A Valentine’s Day Miracle

by Tammy Falkner

  My brothers are all sitting at the kitchen table, all wearing the same kind of robes, only bigger than the ones the kids are wearing. They all pretend to be quiet and melancholy. I grab a grape from a bowl on the counter and pop it in my mouth.

  “They made you guys be Slytherin again, huh?” I ask, talking around the food in my mouth. None of the kids ever want to be Slytherin when they play, although I’m pretty sure my own daughter would fit well in that house. She’s a natural-born leader, always willing to do whatever it takes to complete a task.

  “I make a terrible Slytherin,” Matt says as he gets up and sheds his robe. He goes to the couch and flops down on the corner cushion. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Emily follows him and plops down right on the middle cushion next to him, leaning heavily against him. He turns his face so he can kiss the top of her head and she smiles and settles more heavily into the cushions.

  “Everyone knows you’re a Hufflepuff, Matt,” Emily says.

  He grins at her. “I love you too, Em.” Then she tries to steal the bag of chips he brought to the couch with him and he growls and chases her fingers, trying to bite her. She shrieks and grabs for the chips with her other hand. He holds her back with a hand to her forehead, her arms failing wildly. “Would you cut it out?” he growls.

  Suddenly, Emily sits up and looks around. “Are both my children still alive?” she asks. I assume she just realized she didn’t see our youngest streak through the room. He hasn’t been walking long, but he’s quick.

  “Last time I saw them, they were,” Matt replies.

  “How long ago was that?”

  Matt pretends to scratch his head. “Two days ago.”

  Emily stands up and snatches the bag of chips from Matt’s hand, and then she runs down the hall, cackling the whole way.

  “I wish you’d have picked a nice girl, Logan,” Matt says, but I know he’s just messing around, because his life wouldn’t be nearly as full or robust without Emily in it. She’s the peas to his carrots. The marshmallow to his chocolate. She’s his best friend, and she has been ever since she gave up everything she held dear to save his life.

  She’s my wife, the love of my life, but she holds a special place in the hearts of all my brothers, too. With Matt, there’s a love there that’s unexplainable. It’s deep and abiding, and they’re family. They bicker, but they love one another, a lot like my brothers and I do. Emily grew up as an only child, but she grew into our family like she belonged there.

  “Where did you guys go?” Paul asks.

  Sam must have brought home food from his restaurant because there are trays on the counter, so I fix myself a plate without even asking. I take it to the couch and set it on the coffee table. “We went to check on the Valentine’s Day heart downtown.”

  “Was everything okay?” Matt asks.

  “The heart is fine. But we ran into Lady Humbug.”

  “What was she doing?” Pete chimes in. Then he reaches for a bite of my dinner, and I lift my hand to slap his. The sound of it rings out in the room, but he still snags a piece. Nothing is sacred with these guys.

  Emily walks back into the room, apparently having satisfied herself that both our children are fine. “She was lying on the sidewalk, where she had collapsed.” She jerks a thumb in my direction. “Your brother scooped her up in his arms, and we took her home.”

  “Lady Humbug collapsed in the street?” Paul asks. “I thought she was held together by hatred and viciousness.”

  “She had gotten some bad news,” Emily says quietly.

  They all stare at us, saying nothing.

  “They found Joy.”

  “Not in her,” Paul says with a snort.

  “Joy Baumgartner. She died. She was Lady Humbug’s daughter.”

  They all sit forward. “Wait. Joy Baumgartner? The Joy Baumgartner? She’s Lady Humbug’s daughter?”

  “I know,” Emily says as she scrubs a hand across her forehead. “Apparently, they had been estranged for quite some time. Joy passed away, and Lady Humbug just found out tonight.” Emily shakes her head. “She was a mess. Absolutely wrecked.”

  It’s hard for all of us to connect Lady Humbug with Joy Baumgartner. Joy had been a driving force in our community for years, and she was one of the most giving souls that ever walked these streets. The idea that she could have been related to Lady Humbug is just not one we can reconcile in our heads. But it’s true. They were mother and daughter.

  “Has anybody told Miracle?” Matt asks softly.

  “Lady Humbug just found out, but someone will tell Miracle as soon as they can find her.”

  “So, Lady Humbug was upset?” Matt asked.

  Emily nods. “So sad.”

  “I didn’t know she had feelings at all.”

  “She does,” I reply. “I saw the look on her face after she collapsed outside the police station. She was devastated. She just crumpled on the sidewalk. It was awful.”

  “Does anyone know when the funeral will be?” Pete asks.

  Lady Humbug had kept muttering about having someone collect the body. “No idea.”

  “We should go, when they announce it.”

  We all nod at the same time. We’ll go. All of us. Because that’s what we do.

  Miracle

  “And that day,” my grandmother says in a quiet voice to all the children at her feet, “that day a mother lost her daughter, and a daughter lost her mother.”

  I can still remember when they told me. Some part of me already knew. I knew my mother was gone or she would have come back. My mom never left me for more than a few hours and even then she left me in the care of someone else. She never left me alone. But when she went to take a woman to a shelter for abused women in a neighboring county and never came back, I knew something was desperately wrong.

  Grandmother’s eyes meet mine again, and my insides warm. The next part was the hardest, but my mother had made it easy for me to know what to do next. So I went and claimed my mother’s body at the morgue. I had my choice of funeral home sneak her away in the middle of the night, before my grandmother could have her taken to the fancy place across town. My mother would have hated that. She would hate being put on display in a casket at the front of a fancy cathedral. She would hate for people to parade past her as they paid their condolences. She would hate for my grandmother’s old friends—who didn’t even know my mother—to be the only people allowed to participate in the funeral.

  So I did what I needed to do. I stole my mother’s body. I had her cremated that same night, and two days later I invited everyone who ever knew my mother to come and pay their respects. And I did it my way.

  “I had lost my daughter many years before that day when I actually lost her,” Grandmother says. “But what I didn’t know was what I would find when I opened my heart and my eyes enough that I could see and feel what was going on around me. My heart had frozen solid long ago, until that day. Valentine’s Day. It was the day an old woman woke up. I woke up.”

  Sam

  “Valentine’s Day is a terrible day for a funeral,” Pete murmurs to me as we walk up the aisle of the community center, which has been set up with folding chairs in tight rows.

  There are no flowers at the front of the room. Miracle had asked that no money be spent on flowers. Instead, she asked anyone who wanted to do something in her mother’s memory to make a donation in her honor to a local charity. And if they couldn’t afford a donation—because, let’s face it, some people just can’t afford it—then they could do a good deed in her honor.

  People were already doing good deeds all over town for the Valentine’s Day event, but as soon as Miracle asked people to honor her mother with a good deed, even more people all over the city began to do nice things for one another. The people who stayed in that basement apartment that night were moved to a local hotel until the weather breaks. Someone paid for eighty rooms for the homeless, and they did it anonymously. People were coming in from the cold. And it was all because of Miracle
and Joy.

  “Has anyone seen Miracle yet?” Paul asks, leaning forward so he can look down the aisle at the rest of us. My brothers and I, along with some friends of ours—Josh, Tag, Ryan, Mick, and Daniel—all volunteered to be ushers today. Even with all our fame, this is our community. Joy Baumgartner took care of the homeless community in our city to the best of her ability, and we owe it to her to honor her memory by helping her daughter. Now if we only had some sort of idea where to find Miracle.

  “No one has seen Miracle yet,” Matt mutters back.

  At the front of the room rests a small folding card table. On it sits a simple urn, which I assume has Joy’s ashes in it. The sight of it is a stark reminder that the end could come for any of us, at any time, and I for one hope that when I go, I am as well-loved as Joy was. People are lined up outside, waiting to come in and pay their respects. They are people from all walks of life. Some are bankers and lawyers. Some are custodians and doormen. Still others are teachers and mechanics. And even more of them are homeless people, who used their last quarters to wash their best clothes so they could pay their own respects to the woman who was Joy Baumgartner.

  Someone walks toward the front of the room where a small piano rests, and he begins to play. The sound is soulful, his fingers flying effortlessly over the keys, and a hush falls over the room.

  Matt steps up beside me. “Who’s that?”

  “No idea,” I say with a shrug. But whoever it is, he’s talented. Like, could be playing in an orchestra talented. “Maybe we should set up one of those free pianos outside the shop, so people like him can have access to it.” The man is obviously homeless, or at least down on his luck. But his eyes are clear and his heart is open, and he’s sharing his gift with the world today in Joy’s honor.

  “Good idea,” Matt mutters back. “Why don’t you work on that? You should put one outside your restaurant too.”

  My restaurant has one inside, and we hire people to play it. I wonder if he would be interested in a job. I’ll have to talk to him. Paul has always said that everyone has a skill. Some people just need help displaying it.

  Suddenly, the music stops. Miracle Baumgartner walks into the room from a side entrance. She is wrapped in layers, and she begins to peel them off one by one. First goes her scarf, then her knit cap, then two layers of jackets. She shrugs out of them, and someone appears next to her to take them.

  She walks slowly but with purpose toward the podium at the front of the room.

  Then she takes a deep breath, and I realize she’s about to speak.

  I find my seat with Peck and take her hand in mine. She smiles at me and leans toward me. She fits against my side like she was made to be there.

  On my other side sit Emilio and Marta, because they would never miss a family event. They show up for everything. And we Reed Brothers have a lot of events. There’s always a sporting event or a birthday or a dance recital or a gymnastics meet. No matter what, Emilio and Marta are never far away. The Zero girls want it that way, and I do too. Grandparents are important in children’s lives. They give children something that parents can’t.

  Miracle clears her throat and all the nervous titters that were bouncing around the room stop.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she says. Her voice is strong and clear. I remember my own mother’s funeral. I wasn’t nearly as composed.

  Suddenly, all heads turn as the exterior doors fly open. A cold wind rushes into the room and two people at the back hurry to close the doors. In bustles Lady Humbug. She stops for a pause then resumes, her steps slow and hesitant as she walks up the center aisle.

  Henry gets up from his seat near the back and he offers her his elbow. He smiles at her, and she doesn’t say a word but she does lay her free hand in the crook of his arm. He walks with her toward the front of the room, where he helps her into a seat in the front row after someone vacates it for her.

  Miracle doesn’t smile. She doesn’t greet her grandmother. She completely ignores the interruption, and she begins again.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she says again. This time, her eyes sweep across her grandmother, along with the rest of the room. “My mother would be overjoyed that you all have come to share in this special day.”

  “Special?” Lady Humbug snorts out.

  “Yes, special,” Miracle says more loudly. But she does it without even scowling. “This is a very special day indeed. Mainly because we finally get to honor my mother. When she was alive, she never would have accepted any praise, much less an event in her honor. So this is a special day.”

  She finally stops to clear her throat. But she doesn’t shed a tear. Not yet, anyway. They might still be coming. Who knows? She’s fifteen years old. Surely she can’t maintain her mature composure during the whole funeral.

  “I was born on Valentine’s Day,” she says. Peck squeezes my hand and I squeeze hers back. “My mother named me Miracle because she thought I was one. But in reality, she was the miracle.” She draws in a deep breath. “My mother was addicted to hard-core drugs at one point in her life. She liked to joke and say that I saved her life, but I think she would have become who she was with or without me.” She shrugs.

  “My mother was never squeamish about sharing her story, so I won’t be either. She was addicted to heroin. She doesn’t know who my father is.” She holds up a finger. “But I never needed one, because my mother had enough love for me. She had everything I needed.”

  “Except a home,” Lady Humbug says on a snort.

  “I had a home,” Miracle says. “I lived in my mother’s heart.

  “When my mother was a little girl, before my grandfather made it rich in the stock market, she lived with my grandmother and grandfather in a basement apartment on Fifth Street. We would often go back there when we were between homes. My mother said it was like camping, but I think she really just enjoyed the memories there. She told me about how my grandmother would read stories to her, and how they would play board games. Back then, they didn’t have much, but they didn’t need much either.

  “I could see in my mind’s eye the picture she painted of the worn-out furniture and the pallet where she slept on the floor. Then my grandfather got really rich, and their lives changed. But my mother never forgot her roots. She remembered the gnawing of an empty belly and the coldness of a winter night. And she took it upon herself to help her community.

  “Sometimes it meant sacrificing things she had in order to help others, but that was okay. She didn’t mind. In fact, she preferred it. To live a life of excess, she said, seemed excessive. Instead, she liked a simple life. She often read to me by candlelight, and we played board games, and she told me stories about people she’d met that day. No matter who she met or what their situation was, she made it sound like she’d just met a king or a queen or a rock star. Everyone was important to my mother.

  “My mother’s name was Joy Baumgartner and she, my friends, she was the miracle.”

  She stops talking long enough for shouts, whistles, and claps to ring out around the room.

  “I want to stop for a minute just in case some of you would like to share a memory of my mother.” She steps back from the podium as people start to step forward.

  A man jerks his knit cap from his head and steps closer to the microphone. “I met Joy on a warm summer day. Unfortunately, I was too drunk to appreciate it. I had fallen down on the sidewalk, and people were walking all around me, and suddenly I looked up into the face of an angel. She had the sun behind her head and I thought I was about to meet my maker.” Laughter rumbles across the room. “But I didn’t. I met my savior. I met Joy. She took me to a hotel, and she came back the next morning to take me to an AA meeting.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a coin. “I’ve been sober for eight years, and I owe it to your mother. Thank you.”

  A woman steps up next. I see that a line has formed all the way to the back of the room. “Joy caught my baby,” the woman says. “Like, literally caught her in her arms wh
en I gave birth. I was in a shelter, and I was afraid to make noise. But Joy was my strength when I had none, and she caught my baby in her arms. Then the next day, she showed up with clothes and supplies for my baby daughter. Joy will always be important to me. Thank you.”

  An older couple steps up next, standing side by side. “My Roger was diagnosed with diabetes last year. We couldn’t afford his medication and there were many times we both thought he was going to die. But then Joy showed up, and everything was all right. My Roger owes her his life. Thank you.”

  More and more people step up to the podium, all with lists of selfless acts that Joy has committed.

  Then I sit forward when I realize Emily is standing at the podium. “My name is Emily Reed, and I personally know how much of a huge impact Joy has made on the homeless community in this area. One night, when I was living on the streets, she saw me in line for a bed. She stuck her head in the building, and the next thing I knew, someone was ushering me inside. ‘Don’t you need the bed?’ I asked her. But she just waved a breezy hand at me and said, ‘No, I have somewhere to go. Hold tight to that guitar,’ she told me, ‘or you’ll wake up and it’ll be gone.’ So I did. I slept wrapped around my guitar like a mother wrapped around a child. And I stayed warm that night. Thank you, Joy.”

  A teary-eyed woman steps up to the microphone. Her voice cracks as she says, “I have a note I have been asked to read to you.” She looks down at the paper. “My name is Tamara Rice, and Joy saved my life. I was a victim of an abusive husband who had tried to kill me many times over. Finally, a few weeks ago, Joy found a place for me to go that was a few cities away, so I could get a new start. I was afraid to make the trip alone with my four kids, so she even went with me on the bus. Unfortunately, I was the last person who got to see her alive, and she died on the bus ride back. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for that. Please accept my deepest condolences for the loss of your sweet Joy.”