubious family history of various life-­threatening ailments. Had never been to California in her life. She took a Greyhound to Los Angeles and then a long, expensive cab ride to the house. She had nothing specific to pray for or ask for. Her life had been lived and now she was waiting, she said. She simply wanted to see Anabelle. She didn’t know why, she just had to. The girl, her story, spoke to her as she sat watching TV in the day room of her assisted-­living facility. She left without telling anyone. “I’m on the lam,” she confided girlishly. After she met with Anabelle, a fellow visitor offered to drop her off at the bus station, and she returned home. “To wait some more, only now the waiting will be easier,” she told the mother, who confessed to Father Jim and Father Lewis that she didn’t know what to make of the story, it was one of many, and there were more and more every day, compiling like evidence, proof of something.

  Father Jim returns to his computer, tries to log on again. Still the “unable to connect” message. He taps the keyboard, the screen an empty ocean of desktop green. Could it be that the Miracle Girl was a test for him? Some of the older priests talked about those who hit the Wall—referring to the younger priests who make a go of it for a few years but eventually leave the Church, who get married or succumb to doubt and selfishness and who knows what else, the thousands of reasons to live an uncollared life. Father Jim is near that vulnerable age when the Wall usually presents itself, either in the mind or in the flesh, confronting you, a reckoning to be had—what’s your true commitment, your true belief? It all came down to this.

  And because he’d thought of Thomas, he also thinks now of the Caravaggio painting, with the inspecting apostle sticking a finger into Christ’s damaged body, probing the wound until it became real. Father Jim had wanted to touch Anabelle the same way, get the same kind of consuming verification. But he hadn’t. Like countless others, he merely cupped his hand to her head, held it there, looked into her bottomless eyes, and waited, Father Lewis having already left the room, the mother standing quietly behind him, letting the moment breathe and be what it wanted to be. Later, after, it had been on the drive back to the office, while staring at his hand lazed on the steering wheel, he tried to determine if the slight tingling in his fingers had been his imagination, or from the strain of driving, or was it the girl speaking to him in a language he didn’t yet know.

  11

  | Karen |

  MORE EARTHQUAKES ENSUED—A series of subsequent bumps and aftershocks, fairly mild rumblings by L.A. standards—but nothing like the one that hit while she was on her “break” at Costco. People on the radio and TV and everywhere saying it was a warning, a sign of some kind. Just look at the number of quakes. Look at the weather, too. Look at the flooding in Indonesia and famine in Africa. Look at AIDS. Look at Ebola. Look at the Lakers’ losing streak. Look at the whole Y2K thing—all the computers that were going to go haywire and blow up, causing power outages and gas and food shortages and riots and lootings, people stockpiling canned goods and bullets and water purification systems, the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999, setting off a chain reaction of malfunctioning ATM machines, nuclear power plant meltdowns, a global economic, social and political collapse, and, eventually, if you went that far, the end of the world as we know it. And then there was what Anabelle’s physical therapist, Linda, said: “I like my KABC radio and my Dr. Toni Grant, but I’m getting tired of all these folks calling up and saying apocalypse this and apocalypse that. The earthquakes, the weather, the price of tea in China. You seen that bumper sticker they have? ‘Y2K Is Judgment Day.’ The only signs I believe in are the signs at the gas station. You seen the price for a gallon of unleaded lately?” Karen liked Linda, a lot.

  As for Anabelle, she was fine. After the earthquake and power outage, and after the doctor and paramedics and ambulance had left, they continued to monitor her closely—and nothing, she was fine. Stable. Unchanged. Normal—meaning the same as before the earthquake. But later that night, while sitting on the sofa in the living room and sipping chamomile tea, Karen had lost it, the hot beverage almost spilling as her hands shook uncontrollably, Bryce consoling her in his sweet Bryce way, making her feel, as he always managed to do, less alone in the world. She had cried harder than she had in months, harder, even, than she had cried when John left. It was getting to be too much. It had taken on a life of its own and it was now beyond her control, anyone’s control. The people, the phone calls, the interviews, the letters, the e-­mails, the requests, the devouring need of everyone who knocked on her door. Everything. The story of the Miracle Girl had officially grown “legs,” to quote one of the many reporters she spoke to on a pretty much daily basis.

  The crying lessened to a light whimpering and then subsided all together, and she was able to speak again. She pulled away from Bryce, noticing that his shirt was damp from her tears and that he quite possibly had an erection. She took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know if I want this to be happening anymore,” Karen told him. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  Bryce crossed his legs; he drank the last of his now-­cold tea. It was a rare moment when the house was dark and quiet, when she could almost imagine simply doing the dishes and going to bed without worrying about Anabelle making it through the night, and then the next morning waking up to her daughter gently nudging her and climbing next to her in bed, snuggling their way into the start of a new day.

  “I don’t know if it’s a choice anymore,” said Bryce.

  “There has to be a choice,” she said, leaning forward on the couch. “I mean, I’m her mother. This is my life. This is our life. I don’t know if I want this to be happening anymore, Bryce. It’s too much. Mostly, though, the main thing that’s making me feel sick to my stomach, like I’m going to throw up, is I don’t know what to tell these people anymore. They keep coming and I smile and I don’t know what to say anymore. What if—what if I want this all to stop?”

  The question went unanswered, and they both sat there for a very long time until Karen got up to check on Anabelle: she looked both peaceful and restless, alive and dead, the moonlight casting a celestial-­looking white glow across her entire body—something, she knew right away, that she would keep to herself. It would not become yet another story about her daughter.

  BUT THE WEEKS wore on. She did not know how to stop. Could it be stopped? More visitors, more fatigue, more indecision. She felt herself spinning, paper caught up in wind and tumult, controlled by a force beyond her.

  PERHAPS THE FIRST miracle was that she did not die, and here it was, approaching a year after the accident. The doctors said not to expect much, maybe she�
��d have six months, maybe more if they were lucky, it’s best not to get one’s hopes up too much in these kinds of situations, take it day to day, be thankful for the time you have with your daughter. They also said Anabelle would be better off in an institution—an “extended care facility” was how they put it. Providing for her basic needs would be a full-­time job—more than a full-­time job, actually. But Karen wouldn’t have it: “I can handle it, I can do it myself,” she told them, without thinking of all that this entailed, the details, the day-­to-­day, hour-­to-­hour, life-­consuming toil. “I’ll learn what I need to learn. What I don’t know, we’ll get people to come to the house. Do whatever we need to do. I don’t want her wasting away in some institution or whatever you call it. I can’t accept that. A parent can’t accept that. I can’t . . .”

  And they came back with: “That’s our recommendation, Mrs. Vincent. There’s a very fine facility in Brea and we’d be more than happy to make the necessary arrangements and they have a wonderful program there. Of course we can’t make the decision for you. But understand that if you take this on yourself, your life will no longer be your own. Are you prepared for that? Because ask yourself. This is the kind of case where the patient, your daughter, Anabelle, will require constant care and supervision. Keep in mind there are financial considerations as well. It gets tricky with the insurance if you go it alone like this. We just want to make sure you’re making an informed decision.”

  And she said: “I understand, thank you, you’ve made it perfectly clear, your asses are officially covered, but no, there are some things you know you’re supposed to do. You just know. In your bones. In your chest, here.”