The 25¢ Miracle

by Theresa Nelson

  “It’s—it’s about my daddy,” she began, and then she stopped. She wanted to put it just right.…

  “What’s happened to him, Elvira? Has there been an accident? Is he sick?”

  Elvira shook her head. “No, ma’am—he’s okay. We’re both okay. He’s—he’s asleep. He don’t know I’m here.” She stopped again, flustered by her half-truth.

  Miss Ivy waited for her to continue.

  Elvira took a deep breath and went on. “Miss Ivy—you like my daddy, don’t you?”

  The angel-lady looked surprised. “Of course I do, Elvira. He’s a very nice man.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But, well—do you think you might like him more than—more than just a little bit?” Elvira couldn’t bring herself to say the word “love”.…

  “I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean, Elvira.” Miss Ivy spoke slowly—ever so slowly and gently.

  There ain’t no sense in beatin’ around the bush, Elvira told herself. Just spit it out, girl—spit it out—your life’s on the line here.

  She took another deep breath. “I mean, well, do you think you might like him enough to marry him?” She looked into her lap as she said it. Somehow, she couldn’t bear to look into the blue eyes right now.

  For a moment, no one said anything. There was a soft, rushing sound from outside; the rain had begun.

  When Miss Ivy spoke again, it was in that same slow, gentle voice. “I’ve only known your father a short time, sweetheart. Not nearly long enough to be thinking about him in that way. And I’m sure he feels the same about me.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am!” Elvira looked up now, and her heart and soul were in her eyes. “He’d be glad to marry you, if you wanted him to. I just know it—it’s writ all over him. Why, anybody’d love you, Miss Ivy.” There. She had said it.

  But Miss Ivy only shook her head. “Elvira, I can’t possibly marry your father. I don’t plan on marrying anyone for a long, long time—maybe never. So you mustn’t think about it anymore.” Her voice was still gentle, but it was firm, too.

  Elvira’s heart sank. She sat very still. She stared at her fingernails, still clogged with beach sand. “Then you don’t really like him,” she said quietly. “Why’d you act like you liked him, if you didn’t?”

  “But I do—I like him very much,” said Miss Ivy. “He’s been so kind to the boys and me this last week—and even if he hadn’t been, I’d still like him, just because he’s your father. Why, I believe I’d like anyone who was related to you.” She lifted Elvira’s chin, but Elvira shook her head free and looked down into her lap again.

  “No, ma’am, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t like Aunt Darla, and she’s kin to me,” Elvira said hopelessly.

  “Aunt Darla? You never told me anything about your Aunt Darla.”

  Elvira sighed. “There ain’t much to tell. She’s a big old fat lady who lives in Sulphur Springs. She’s got a whole lot of money. If you don’t marry my daddy, I gotta go live with her.”

  Miss Ivy’s mouth dropped open. “You what?”

  “I gotta go live at her house. She thinks she knows more about raisin’ girls than my daddy does, and he’s worried about not havin’ a steady job and all.”

  Miss Ivy looked thoughtful. “I see. And you don’t want to go live with her?”

  Fire came back into Elvira’s soul. “No, ma’am,” she said. “I don’t want to go near her, if I can help it.”

  “Why don’t you like her, Elvira?”

  “Because…” Elvira floundered for a reason that wouldn’t sound too stupid. “’Cause one time she said my dress was tacky, and she calls me Ellie, and she’s always cryin’ and slobberin’ all over me, and—and—she’s fat,” she finished up desperately. “Oh, Miss Ivy, couldn’t you marry Hank? It’d be so good for everybody. Your boys like him, and they need a daddy.…”

  Miss Ivy looked startled. “They already have a daddy, Elvira.”

  “Aw, but he ain’t no good, Miss Ivy—playin’ sick and lettin’ ’em down about Astroworld and all. And he musta been mean to you or you never woulda left him.”

  “No, Elvira, you’re mistaken. He’s a fine man and a good father. He really was sick when he didn’t take the boys to Astroworld. And if he and I didn’t get along—well, that was just as much my fault as it was his. Probably more mine.”

  Elvira couldn’t stand to hear Miss Ivy criticized, even by Miss Ivy herself. “That cain’t be true, Miss Ivy—you’re so sweet and good to everybody!” she cried. “You’re—you’re like an angel!”

  Miss Ivy sighed and smoothed Elvira’s frazzled forehead. “I’m no angel, sweetheart. Not by a long shot. I wish I were really as good as you think I am, but it’s not as simple as that. I don’t believe there are any angels—or devils, either—not here on this earth, anyway. Just people—people who are good some of the time and bad some of the time, every one of us. Why, I’ll bet even your Aunt Darla isn’t nearly as awful as you think she is right now. She must love you a lot if she wants you to live with her.”

  Yes, she is awful, thought Elvira. She’s every bit as awful as I think she is.

  She didn’t say it out loud. It was no use arguing. She had said everything there was to say, and Miss Ivy still wasn’t about to marry Hank. She didn’t love him one bit; it had all been a mistake. Well, if that was the way it was, all right, then. Elvira wasn’t going to shame herself by begging any more than she already had. She still had some pride left. She sat there for a moment, steeling herself against the soothing sensation of Miss Ivy’s hand stroking her hair. Then she stood up.

  “I’m sorry I bothered you. I got to go home now.”

  Miss Ivy stood up, too. “It’s so late, Elvira… Why don’t you stay here the rest of the night? We can call your father and tell him where you are.”

  Elvira shook her head. “No, ma’am, we cain’t. They ain’t nobody who answers the pay phone this time of night. I’ll just run on home.”

  “No, you won’t, either,” Miss Ivy said firmly. “It’s the middle of the night, and it’s raining buckets out there. If you really have to go, I’ll drive you. The boys will be all right by themselves for ten minutes. Just wait a second while I throw on some clothes and tell Curtis what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Elvira. It really didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

  The rain was coming down in sheets now. Elvira and Miss Ivy were silent on the drive over to the trailer park. The night had too many voices already—the downpour and the deafening thunder and the steady swish, swish of the windshield wipers.

  The pickup truck was still parked right beside the trailer; Hank had walked to wherever it was he had gone. Elvira was glad of that. She didn’t want Miss Ivy to know that she had lied about Hank’s being home asleep. It was just too hard to explain. She was sick of talking.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she murmured, when the car came to a stop. She started to open the door, but Miss Ivy leaned over and caught her hand.

  “Elvira,” she said. She practically had to shout to make herself heard over the storm.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Elvira, without turning around. She didn’t think she could stand to look at Miss Ivy’s face any more tonight. It hurt too much.

  “Elvira, I just want you to know that I’m sorry.… I’m so sorry I can’t do what you want me to do—be who you want me to be—”

  “That’s all right,” said Elvira. Though it wasn’t, really. It wasn’t anything like all right. But what else could she say? She wished Miss Ivy would just shut up.

  “But I’ll always be your friend. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Elvira bit her lip hard, to keep it from trembling. “I-I gotta go now.” She grabbed her hand away, threw the door open, and ran through the rain, up the steps, and into the trailer. She slammed the door with all her strength. That felt good. If she let herself get mad, the throbbing, aching feeling in her throat might go away. She waited for Miss Ivy to drive off. Then she opened the door and
slammed it again… and again… and again… and every time she slammed it, she shouted, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” She didn’t know who it was she hated the most—Miss Ivy or Aunt Darla or Hank or the Holy Ghost—somehow, they had all become one and the same. She yelled until she was hoarse, but the storm swallowed her cries, and no one heard.

  It was well after two in the morning when Hank made his way home. The rain was still coming down hard; he was wet to the skin. He didn’t care—it didn’t matter—nothing mattered. He reached the trailer. Suddenly, he was struck with the hazy notion that something was amiss. Different…

  It ain’t nothin’, he told himself. Just the rain and the dark. Everything looks different in the dark.

  And then his foot slipped, and he stumbled right into a gaping, slushy hole in the middle of Elvira’s garden. The rosebush was gone.

  17

  For the second time that night, Miss Ivy’s doorbell rang. This time it was a series of sharp, staccato rings that set her heart racing and sent her running for the door.

  Hank Trumbull was standing grimfaced on the front porch, oblivious to the water that was streaming from nearly every inch of him. His eyes were bloodshot, but otherwise, he appeared to be stone-cold sober.

  “Where’s my girl? She’s here, ain’t she?” Hank’s voice was gruff.

  Miss Ivy gave a little gasp. “Elvira? She’s not at home?”

  For a fraction of a second, Hank stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he pushed past her into the house.

  “Elvira!” he shouted, and the whole house shook with the sound of it. “Elvira, you come here this minute—Elvira!” He began stamping through the house. Miss Ivy ran after him, pulling on his wet sleeve and trying to get him to listen to her—

  “She’s not here, Mr. Trumbull. She was here earlier, but I took her home—I watched her go in the trailer door—I’m telling you, she’s not here!”

  Hank wheeled around to face her at the foot of the stairs. The fear was plain in his face now. “She’s gotta be here. Where else would she be?” He turned back around and ran up the stairs, calling his child’s name, over and over.…

  Curtis and John David, awakened by the yelling, stumbled sleepily out of their room and down the stairs to their mother.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” asked Curtis. “What’s the matter with Mr. Trumbull?”

  Miss Ivy drew both boys close to her. “He can’t find Elvira, baby. He’s trying to find her.”

  “She got lost?” John David’s eyes were wide.

  “I—I don’t know. I’m afraid so…but it’s going to be all right. He’ll find her—I’ll help him find her. You boys go back to bed. I’ll call Mrs. McFaddin to come stay with you in case I have to go out.”

  “I could help you, Mama,” said Curtis. “Let me help find her.”

  “Me, too, Mama—I can help!” cried John David.

  “No, you can help the most by going back to bed like big boys. You’ll do that for Mama, won’t you—and for Elvira?” Her voice trembled a little.

  John David started to cry, but Curtis took his hand and pulled him back up the stairs. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of him. Y’all go find Elvira.”

  “You don’t hafta pull on me—I can walk by my own self!” John David wailed.

  Hank passed the boys on his way down. Something in his eyes made them afraid of him, and they turned and ran.

  His face was ashen. “She ain’t up there,” he mumbled, as he started for the front door.

  Miss Ivy followed. “Wait, Mr. Trumbull—you’ll need to use my phone—don’t you think you’d better call the police?”

  Hank stopped and ran his fingers wildly through his hair. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I guess I better.”

  Miss Ivy led him into the kitchen and handed him the phone. He picked up the receiver and dialed the emergency number that was printed on the inside.

  “This is Henry S. Trumbull,” he said hoarsely. “You gotta help me. My little girl’s gone.”

  She hadn’t taken anything with her but the rosebush. She had to take that. She was sorry to leave the other plants—the fall flowers—but she figured they had had a good start; they might be all right without her. It was only the rosebush that really needed her.

  She knew it was stupid to run away, just like all those dumb kids in all those dumb movies, but she couldn’t help it. It had come to her, somewhere around the fortieth time she slammed the trailer door, that it was the only thing she could do. There was nothing else left. She hadn’t had time to think out a good plan; she had just dug up the rosebush, stuck it in a brown grocery sack—DOUBLE STRENGTH—NO NEED FOR DOUBLE-BAGGING—and walked away through the pouring rain.

  The rain was good, in a way. It beat down so hard on her head that she couldn’t think. She could only keep putting one foot in front of the other, like a robot—right, then left, then right again. She just kept walking and walking and walking, and the rain kept raining and raining and raining.

  She crossed the highway when no cars were in sight and then walked along parallel to it, but far enough back so she couldn’t be seen. It would have been easier walking on the shoulder of the road, but somebody would have been sure to notice her and stop and ask what a kid was doing walking along the highway in the middle of the night. So she stuck to the ditches and fields, sloshing along in mud and muck up to her ankles. Her knees, it felt like sometimes. She wouldn’t let herself think further ahead than the next minute—the next step, even. She knew that Houston was somewhere up ahead—a place so big that it could swallow up anybody—even Aunt Darla. One skinny little kid shouldn’t have any trouble being invisible there. But the idea of Houston was fuzzy, unreal.… Nothing was real but the night and the rain and her two tired feet.

  Right, then left, then right again…

  The police acted quickly, but not quickly enough to suit Hank. “Why don’t they come? What’s takin’ ’em so long?” he asked over and over, as he paced frantically from one end of the house to the other.

  “It’s only been ten minutes, Mr. Trumbull,” Miss Ivy tried to reassure him. “I’m sure they’ll be right over.”

  But when the police car pulled into the driveway minutes later, Hank was still far from feeling reassured. Only one young man got out of it—a young punk, Hank judged, as soon as he saw him. “Officer Greene,” he said his name was—a redheaded, serious-eyed fellow with a deliberate way of going about his business that nearly drove Hank right off the deep end. It seemed to him that Officer Greene took forever asking questions and writing down answers. Even something as simple as a description of Elvira took a lot longer than it should have—

  “She’s just a little bit of a thing,” Hank told him. “I don’t know how tall, exactly—somethin’ under five foot.…”

  “About four-eight or nine,” said Miss Ivy.

  “I see,” said Officer Greene, making a careful note of the information. “Hair color?”

  “Kinda—kinda yellowish,” Hank stammered.

  “Light blonde,” said Miss Ivy.

  “Eyes?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Hank. “They’re sort of a funny color—like her mother’s—”

  Officer Greene looked at Miss Ivy. “I’d call that blue,” he said.

  “I’m not her mother,” Miss Ivy explained quietly. She sounded apologetic. “Just a friend. Her eyes are gray—gray-green, sometimes.”

  The policeman looked from Miss Ivy to Hank. “Excuse me, but this is your house, isn’t it?”

  Hank looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. He didn’t have time to be standing around here talking to a little boy who was playing cops and robbers. He ought to be out looking for his child. “My house? Naw, this ain’t my house; it belongs to this lady. I just come here on account of I thought Elvira might be here—I told them that on the phone already. Don’t y’all ever listen to what people are tellin’ you?”

  Officer Greene stayed calm. Way too calm, in Hank’s opinion. “I’
m sorry, sir; apparently there’s been some mix-up. Where is your residence?”

  “I live over at the Happy Trails Trailer Park—just off Interstate Ten.”

  “Is that the last place the child was seen?”

  “Well, sure,” said Hank. “That’s where she lives.”

  “Then we really ought to be starting from there,” said Officer Greene.

  “All right, then, let’s go! What are we waitin’ for? I’ll lead the way in my pickup.” Hank was already out the door and gone before he had finished speaking, leaving Miss Ivy and Officer Greene to follow as best they could.

  Right foot, then left, then right again… Rain and rain and rain some more… It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.…

  Elvira’s brain was getting soggy. The rain was washing the sense clean out of her skull. It was just like in those old World War II movies when the bad guys made the good guys go crazy by dripping water on their heads, one drop at a time. Elvira figured that at the rate of a thousand drops per second, she ought to be ready for the loony bin in nothing flat. Right foot, then left, then right again…

  She tripped over a rock and took a nasty tumble. The rosebush scratched her face as she fell. It hurt, but she was too tired to care. Anyway, she figured it was only fair for the rosebush to hurt her, after what she had done to it—digging it up again, just when it was starting to get better.

  “But I couldn’t help it,” she told the plant, as she got to her feet. “I couldn’t just leave you there. Ain’t nobody else gonna look out for you. Nobody, you hear me?”

  It was still dark. She had been walking forever and ever, but it was still dark. The sun ought to be up by now, surely.… Elvira looked behind her—east was behind her—to see if there was any change in the sky. If there was, she couldn’t see it. Well. She had wished for one moment that would last forever, and it looked like she had gotten her wish. Only it was the wrong moment. Wrong, all wrong… Maybe she ought to wish again. Star light, star bright… But there were no stars in the sky now.

  Hank paced restlessly back and forth through the trailer, while Officer Greene sat in the tiny living room and took more of his everlasting notes. Miss Ivy had come along to help in any way she could; she was standing in the corner, with her arms folded tightly over her chest.