The 25¢ Miracle

by Theresa Nelson

  “Thank the Lord!” she sobbed, clasping her hands to her huge bosom. “She’s found—she’s found! But what’s the matter with her? She’s not hurt, is she? Oh Lord, I just knew that something terrible had happened.…”

  Mr. Loftin was carrying Elvira (she had said that she could walk just fine, but then she had wobbled so he had insisted), and she was carrying the rosebush.

  “No, ma’am, I don’t believe she’s hurt. She’s just got a little temperature, that’s all. Probably would be a good idea to have a doctor take a look at her.”

  Miss Ivy’s face appeared behind Aunt Darla’s. “Elvira, sweetheart—you’re all right? Oh, thank goodness—you’re all right!” She was crying, too.

  And then Uncle Roy was there, and Roy Jr.—everyone but Hank—and there was a great deal of confusion and laughing and crying and hugging, while Mr. Loftin struggled to bring Elvira inside and put her on the couch. They all talked for a long time after that, or so it seemed to Elvira.… And then Mr. Loftin said that he’d have to be going, and everyone had to thank him again and again and hear just once more the story of how he had found her.… And then he was gone, and some redheaded policeman came by and asked a bunch of questions and smiled a lot, and then a doctor was there, too—Miss Ivy had gotten one to make a house call, somehow—and he examined Elvira and told the women what ought to be done for her and left some medicine.… And then they put her to bed and hugged her and cried over her some more, and all this time, Elvira didn’t say much, only what she absolutely had to: Yessir, nosir, I’m all right; no, ma’am, that don’t hurt none.…

  But when they were getting ready to leave her to go to sleep, she spoke up, finally:

  “Where’s—where’s my daddy?”

  It was Miss Ivy who answered, in her gentle voice. “He’s still out looking for you, sweetheart. He hasn’t stopped looking since last night. You try to get some rest now, won’t you? I’m sure he’ll be home soon.”

  Hank was looking for her. He had never stopped looking for her.

  Miss Ivy closed the door.

  Elvira turned her face to her pillow and let the hot tears come. She was too tired to stop them.

  She slept all the rest of that day and all that night and part of the next day, too. She dreamed a thousand dreams; they had been waiting for her on her pillow, it seemed. She dreamed of rain and roses and crawfish and cornstarch; she dreamed of doctors and ant beds and angels in heaven; she dreamed of Curtis and John David and roller coasters and catfish; and she dreamed of Hank. She dreamed that he was sitting beside her bed, stroking her hot head with his big, clumsy hand, straightening her covers, whispering soothing words when she cried out in her sleep—

  And then she woke up, and he was there. It hadn’t been a dream, after all. He had been right there, all along.

  He had come home late Monday night, discouraged to death—ready to try again to cooperate with the police, ready to try anything that would bring his child back. And he had found her there.

  When Elvira opened her eyes, he was dozing in a chair by the bed, with his cheek resting on his hand and his mouth hanging half open. He looked terrible—all scraggly and grungy. He needed a shave. He needed a shower.

  Elvira had never been so glad to see anybody in her life.

  She sat up in bed and coughed a little—just a tiny cough, really. She didn’t want to wake him; he looked so worn out. But he was awake in an instant, looking at her anxiously, feeling her forehead for any sign of fever.… And then he saw that she was really awake now, too—and his face changed. Some of the anxiety left it and was replaced by the old Hank mask. The one that covered up everything. He cleared his throat self-consciously.

  “Well. You were pretty tired, huh?”

  “Yessir, I guess so.”

  “You feelin’ better?”

  “Yessir, I feel just fine. I can get up now.…”

  “No, ma’am, you cain’t. You still got a little fever. It’s gone down a lot, but the doctor says you ought to stay in bed for at least a week, and I ain’t takin’ any chances. Not anymore,” he added, under his breath.

  That was a relief. Elvira sank back into her pillow. She really did feel better, but she was still weak as water. Her mind was moving slowly, like one of those super slo-mo’s on the television baseball games.… So slowly… It must be the medicine. She was quiet for a while, just lying there, comfortably, listening to the small, unhurried sounds in the room: the ticking of the clock, the buzzing of a fly on the window screen, the creaking of Hank’s chair, his slow, regular breathing—that was the best sound of all—the safest, best sound.

  Her head felt empty. Wonderfully empty. At rest… But, little by little, she began to have a feeling that there was something she had forgotten—something that had been worrying her that wasn’t resolved yet—a great weight of worry that had lifted for a while, but was just waiting to fall again.… She didn’t really want to think of it, whatever it was, but somehow, she had to.…

  And then it all came back to her. The comfortable emptiness inside her head was suddenly filled with an enormous, snuffling presence. Elvira sighed.

  “Is—is Aunt Darla still here?”

  Hank nodded. “She says she won’t leave until she’s sure you’re better.”

  Elvira sighed again. Of course Aunt Darla would wait. She wouldn’t want to take a sick kid with her to Sulphur Springs; that might get germs all over her good car. If Aunt Darla hated sand so much, she probably wasn’t a big germ fan, either.

  “So—so I don’t have to go right away, then? Till I’m all the way well?” Elvira swallowed hard. Her throat was beginning to ache again.

  Hank looked startled. “Go? You mean to Sulphur Springs?”

  Elvira nodded slowly, wondering why he said it like that.

  Hank rubbed his hand over his stubbly chin. “Well, sure—you wouldn’t know.… We talked about it so much I was thinkin’ you knew, but acourse you were sleepin’.… You don’t hafta go nowhere, Elvira. Nowhere you don’t want to go.”

  The weight lifted once more; it disintegrated altogether. A slow, unbelieving joy began to take its place. Elvira sat up again. Then she got up on her knees, put her hands on Hank’s shoulders, and looked him straight in the eye. She had to be absolutely sure she had heard him right.

  “I don’t hafta go to Aunt Darla’s—I can stay here with you?”

  “As long as you want to, baby.” Hank’s voice was choked. “Just as long as you want to…” And then he put his big old arms around her—kind of awkwardly, as if he didn’t know exactly how to do it—and held her close. And for a good while after that, it would have been a lie to say that Aunt Darla was the only crybaby in the Trumbull family.

  20

  Elvira had a fine time being sick after that. Hank was as attentive as a fussy old mother hen. He was forever taking her temperature or fixing her soup—he branched out from tomato to chicken noodle—or bringing her soft drinks. Elvira had never had so much Coca-Cola in her entire life. They watched some television, too, but not all that much. Hank had somehow gotten it stuck in his head that it might strain her eyes, so he read to her, instead, just as if she were five years old again. Star light, star bright…

  The rosebush was back in the garden. It was Hank who had replanted it, since he refused to budge an inch on the doctor’s orders about keeping Elvira in bed. Every day he reported to her on its progress.

  “Well, acourse, I don’t know all that much about it, but it looks to me like it just might be all right.”

  “You planted it like I told you, didn’t you?” Elvira asked anxiously. “With the roots pointin’ down and out? And you got to give it just the right amount of water—”

  “I done it all just like you said, I swear,” said Hank. “Don’t you worry ’bout it, now. That rosebush’ll prob’ly outlive all the rest of us put together.” He grinned. “I just got an idea there’s somethin’ kinda hardheaded about it.”

  Aunt Darla and her two male shadows came o
ver faithfully every day until she had satisfied herself that Elvira really was on the mend and that Hank could be trusted to take care of her. To her credit, she seldom cried more than once a visit and never came without bringing two or three sacks full of groceries. Before her final departure for Sulphur Springs, the pantry and refrigerator and freezer of the little kitchen were bulging with so much stuff that Elvira decided it must be Aunt Darla’s secret wish to get everybody else as fat as she was.

  “I just hope there’s a little meat on her bones the next time I see her,” she told Hank on her last visit. “That child’s always been too thin. She’s frail, just like her mother was. Yogurt, that’s what she needs. You give her a cupful of yogurt along with every meal, do you hear me? I intend to have a case of yogurt delivered here once a month; otherwise, I’ll never get a wink of sleep at night. Not that I do, anyway, what with Roy tossing and turning and getting up forty-seven times to go to the bathroom. Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Roy Bledsoe; you know you do! Well, I suppose we ought to be running along, but it just breaks my heart to say good-bye. I had so counted on taking my little girl home with me.” She dabbed at her eyes and gave Elvira one last smothering hug. “Just you remember, Ellie—if you ever change your mind—my house is your house.…”

  Elvira was hugely relieved when she was finally gone. But she found, to her surprise, that she no longer really hated Aunt Darla, now that she felt quite sure that she was never going to have to live with her. Aunt Darla wasn’t such a terrible person, after all. She meant well. It probably wasn’t altogether her fault that she had been born obnoxious.

  Miss Ivy came every day, too. At first, Elvira was a little shy of her. She couldn’t quite forget the hurt of that rainy night. But Miss Ivy was so sweet and natural that it was impossible to feel strange around her for long. She made it crystal clear that nothing had really changed, as far as she was concerned, and that she was still Elvira’s good friend. She brought books and magazines and flowers from her garden, and, toward the end of the week, she brought Curtis and John David.

  “We’ll just stay for a little while,” she explained. “I don’t want them to tire you out, but they just had to see you with their own eyes and make sure you’re really all right. Didn’t you, boys?”

  Curtis’s face was serious. “You okay, Elvira?”

  “Aw, sure, I’m just fine.”

  “Looka here—we brought you a present,” said John David, handing her an oddly shaped package wrapped in old Christmas paper. “Curtis and me made it all by ourselfs.”

  “It’s not too good,” said Curtis. The tips of his ears were bright red. “But go on—open it.”

  Elvira tore off the wrapping paper and lifted out a long-necked, hump-backed, yellow-and-red-spotted thingamajig.

  “How ’bout that?” asked John David.

  “Well, it’s real nice,” said Elvira. “It’s a real nice… uh… giraffe.”

  “You don’t think it looks like a camel?” said Curtis.

  “Not a bit! I mean, it’s not s’posed to be a camel, is it?”

  “No, it’s a giraffe, all right,” said John David. “See, Curtis—I told you it didn’t look like a camel.”

  “’Cept for that big hump on its back,” muttered Curtis.

  “Well, I think it’s just fine,” said Elvira. “It’s the best giraffe I ever saw.” She looked thoughtful. “I believe I’ll name it Noreen.”

  “We’re gonna see a real giraffe in Hermann Park tomorrow,” John David said happily. “Our daddy’s not sick anymore, and we’re gonna spend the weekend with him, and he’s gonna take us to Astroworld and the zoo both.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Elvira. So their daddy really wasn’t so bad, after all; Miss Ivy had been telling the truth about him. What was that she had said? No angels, no devils—just people…

  And so the days passed, and Elvira got well. Summer ended, and school began. Hank found some part-time work pumping gas over at the filling station. When he had been there about a week, a woman brought in a station wagon that was spewing smoke and hissing like a snake. Nobody else at the station could do much with it, so Hank took a crack at it and had such good luck that the manager offered him a steady job as a mechanic. He took it.

  The weather was especially fine that fall. The big storm in August had spelled the end of the really awful heat. One bright, beautiful day was followed by another, and then another, even brighter and more beautiful. In Elvira’s garden, the fall flowers were blooming; the marigolds and chrysanthemums and Gloriosa daisies were a blaze of gold and orange and red. And sure enough, there was a splash of pale yellow right in the middle, where the rosebush had managed one feeble little blossom. Just one scrawny flower, but it was a rose, all right. A real, live rose.

  One cool evening in late October, Hank and Elvira were sitting in the kitchen having their supper when there was a knock at the front door.

  “I’ll get it,” said Hank. He disappeared for a moment. When he came back, there was a puzzled expression on his face. He was holding a white envelope.

  “That was the man from the office,” he said. “He gave me this—said it had got mixed in with his mail, somehow.” Hank handed the envelope to Elvira. “It’s for you.”

  “For me?” Elvira could hardly believe it. Nobody had ever written her before. She tore it open. Two thin pieces of paper fluttered out. The first was a letter.

  Dear Ms. Trumbull:

  We at General Grains are sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction with our product. Please find enclosed a money order in the amount of $1.49. We hope that you will accept it with our apologies and that you will continue to be one of our valued customers.

  Sincerely,

  T. H. Hunter

  Customer Relations

  Elvira read it through once. She read it through again. Then she looked up at Hank and smiled a radiant smile. Wordlessly, she handed him the letter.

  “Well, I’ll swanny,” he exclaimed softly, when he had read it. He smiled back at his daughter. “I’ll swanny.…”