by John Manning
Pierre stood and shook her hand, mumbling, “Nice to meet you,” but Maddie remained seated. If anything, she seemed to withdraw further into herself, looking at Dr. Vaid’s hand as though it were diseased. Dr. Vaid merely raised her eyebrows, and looked back at Pierre briefly before turning her attention to Bernie.
“So, how is our little girl?” Pierre asked, trying to keep his voice steady, but he balled his sweating hands back into fists again. He took a few deep breaths, trying to remain calm.
“Ah, yes, Bernadette.” The doctor sighed as she looked down at Bernie’s still form. “She is not speaking today?”
“She’s saying the rosary with me,” Maddie said.
“But in a faraway place, no?”
Pierre nodded. “She’s not communicative.”
“Yesterday, she spoke to me when I examined her.” Dr. Vaid was looking at her chart, then folded it and replaced it at the end of Bernie’s bed. “She told me that she not only saw but spoke to the Virgin Mary, and the wounds on her hands and feet appeared miraculously while she was the presence of the Virgin. Moreover, she believes that the stigmata appeared as further proof of the visitation.”
“Yes,” Maddie said, finally putting her rosary aside and standing to face the doctor. “That’s exactly what happened.”
“Were you there?” Dr. Vaid asked.
“No,” Maddie told her, “but—”
“Another doctor called her hysterical,” Pierre said. “Bernie, I mean.” He exchanged a look with his wife.
“Bernadette’s original doctors called me in,” Dr. Vaid explained. “They thought perhaps I might be able to see something they could not. I have treated these cases before.”
Pierre was about to ask what “these cases” were, but Dr. Vaid went on.
“Physically, other than the wounds, your daughter is perfectly healthy. I spoke with her teachers, and they all described a happy girl, who has friends, who is interested in school. But on the other hand—”
Normal well-adjusted thirteen-year-olds don’t think they’ve talked to the Virgin Mary, Pierre thought, finishing the doctor’s sentence, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye. Unless, of course, they have religious fanatics for mothers brainwashing them.
“Her wounds,” Pierre asked. “One doctor thought Bernie might have made them herself.”
Dr. Vaid shook her head. “They do not appear to be self-inflicted. In fact, I would go so far as to say that self-infliction is not possible.”
“So you’re saying someone had to have done this to her?” Pierre glanced at Maddie out of the corner of his eyes.
“Well, it would have been most difficult for her to do this to herself.” Dr. Vaid smiled sympathetically at both parents. “The other doctors have informed you of the severity of the wounds?”
“They told us she lost a lot of blood,” Pierre replied.
Dr. Vaid held her hands together in front of her face as if in prayer. “The wound in her left wrist went straight through to the other side. I cannot imagine her being able to do that to herself, but let us suppose she did. She could not then have the strength to drive another object through her right wrist with an already injured left hand.”
“Is this why the police want to speak with us?” Maddie asked. “They’re thinking we did this to her?”
“I have no idea what the police want to ask you, Mrs. deSalis. I did answer some questions for them myself, and they have seen my report.”
Pierre was glaring at Maddie. Could she? Could she have really done this to Bernie?
“Why won’t you even consider that this is a miracle?” Maddie burst out angrily. She had wound the rosary around her left hand and was tightening it so that her knuckles were turning white. “Just because you don’t believe? Because you’re from some Eastern religion with all your mediation and sacred cows and elephant gods? So you think a miracle involving Our Lady and my daughter can’t be true?”
Dr. Vaid raised an eyebrow. “Mrs. deSalis, you look at my skin and listen to my accent and therefore assume that I cannot be a Catholic?” A hint of a smile played at her lips. “In fact, Mrs. deSalis, I have a very strong faith. Science does not after all preclude faith.”
Touché, Pierre thought, watching with no small degree of satisfaction as Maddie’s face turned red.
“So, I assume nothing, Mrs. deSalis. To do otherwise would be an injustice to your daughter.” Dr. Vaid went on smoothly. “The questions I ask, as you well know, will be the same ones asked by the Church when determining whether this is a real visitation, a real appearance of Christ’s wounds, or something else. I cannot say with certainty your daughter is delusional. I cannot make that diagnosis with clear conscience. Yes, there have been recorded cases where a hysterical person can manifest Christ’s wounds. But from everything I can see, your daughter has never been a hysteric. Her teachers and friends all speak very highly of her. There has been no history of delusions. Tell me this, however. Was she a devout believer before this occurred?”
“Too devout,” Pierre said, not looking at his wife.
“There’s no such thing,” Maddie snapped. “In fact, I’d say that Bernie struggled with what I was teaching her, but she was coming around to believe. It’s hard to have faith—pure faith—in today’s world, with so much temptation around teenaged girls.”
“Well, then, there is the possibility that she was trying to please you in some way,” Dr. Vaid observed.
“This isn’t the work of my daughter!” Maddie shouted. “This is the work of Our Blessed Mother!”
Dr. Vaid had turned to look in Pierre’s direction. “You don’t believe it, do you, Mr. deSalis?”
Pierre didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know what’s easier to believe, to be honest. That my daughter is a hysteric, or that my wife somehow caused this to happen, or that the Virgin Mary really appeared to Bernie and left the stigmata behind as proof.” Pierre looked at the doctor with hard eyes. “What do you believe?”
Dr. Vaid smiled kindly. “I believe that your daughter honestly believes that she saw and spoke to the Virgin and that the Holy Mother caused the stigmata to appear as a sign of her presence.” Dr. Vaid pressed her hand to the girl’s cheek. Bernie’s eyelids fluttered but did not open. “I am not saying her story is either true or untrue, simply that this is what she believes.”
“When can she come home?” Pierre asked.
“If the wounds continue to heal, and if she becomes more alert, then I see no reason to keep her here.” Dr. Vaid faced Pierre and Maddie. “But she will need encouragement to get well. I would try to engage with her. Bring her friends in. Mrs. deSalis, by all means keep praying your rosary. But talk with your daughter, too. Tell her things about the world. Bring her back to a state of alertness.”
But that would mean to give up all this sainthood nonsense, to leave the miracles behind and go back to a normal life, Pierre thought. He wasn’t sure that Maddie would do that.
Dr. Vaid approached Maddie and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Even if this is a miracle, surely Our Lady would not want this beautiful child confined to a hospital bed mumbling to herself.”
Maddie nodded. She turned away, overcome with emotion.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pierre said, extending his hand, his voice thick.
Dr. Vaid shook it. “There are many things in this world that we cannot understand, Mr. deSalis. Perhaps it is not for us to understand. Medical science cannot explain everything. And when we encounter those things we cannot explain, we have two choices. We can either disbelieve, or we can have faith.” She looked back at Bernie in the bed. “Scientifically, I cannot explain how your daughter received those wounds. Bernadette did not suffer any nerve or ligament damage in either her hands or her feet. That in itself is miraculous.”
“I suppose it is,” Pierre said, looking over at his sleeping daughter.
“Would it be so terrible if it were true?” Dr. Vaid asked.
Pierre looked at her. He couldn’t
answer.
Dr. Vaid patted his hand. She promised to speak with them again later that day, then bade them each good-bye as she quietly left the room.
Would it be so terrible if it were true?
Pierre kept his eyes on Bernie.
He didn’t know. He just didn’t know.
21
Half the booths in the Yellow Bird were empty when Billy Honeycutt and Mike deSalis walked in after football practice. The dinner rush was just winding down.
“Hey, boys,” Marjorie Pequod called from the counter, where she was filling a cup of coffee for Jed Plunkett, who worked at Bud’s Shell. “Grab a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute, okay?”
“Sure thing, Marj,” Billy called as they slid into a booth in the back.
He winced. His right shoulder and ribs were a little sore from a rather intense tackle in a scrimmage near the end of practice. His blockers had failed miserably to stop the defense from coming after him, and Billy had been gang-tackled, winding up under about five other players.
They better do a better job during the game on Friday night, Billy thought as he grabbed a pair of menus from the side of the table, passing one over to his best friend.
“Thanks.” Mike’s face was immediately hidden behind the menu.
“Dude, you okay?” Billy asked. “You’ve been awful quiet today.”
“I’m fine,” Mike said from behind the menu.
“Well,” Billy teased, “I don’t really mind you being quiet, since I’m pretty tired of listening to you go on and on about things, like how much you hate science class or how you want that Audi they’re fixing up at Bud’s or how you think Nancy Fox is just that—but still, it’s pretty weird.”
“Fine.” Mike still didn’t put the menu down. “Don’t worry about it.”
Billy sighed. Okay, man, you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool with me.
He didn’t even bother opening his own menu. He knew what he was going to get—what he always got at the Yellow Bird. You couldn’t beat one of Wally’s cheeseburgers, smothered in his own homemade chili. If Billy could eat Wally’s chili cheeseburgers every night, he would. But then Gayle Honeycutt’s idea of making dinner generally included opening a can of Franco American or microwaving some frozen pizza. “I have a job, you know,” was Mom’s standard response when either of her children complained about whatever mess she’d thrown together for dinner. “I am a journalist. I have responsibilities. So sorry I’m not here at home to play June Cleaver and wait on you both hand and foot.”
Billy and Mike had been best friends since grade school. They’d always been the two tallest and most athletic kids in their class, and they’d gravitated toward each other. They both picked up sports easily—whether it was football, soccer, basketball, or tennis. They did pretty much everything together. Nobody could make Billy laugh the way Mike could. Mike had a funny response to everything, but never in a mean-spirited way. People genuinely liked Mike. He was a shoo-in to be Homecoming King. Billy knew that people tended to like Mike better than they liked him. Mike wasn’t nearly as vain, he never bragged, and he never made anyone feel he was above them.
Billy knew the same could not be said about himself.
He looked over at his best friend, who had finally set down his menu and was thrumming his fingers on the table as they waited for Marjorie. Mike’s thick mop of black hair was always messy and out of place. He never had a comb or a brush. He was sloppy with the way he dressed, too—sometimes wearing a shirt that clashed violently with his pants. He was always dribbling ketchup on his shirts. They’d had Sloppy Joes at school for lunch that day, and sure enough, there was a crusty red splotch just below the collar of his shirt. Mike was a good student—something else in which he parted company with Billy. He effortlessly breezed through his classes with straight A’s. Mike never seemed to worry, never seemed to get angry or lose his temper. You could always count on Mike if you needed cheering up.
Until his sister went into the hospital Monday morning before school.
“Okay, boys, what will it be?” Marjorie asked, suddenly at their table, pad and pencil in hand.
Billy ordered his chili cheeseburger and a side of fries and a supersized Coke. Mike just had fries and a lemonade. “I’m not that hungry,” he explained.
“So,” Billy asked, after a few more minutes of awkward silence had passed between them, “how’s Bernie doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know.”
“They don’t tell you anything?”
Mike looked away for a minute and sighed. “Mom hasn’t been home, and Dad—well, Dad…” He ran his hand through his tangled hair. “Dude, this has freaked all of us out.”
“Well, what’s wrong with her?” Billy asked. “She’s going to be okay, right?”
Mike looked at him for a few moments before answering. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he finally said.
“I’m your best friend, man. If you can’t talk to me about it…”
Mike glanced around before leaning across the table and lowering his voice. “You have to swear not to tell anyone, okay?”
“Sure, man.”
“She’s lost her mind.” Mike made a circular motion with his index finger beside his right temple. “She’s gone completely insane.” He shook his head. “It’s fucking freaky. She just went completely nuts Monday morning. I don’t know if they are ever going to let her out of the hospital.” His eyes filled with tears. “And Dad doesn’t want anyone to know, so you can’t say anything to anyone.”
Billy’s jaw dropped. “I swear, man. I won’t say anything to anyone. But you gotta tell me what happened.”
Mike just shook his head. “I don’t know. No one does. It was horrible, man. Monday morning Mom was calling her to come down for breakfast, and she never answered, you know? Which isn’t like Bernie, she’s always the first one up, way before me and Frank, you know. And Mom kept calling and calling—and finally went upstairs to see what was wrong. Then she started screaming.” Mike shuddered. “So we went running up to see what was wrong. And then we saw her…man.” He swallowed and leaned across the table. “She was lying there in the bed, and there was blood everywhere.”
“Blood?”
Mike nodded. “From her wrists.”
“She tried to kill herself?”
“Nope. At least she says she didn’t do it herself.” Mike stopped speaking as Marjorie placed their drinks on the table, and waited for her to leave before continuing. “Are you ready for this? Bernie thinks she saw the Virgin Mary.”
“What the fuck?”
The word exploded out of his mouth so loud that everyone in the diner stopped talking and turned to look at them. Mike glared at his friend.
“Dude, I told you, keep it down.”
“I’m sorry. But now I know what you mean by insane.”
“But here’s the really freaky part. It wasn’t just her wrists. She was bleeding from her hands and her feet. It’s stigmata.”
“Stig-whatta?”
“Right. You’re not Catholic.” Mike barked out a short laugh. “Stigmata—the wounds of Our Lord and Savior. You know, nails through the hands and feet?”
“Fuck.” Billy’s head was swimming. “Crazy.”
“Exactly. Mom thinks it’s a miracle, and I don’t know what Dad thinks.” Mike ran a hand through his hair again. “Bernie swears that’s what happened, but she won’t tell anyone what the Virgin supposedly told her. The Virgin, she says, swore her to secrecy. I’ve gone online and looked some of this stuff up. There are lots of cases of stigmata happening to people who believe it’s a sign from God.” He sighed and shook his head again. “It’s all so damned crazy, you know? I mean, Bernie could have looked up all this stuff, too, but why would she? Why would she fake it? There’s no reason for Bernie to pull something like this. She’s just not like that.”
“Dude, maybe she�
��s looking for attention.”
“I thought of that. Mom’s always been a little nuts about the Church stuff—you’ve been to our house, you’ve seen all the saints and the candles.” Mike gave another harsh laugh. “Lately, Bernie’s been kind of that way, too.”
“Maybe she’s telling the truth.”
Mike frowned. “Don’t even say that, man, even as a joke.”
“I’m not joking.” Billy shrugged. Religion for him was more perfunctory than anything else, a part of his weekly routine. The Honeycutts were Methodists, and every Sunday morning the family got up, put on nice clothes, and headed over to the church. His mom especially liked going to church, because afterward she got to talk with everybody outside, hearing all the latest gossip. They never prayed at home, didn’t read the Bible, never really talked about religion much. But his mother always told them that being Christian meant they had the “keys to the kingdom,” whatever that meant. “Everybody else has to wait in line to be saved,” she’d tried to explain. “We get into heaven through the fast lane.”
Billy shrugged. “I mean, you got to keep an open mind, dude.”
“I don’t know.” Mike sipped at his lemonade. “These are my choices. I either believe my sister is some kind of visionary, a saint, or that she’s insane.”
He leaned back against the booth as Marjorie slid their plates of food in front of them. She looked from one face to the other.
“You boys all right?” she asked, raising one of her penciled eyebrows.
“Fine.” Billy gave her a weak smile. “Wow, this looks good.”
She winked. “Well, if you need anything else, just give me a holler.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Mike hissed from across the table.
“I won’t, I swear.” Billy raised his hand. “Besides, who would I tell?”
“Heidi. You’d tell Heidi.”
“I won’t tell Heidi.” Billy shook his head. “I don’t tell her everything just because she’s my girlfriend. What do you want me to do, swear a blood oath?”