Miriam's Well

by Lois Ruby

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Loomis,” said my mother.

  That made Loomis mad. She leaned toward my mother. “You do not owe me an apology nor should you apologize for your son.” She seemed to be having trouble breathing. I heard a faint rattle in her chest, which I recognized because of my own allergies. She was pretty upset. I wondered if she’d have an asthma attack.

  “All I can say,” my father promised, “is that my wife and I will talk with Adam about this privately, and nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  Mrs. Loomis reared back in her chair. “I understand that you’re under a great deal of pressure, Adam. The Pelham case has taken its toll on many of our students, and I’ve heard that you’ve become a friend of hers. She needs friends. Perhaps I’m to blame for this grave situation, pairing you two on the poetry assignment.”

  “Oh, no, no,” my mother protested. “You only did what—”

  I’d had it. “You know something, Mrs. Loomis?”

  “Adam,” my father warned, but I ignored him.

  “You talk about the ‘gravity of the situation,’ but let me tell you what’s really grave. It’s having this disease that’s probably going to kill you. It’s having your family fight it out in court.” I looked at my father, and he turned his eyes away. “You think I’m going to worry about a stupid thing like some event that changed history a million years ago? Grinnell College doesn’t care, but personally, what’s going on with Miriam Pelham is the most important event in history right now.”

  “Adam, I understand the nature of your concern.”

  “No you don’t, Mrs. Loomis.” I felt my mother’s hand on my arm, but I shrugged it off. “You understand verbs and thesis sentences and foreshadowing. Well, let me tell you about foreshadowing. The doctors, the preachers, the journalists, the lawyers, they’re all dropping hints that a good reader wouldn’t miss. Death. Dark shadows, the Grim Reaper, heavy organ music, the whole works.

  “See, the doctors want Miriam to die so they can prove that the preachers are crazy. The preachers want her to die so they can say the doctors are the Antichrist, and besides, she’s headed for greater glory in the next World.”

  “Adam, let’s go home,” my mother said gently.

  “No, wait, I’m just getting to the point in this brilliant essay. Okay, what about the journalists? Well, they don’t care if Miriam lives or dies. They just want to sell papers, and hey, death sells better than just about anything except celebrity sex scandals.”

  “And the lawyers?” my father asked. I saw my mother shake her head, and I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to stop him, or me.

  “Oh, the lawyers are the heroes in this thing. They’re willing to let Miriam die because it preserves our good old American civil rights.”

  I’d said it all so calmly, though my head was pounding. I saw my mother wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. Then I added, “It was cheating. I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

  “The situation is behind us now,” Mrs. Loomis said. “I will expect your essay by tomorrow, Adam. If it is at least ninety percent quality, I shall not penalize you for turning it in late. And thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Bergen, for coming to discuss this matter.”

  “You know, Mrs. Loomis, I’m directly involved in the Pelham case myself,” my father explained.

  “Yes,” she said, with a strong note of disapproval in her voice. “But my concern is with Adam’s learning to be a literate and honest person, not with the legal ramifications of the Pelham melee. I’m certain these two can be kept separate.”

  Well, maybe she was sure, but I wasn’t. The neat little compartments of my life were spilling over into one another. For some dumb reason I thought about second grade, when we each had cubbyholes for our books and crayons and those impossible round-tipped scissors. Mrs. Jackson used to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, your cubbies are a mess, but look at Adam’s. On the count of three, see if you can all get your cubbies to look just like Adam’s.” Mine was always neat because I never used it. I was always borrowing everyone else’s paper and crayons. Some things never change.

  The truth is, they changed a lot. Until my tirade in Mrs. Loomis’s room, I hadn’t understood just how furious I was about Miriam’s crummy situation, or how much she meant to me. Then it suddenly felt like I had to write the best possible essay as a sort of tribute to Miriam. Grimly, I thought, it could end up as her eulogy. I worked on the essay all afternoon and most of the night, taking my ideas to the hospital to discuss with her.

  “I could write about the fall of the Roman Empire,” I said. Talk about irrelevant. “Or I could dip way back and write about when Moses received the Law. I’m not sure you’d actually call that history.”

  “Of course it is; it’s in the Bible,” Miriam said.

  “Well, I’m not convinced that Bible and history are the same thing.”

  Although she didn’t agree, she listened intently. Finally she said, “I know what I’d write about. The birth of Christ. I mean, even if you’re not a Christian, Adam, you have to admit it’s changed everything for the last two thousand years.”

  “No,” I said, picking my words carefully. “It wasn’t the birth that changed everything, it was the death. I guess I’ll write about that.”

  “The death of Christ?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “The death of Jesus,” I said. “There’s a difference.”

  I got up at 4:30 on Friday morning to type the paper. Usually my mother typed for me, but this time it seemed important that I do it all myself, even with only two fingers flying over the keys of the computer. I finished with just enough time to grab a quick shower and run my hair under the water without shampoo. With the hot steam clearing my eyes, and the water dribbling down my back, I thought about the strange twenty-four hours I’d had, not a day I’d want to live through too often. No video games, no basketball, no 10 o’clock trip to Godfather’s Pizza. I’d read at the library, I’d taken notes and discussed my ideas with Miriam. I’d even stopped in at the synagogue to run a couple of thoughts by Rabbi Fein, worrying now and then about whether it was cheating to bounce ideas off other people. It wasn’t, I decided. It was a good way to sharpen fuzzy thinking, and I was a world class expert on fuzzy thinking. Even in debate, where clear reasoning was the big goal, while I wowed the judges with fast, slippery words, Diana was always clarifying my evidence.

  Ferociously drying my hair with a beach towel, I suddenly realized that the only person I hadn’t talked to about the essay was Diana.

  I met her at her locker before lunch that day. My belly flip-flopped because she looked so damn beautiful in a pumpkin colored blouse with puffy sleeves and white slacks.

  “Oh, hi, Adam,” she said brightly. “Have you heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  “We broke up. We’re still debate partners, of course. Don’t forget the regionals coming up in two weeks. Other than that, there’s no Adam and Diana.”

  But there had always been an Adam and Diana. We’d been together at practically every dance, every party, every concert, and every debate tournament since the beginning of our junior year. “Who says we broke up?” I whispered. This was not a conversation for the P.A. system.

  But Diana was broadcasting. “You did. Actions speak louder than words,” she yelled. “Everyone knows you’re going out with Miriam Pelham.”

  “Out? We went to a stupid museum one day after school.”

  “Oh, face it, Adam. You just about live at the hospital. They might as well put a cot in her room for you. Now really, how can I compete with a deathbed case?” She slammed her locker so hard that it sprang back against the wall and cracked the plaster. “Oh, it’s too bad about the history essay. I hear Mrs. Loomis was breathing fire. You’ll be happy to know she flunked me on it, too. But I wrote a better essay on the death of romanticism in Western culture, or at least in Wichita, Kansas.”

  I was supposed to have a snappy retort ready, but all I could think about was, If Diana�
��s leaving me, where does that leave me? But she answered the question clearly: “Listen, I’ve got to run, and your little Miriam’s waiting.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Have a great Christmas vacation.” She backed away. “The thing is, I just never thought of you as a martyr, you know?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Told by Miriam

  Adam had good news that, typical of Adam Bergen, he tossed off casually. “Oh, by the way, I’m not going out with Diana anymore.”

  My heart leapt up, as if I were William Wordsworth! But then I got this panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. If Diana had no claim on him, and he spent just about all his spare time with me, I guess that meant we were going out together. Going out—what a joke. We never went anywhere, of course, since the judge was so paranoid about losing me. A major trip was down to the cafeteria for thirty minutes or down the hall to the lounge where the cigarette smoke was thick enough to kick up Adam’s allergies. We could only stay there until his eyes were running so badly that he looked like he’d been peeling onions.

  But if Diana wasn’t in our way anymore, and we were sort of “going (nowhere) together,” I was in real trouble. It’s a fact: we weren’t supposed to like each other. I wasn’t supposed to feel the soaring elation at 3:00 when I knew the bell would be letting Adam out of school. And I wasn’t supposed to be watching the door as the long minutes ticked by until 3:25, when he’d fill my doorway, and I wasn’t supposed to feel the joyous sickness in my stomach when he did. And to be sure, I wasn’t supposed to have the overwhelming wish that he’d kiss me, that he’d hold me, that he’d push me to the side of that lumpy, egg-crate mattress and climb in beside me. With our clothes on, of course. I wouldn’t dream of anything else. I just wanted to have him warm and close.

  But I wasn’t supposed to feel any of this.

  “Yep,” he said. “It’s a clean cut with Diana. We decided today.”

  The words were light and casual, but I saw the hurt in his eyes, and I knew she’d broken up with him.

  “The funny thing is, I barely felt anything when it happened. I mean, I didn’t bleed.”

  “I’m sorry, Adam.” I tried to sound sincere.

  He grabbed my big toe in a fierce hammerlock. “No, you’re not. I’m not releasing your toe until you admit it.”

  I tried wrestling it away, but he only grabbed the big toe on my other foot. I yanked and pulled, like a fisherman with a soggy boot on the end of the line. I did manage to upset his balance—a small victory—so that he flopped onto the bed on top of my feet, still holding on to my toes for dear life.

  “You’re pretty strong today, Schwarzenegger. Admit it, you’re not sorry,” he growled, milking both toes.

  “Okay, I’m glad.”

  Immediately he let go of me and jumped to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed my robe from the closet and sent the wire hanger clattering to the floor. He pressed the nurse call button, and this grainy voice came over the speaker: “Nurse’s station.”

  “Nurse, we’re going out for a couple of hours,” Adam shouted. “Hold all calls.” We heard the intercom click off, then the shuffling of rubber-soled shoes. By the time the nurse and the security guard got into the room, we were flattened against the wall behind the door.

  “Oh, good grief, she’s gone,” the nurse cried.

  Officer Baylor, the plump little guard, kept a cooler head. She said, “Whoa, whoa. We’ll just have a look around.”

  “Surprise!” we yelled and watched them practically leap into the air.

  “You like to give me a heart attack.” The nurse clutched her considerable chest.

  “We’re desperate,” Adam explained. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Officer Baylor closed in on us. “You mean go AWOL?”

  “No, Baylor, nothing like that. We just want to go to another floor. Any other floor. You can follow us, if you want, just let us out for a few minutes,” Adam pleaded.

  “Hold on.” Officer Baylor phoned for Dr. Gregory. The one advantage of my being such a celebrity was that any call concerning me was put through immediately. Soon Dr. Gregory was on the line, giving permission for our journey into Worlds Beyond, as Adam said, but Officer Baylor was to trail us closely.

  No one wanted to see sick people, so the three of us agreed to go to the nursery on the fourth floor. As soon as we came out of the elevator, we heard muffled crying from behind the thick glass, as some of the babies let the world know they were good and mad. Life seemed pretty easy for them.

  Adam said, “They all look the same, like Winston Churchill.”

  “They’re not all alike. See? Some have pink blankets, and some have blue blankets.”

  “This is clearly sexism in the nursery,” Adam said, huffing in indignation. “That bald pink one over there is probably going to sue the hospital.”

  “Oh, look at little Sangit Singh. He’s the picture of Gandhi, but with a little more hair.” I glanced back to see the guard, holding her distance to give us space, but craning to see the babies, too.

  Adam liked the one with black hair hanging over her wrinkly forehead. She lay on her back with her eyes wide open, following every move we made. “Look, she’s the Night Watchwoman, keeping the vigil so no one snatches any of the Churchills or Gandhis.”

  “Oh, look at that one,” I said, pointing to a round blue bundle with its rump in the air.

  The elevator behind us opened, and Officer Baylor snapped to attention. A harmless-looking older man in a gray business suit came over to the window. When the baby nurse spotted him, she rolled maybe the ugliest baby in the nursery right up to the window. He was red-faced and pimply and had not one strand of hair anywhere on his head, but he had a fairly thick patch between his eyes.

  “That’s my grandson, Roger Comiston III,” the man boasted. “Which one’s yours?”

  “Oh, we’re—”

  “That one,” Adam said, pointing to the Night Watchwoman.

  “No kidding? Well, they change a lot in just a few days. Young Roger, he’ll have hair before long. Well, you two take care of that little princess.” Mr. Comiston pulled a business card out of his breast pocket. “It’s not a minute too soon to buy her life insurance. Say, give me a jingle when you get the little squirt home.”

  Officer Baylor moved in closer to read the card, and Mr. Comiston backed off a bit and looked me over a little more carefully. “Say, aren’t you that girl? Well, I’ll be. They sure never told anything in the paper about you having a baby.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not that girl,” I said, amazed at how easily I could let a lie roll off my tongue when it was all for pure fun.

  “Um-hmm. Well, give me a call when you’re ready to make an investment in your kid’s life. It’s not a minute too soon. The Third’s already got a thirty-thou term policy on his life.” Mr. Comiston backed into the open mouth of the elevator and was swallowed up.

  Christmas was coming, and everyone around me had turned nervous. I felt like a hot wire, a conductor for their tension. I gave them excuses. Maybe it was because Christmas was close and the nurses were overwrought, trying to shop and bake and decorate along with their work at the hospital. I knew Adam tensed up whenever the subject of Christmas came around. I wasn’t exactly sure what Jewish people did for Christmas, but I thought they must at least have a tree and exchange gifts. Even Dr. Chin, the Buddhist, said their family each got a special gift on Christmas morning. But when I asked, “Adam, what does your family do on Christmas?,” he said, “Nothing. Sometimes we go to a movie.” “No tree? No presents?” “No,” he replied, “it’s not our holiday.” So, he was really tense, bristling every time he tried to set his schoolbooks under a small tree with red snow-flocked balls on my night table. He’d started dropping his books to the floor, and the echoing slam they made against the tile felt like an insult to me.

  Dr. Gregory, too, was as tense as a caged rat. Brother James had been working on him, encouraging him to stop being a sinne
r. Sometimes, when he came by to see me, the longing in his face made me feel like he was just itching to return to Jesus. I prayed for him every night; I prayed that by Christmas, he’d be reborn.

  When Brother James stopped in, I was feeling pretty good. He pulled my pillow to the floor for me to kneel on. We knelt together, our elbows on my bed, our shoulders touching, and he confided, “I feel something about to happen, Miriam, just like you can tell a train’s coming by the vibration on the tracks. Do you feel it, child? Bow your head.” Brother James’s voice was a smooth, rumbling sound from the depths of his chest.

  I laid my forehead on the soft weave of the blanket and felt Brother James’s words come through me, shoulder to shoulder, as if I were picking up his vibrations: “Isaiah 58:11,

  And the Lord will guide thee continually,

  And satisfy thy soul in drought,

  And make strong thy bones;

  And thou shalt be like a watered garden,

  And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. A-men. Say it with me, Miriam.”

  “A-men.” Our voices were in perfect symphony, one voice.

  In the middle of the deep hospital night, with everything as still as a canyon, it came again.

  MEER-EE-AHM, TAKE UP THY TIMBREL …

  I lay absolutely motionless, waiting for more. Minutes of silence passed. And then, as if way off in the distance, I heard music. It sounded like drums and cymbals, lyres and lutes, tambourines with their sweet, brassy jangling, and the mournful blast of a ram’s horn. The music grew louder, as if a parade were rounding a corner toward me.

  PRAISE HIM WITH CYMBALS SOUNDING; PRAISE HIM WITH CYMBALS RESOUNDING …

  Then the parade turned another corner and faded away, leaving only a dimming memory of music.

  I lay there breathlessly, straining to catch gossamer wisps of notes in the air. Silence. There was only my own rhythmic thumping, as if I were the drummer who had set the pace.