by Ann B. Ross
“Sh-h-h,” Hazel Marie said, poking me with her elbow.
As we followed Little Lloyd into the crowd, I heard the low cadence of their voices in what might have been prayer. Each face was lit with a circle of light from the candles they held. Little Lloyd walked right up to a square-shouldered man who had his eyes closed. Not a fearful bone in the child’s body, I thought with pride, except when it came to Dixon Hightower.
“Buenas noches, Señor Acosta. ¿Cómo está usted?” Little Lloyd said, surprising me at how fluent he was in another tongue.
The man turned to him, smiled broadly in the glow of his candle, and said something like, “Buenas noches, señor pequeño. Would you like a candle?” He offered his candle to Little Lloyd.
I hurried up beside him and whispered, “Give it back, Little Lloyd. No telling what kind of worship service this is.”
The boy shook his head, and said to the man, “¿Qué pasa?”
The man took a deep breath and pointed toward our half-built Family Life Center and said in an awestruck voice, “Está un milagro.”
“What’d he say?” I whispered. “What’s growing around here?”
Paying me no mind, Little Lloyd said, “¿Que?”
His face glowing in the light of the candle, the man leaned down to the child and said, “¡La santa!”
“What?” I whispered. “What’d he say?”
Little Lloyd said, “He said la santa, but I don’t know what it means. I mean, I know what it means, but . . .”
Señor Acosta pointed at the building again, jabbing the air with his finger. “¡En el muro!”
“¿Qué?” Little Lloyd hunched his shoulders and squinched up his eyes, peering through the dark at the brick wall. “I don’t see anything.”
“¡Mira! It’s a miracle from God.” And he fell down on his knees before our very eyes and began crossing his chest. Others followed his example until more than half the crowd knelt on the cement sidewalk. I’d known all along it was some kind of Catholic ceremony. Or maybe Episcopal.
“Come on, Lloyd,” Hazel Marie said, as if she too had recognized the strangeness of it. “We better not bother him anymore.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ve seen enough, and I still don’t understand it.”
“Un minuto, Mama,” Little Lloyd said. “I mean, in a minute. I want to find out what’s on the wall. I can’t see what he’s talking about.”
He leaned down to the man, handed back his candle and said, “I can’t see anything, Señor Acosta. What is it?”
The man looked up at him with a beautiful smile. “Nuestra Señora del Muro. Está un milagro de la virgen.”
“Gracias, señor,” Little Lloyd said, somewhat subdued by the answer. Then he turned and walked back to the driveway, glancing over his shoulder at that offensive building.
Hazel Marie took my arm, and we hurried after him.
“What’d he say, Lloyd?” she asked as we stopped a little distance from the crowd.
“Well,” he said, frowning so that his glasses slipped down his nose. “I’m not sure that I got it all. But he said something about a miracle, and I think he said it was on the wall. Of the new building, I guess, ’cause he kept pointing at it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “I told Pastor Ledbetter it’d take a miracle to get that thing built without my help.”
“No’m, I don’t think he meant that. If I understood it right, he said there’s a lady on the wall.”
Hazel Marie and I looked at each other with our mouths open. “A lady on the wall?” she said. “You mean somebody’s walking around on top of that brick wall?” Then she squinched up her eyes, trying to see in the dark.
Little Lloyd shook his head. “No’m, not that. From the way he said it, I think it meant our lady. He said it was a miracle of the virgin.”
“What!” I was shocked at the word. “How dare that man say such a thing to a child! Hazel Marie, I’m going to tell Coleman about this. It’s bad enough to see half-naked women on the TV, but to hear such talk on the street is another matter.”
“Wait, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said. “I don’t think he was saying anything ugly. I think he was talking about Mary, the Virgin Mother. I wish we could get through this crowd and talk to the Rileys, so we’d know for sure.”
“Well,” I said, somewhat mollified. “Even if it wasn’t ugly, it’s pretty Catholic, if you ask me. And in a Presbyterian neighborhood, too.”
The three of us stood there for a while, mulling over that theological riddle. Then I turned and stared at the Family Life Center, wondering how anybody could see a woman, even if she was a lady, on a wall of bricks in the dead of night. My attention was taken then by Coleman, who was walking with Señor Acosta toward his squad car. I gasped, thinking Coleman was making an arrest, but instead, he leaned in the car window and turned on his spotlight. With Señor Acosta directing him, Coleman wiggled the light until it was centered on the wall between the windows of the second and third floors, right where the television people had aimed their spotlight.
I leaned forward, straining to see what was on the wall. All I could see were some streaks of poorly applied mortar.
“Can anybody see anything?” I asked Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd.
They both shook their heads but, after a minute, Little Lloyd said, “I kinda think I do.” Which just shows you how the power of suggestion can raise havoc in little children.
As Señor Acosta returned to his place in the crowd, Coleman walked over to us. “Hi, Miss Julia, Hazel Marie,” he said, then ruffled Little Lloyd’s hair. “How you doin’, bud? Can you see it?”
Before we could answer, a young woman with long dark hair appeared at his side. “Buenas noches, señor,” she murmured, her dark eyes shimmering in the light of the candles. She was wrapped in a beautifully embroidered shawl, which she clutched around her shoulders.
Coleman turned to her. “Buenas noches, Señora Diaz. Good to see you again. Can you see what’s on the wall?”
“Sí, she is there if you look,” she said, turning toward the wall. “She has given back my shawl,” she went on, fingering the fringe. “It was lost, but it came back to me here.” The woman gazed at the wall and whispered, “Nuestra señora, she makes a miracle.”
Coleman lifted his head and squinched his eyes at the spotlighted area on the wall. “Really?”
“Oh, sí. The Lady on the Wall works wonders for us.”
“I wish she’d work some for me,” Coleman murmured, more to himself than to her.
Señora Diaz touched him lightly on the arm and said, “You are a good man; she will hear you.” Then she stepped back into the crowd.
Coleman stood there, staring for the longest time at the spotlighted wall. Then he turned toward us, but before he could say a word, Hazel Marie suddenly jumped and grabbed his arm. “Coleman, look!” She pointed toward the far side of the gathering where there was hardly any light at all. “I just saw Dixon Hightower!”
“Oh-h-h,” Little Lloyd moaned, taking his mother’s hand. “I don’t want him to be around here.”
“It couldn’t be,” I assured him. “Hazel Marie, you must be mistaken.”
Coleman motioned to one of the deputies and told him to be on the lookout because Dixon might be on the premises. “Better call it in, just in case,” he said to him. Then to Hazel Marie, “You sure you saw him?”
“Well, I just got a glimpse,” she said worriedly, “but it sure looked like him.”
“We’ll get some people out here to look around the neighborhood,” Coleman said, but it seemed to me that his mind was not on Dixon Hightower. His eyes kept swinging back to the white streaks on the wall of the Family Life Center.
“Coleman,” I said, directing his attention to the matter at hand. “Just what is going on here? They’re all talking about a miracle, but so far I’ve not seen anything that comes close to one.”
Little Lloyd chimed in. “Señor Acosta says there’s a lady on the w
all.”
“That’s what they’re saying, all right,” Coleman agreed. “An image of some kind on the bricks.” He stopped, rubbed his hand across his face, then went on. “Blanca Diaz said the lady gave her shawl back to her. A miracle, she says.” With a glance at me, he said, “You know her, don’t you, Miss Julia? She lives in the trailer park on Springer Road.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Little Lloyd gasped. “That’s who Miss Wiggins told you about, Miss Julia. Remember?”
“Now, child,” I cautioned. “Let’s not get carried away.” But I felt a jolt of elation. If Mrs. Diaz got her shawl back in a miraculous way, why couldn’t Coleman get Binkie back in the same way? Not that I believed in miracles, you understand.
Thrilled, though, at the possibility, I stepped closer to Coleman and peered at the wall. “Can you see anything up there?”
“I’m not sure, Miss Julia,” he said. “There’s something there . . . but I don’t know.” He moved a few steps away to get a different view, looking as if he needed time to ponder the matter.
Then he straightened his shoulders and firmed up his face. “Well, things are calm here, so I guess I’ll be going.”
“No, Coleman, wait,” I said, pulling him aside. “Listen, you can’t give up on Binkie now. I think she’s teetering on the edge and, if you’ll be patient just a little longer, she’ll come around, I know she will.”
He smiled as if it hurt him to do it. “It’s not a good idea to try to talk her into something she doesn’t want.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” I told him. “Coleman, I’ve told you that women in her condition have all kinds of flights of fancy. They want somebody to tell them what to do. You just have to be firm with her.”
He grinned down at me. “Be firm with Binkie? Huh, that girl’d have my hide.” Then he stopped and looked off into the night. “Still, what’ve I got to lose? That’s one thing I haven’t tried.”
“Then try it!” I said, giving him all the encouragement I could muster. “Maybe if miracles are going around, you and Binkie’re in line for one.”
“Well,” he said, frowning. “She may have my head on a platter, but I won’t know till I try, will I?”
Then he moved through the crowd to his patrol car, while I watched with a steadily lightening heart. Then I drew Hazel Marie close. “We may have ourselves a wedding after all.”
“Oh, I hope,” she said.
“No, it’s a settled fact. I don’t care if that lady on the wall is Catholic, Baptist or somewhere in between, Binkie told me she’d need a miracle, and, bless Pat, I think we’ve found her one.”
Chapter 30
I came out of bed with a bound the day of the wedding and almost threw my back out. I went to the window, first thing. There were still people standing around on the sidewalk, and I could see others walking in small groups coming from downtown. I strained to see the wall across the street, but couldn’t make out a thing except some pretty poor masonry work. It looked as if the brick masons had let the mortar drip down the bricks, and instead of cleaning it off, they’d let it dry in crooked patterns. Either that, or they’d used a poor quality of bricks. I’d’ve made them do it over, if it’d been up to me.
But whatever was over there, it had certainly turned Coleman around and that was miracle enough for me. Now if it would do the same for Binkie, I wouldn’t be averse to giving a public testimonial even it meant going on television.
I glanced up at the sky—clear as a bell, not a cloud up there, shaping up to be a perfect day for a wedding. I hurried to dress, then made my bed and laid out my wedding finery on it. I could hardly wait to call Binkie, for I knew in my heart that she was going to go through with it. If, that is, there was any meaning at all in a miracle showing up in front of my house. I mean, surely the lady didn’t appear on Polk Street just to return a shawl to somebody who didn’t even live here.
“Lillian!” I said, as I went into the kitchen for my morning coffee. “What’re you doing here so early?”
“Morning to you, too,” she said, tying an apron around her waist. “You think I’m gonna stay home when they’s so much to do here? No, ma’am, I got to watch out them people comin’ in here do things right. James and Mr. Emmett, they both be here pretty soon an’ I got to get ready for them.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. But you just remember that you’re a guest, and you’ll need to leave in plenty of time to get out of that uniform and get ready.”
“My weddin’ dress and my weddin’ hat come with me. They upstairs, an’ I’ll get dressed here. ’Sides, you and Miss Hazel Marie gonna need my help to get ready. And Miss Binkie, too, if she show up.”
“Oh, she’s going to show up and she’s going to get married, too.” I smiled, somewhat smugly, I admit. Then I told her all that we’d learned and seen the night before, and how miracles were being passed out right and left. “I’m going to call Binkie right now, and tell her to get moving.”
Lillian frowned at me. “You think that lady on the wall change Miss Binkie’s mind? I don’t know I b’lieve that.”
“Just listen,” I said, and dialed Binkie’s number.
“Binkie?” I said when she answered in a sleep-filled voice. “Are you up? This is your wedding day, so hop to it. Come on over anytime, and bring everything you’ll need. You can rest upstairs until it’s time to get dressed, and we’ll help you get ready.” I rushed through, not giving her time to make excuses or put me off.
Then she surprised me, as her voice cleared and she sang out, “Oh, hi. I was going to call you. Listen, I know I’ve created some problems, but I just need a little more time before I actually do it.”
“Do what?” I asked, suspicious, which I am by nature.
“Why, marry Coleman, of course. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”
“That’s what I’ve been talking about for a solid week,” I told her. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Now, Binkie, how much more time do you need?”
“Well, I was thinking a couple of weeks.”
My mouth worked but nothing came out. Finally, I managed to say, “No. Binkie, no.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, as the phone line hummed between us. I was just so done in that she was still playing with Coleman’s affections. And mine too, if the truth be known. And where was that lady on the wall, just as I’d thought there might be something to her?
“Miss Julia?” There was a note of concern in Binkie’s voice. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. I understood then why Pastor Ledbetter said that the age of miracles was past. “I mean, no, I’m not. I so want you to do the right thing, for Coleman’s sake and for that baby. And for yours, too.” Not to mention, which I didn’t, for the sake of the people we’d invited and the food we’d ordered and everything else I’d planned.
“Well,” she said, “let me talk to Coleman some more.”
“You do that,” I mumbled, and didn’t try to disguise a sob as I hung up.
“Lillian,” I said, turning to her, “let me have that dishcloth, please. I can’t find the Kleenex.”
She handed it to me and said, “She not gonna do it, is she?”
“She wants to think about it some more,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Lillian, I think I’ll just get in the car and go somewhere. I don’t think I can face the shame of Binkie’s behavior. Why don’t we get Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd, and the four of us just take off?”
“You not gonna do any such a thing. Now, straighten yo’self up an’ smile if it kill you.”
“Well, it’s likely to,” I said, trying out a small one. “Lillian, I’d about convinced myself that that image appeared over there for a purpose. And I mean more than for handing out shawls. But if it did, it wasn’t for the purpose I had in mind.”
“That’s where you get in trouble,” Lillian said, as sure of her pronouncements as any preacher.
“When you figure whatever you want is what the Lord want, too.”
“I’m certainly getting my comeuppance, then.” Before I could finish the thought, the telephone rang. “You get it, Lillian; I don’t think I’m up to talking with anyone now.”
Lillian picked up the receiver and handed it to me. “This a good place to start. Answer it.”
Before I could say a word, Binkie cried, “Miss Julia? Is that you? Guess what? I’ve decided I might as well do it today as any other. I mean, you’re ready and everything, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I managed to get out, swallowing hard. “Yes, we’re ready.” I stopped, trying to reformulate my views of the miraculous. “Binkie, there’re a lot of things I don’t understand going on around here. But I guess I’m not one to question a miracle, if that’s what it took.”
She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know about a miracle. It’s just that Coleman and I have been talking, and I guess he’s laid down the law. He said I either married him today or else. I think he’s going to arrest me for committing mayhem on his affections. He said he’d carry me kicking and screaming to the altar, if he had to.” Then she giggled.
“Well, I declare,” I said, thinking all that talk of independence and doing things on her own had been just that—talk. All Coleman had had to do was give her some orders, a few caveman threats, and she’d turned into a giddy girl. You never know what will appeal to these modern young women, do you?
I just shook my head, then remembering that they weren’t married yet, I said, “I want you over here, Binkie, just as soon as you can make it. I’m going to keep my eye on you until I turn you over to Coleman this afternoon.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t worry, Miss Julia, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. It’s my wedding day!”
“I should say it is, and we have a million things to do. Now, Binkie, where is Coleman? He needs to be here no later than two o’clock so we don’t lose him, too. And you stay away from him; you know he’s not supposed to see the bride on the wedding day.”
I heard the rustle of bedcovers, and the muffle of a hand over the phone. Then she giggled again.