32

I was seven years old when Mama decided to heal Polly’s asthma. She’d been leading up to it for months. Every morning she stood on a chair and took down the paper bag she’d hidden in the melamine kitchen cabinets of our doublewide. She’d pull out the asthma medicine bottle and, as she gave Polly a spoonful, say, “There’s a reason this stuff tastes so awful.” Then she’d hold up the liquid to me and say, “We’re not going to mention this bottle of false belief to anyone at church.” Medicine was our family’s secret spiritual failing. But Mama was going to erase our shame. If Jesus could heal a cripple, she could heal Polly’s asthma.

That fall Polly was thirteen. During the months most of the world knew as ragweed season, she suffered from what Mama called an “errant belief in the power of oxygen.” One morning in September she started to cough, and by afternoon, the air scraped like stones in and out of her lungs. That evening, Polly’s face turned the red of our place mats. Strands of her long brown hair trembled with each rasping breath.

Mama sat with her on our saggy couch. “God’s love is like air,” she said. “It flows through you, Polly Kogan.” She turned to me. “You too, Willy.”

“God is not air.” Polly’s voice hissed out like a ghost’s.

Mama frowned. Then she corrected herself and smiled. Her jutting teeth hovered over her lower lip. “Young lady, does that sound like a thought from God?”

Pop had scrunched his big body into the green chair with the burst springs. “Let me tell you what real motherly love is,” he said. “Giving your daughter medicine and taking her to the doctor.” His big face nodded at each of us, but his amber eyes fixed on me.

Mama didn’t seem to hear him. It was dark outside, but she still rose to close all the drapes in our trailer. “Let’s shut out mortal mind,’ she said and sat down again next to Polly on the couch. “Do you know what I’m thinking right now? I’m thinking about all the ways I’m grateful that you’re my daughter. God’s perfect child.”

My sister’s face looked pleased then—and sad at the same time.

Mama retrieved a new bottle of Diet Coke from the fridge and sat at the fold-down card table under the kitchen light. Her hands moved to her holy books—her left on the Bible, her right on the Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She opened the Science and Health and I could almost hear the swish of drapes encircling her. I knew better than to interrupt when she was reflecting God.

Pop knew better too. He lifted Polly as easily as one of her stuffed bears and carried her to her room at the far end of the doublewide. I followed and watched him prop her up on pillows. After settling her, he walked past Mama. She sipped from a Sleeping Beauty glass and flipped a page.

In the living room, Pop turned on the TV to Magnum, PI. The whole couch sank under his girth. When I sat beside him, I felt as if I were about to slide down a hill. His hands smelled of photography chemicals and I wondered if that sour odor was making my sister sick. Then I chided myself. Such bad thoughts might prevent Mama from healing Polly. To make up for that false thinking, I prayed silently, just as Mary Baker Eddy recommended. In my mind, I repeated the Lord’s Prayer, then the Scientific Statement of Being. “There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter.” But I couldn’t remember the rest, so I whispered, “God is Love” over and over. Then, “Love heals all.” But Polly’s coughs grew louder.

Pop bent down to pick strands from the burgundy carpet. After a few seconds, he lurched to his feet, took two steps to the bookcase, and gazed at the pictures of our family. His thick finger grazed over the warped wood, then our few volumes of World Book Encyclopedia—A through F.

He sat back down and the couch sank to tilt my body toward him. He lowered his head close to mine. “You know, you could be a detective someday. William Kogan, Private Investigator.”

Those unblinking eyes could convince me of anything. But how could I consider something so wondrous when Polly was gasping for breath?

Pop strode to the kitchen. He stared down at Mama at the card table and said, “I can see it in you, Rose. You don’t want to ignore the sound of your own daughter suffering.”

Mama looked so small next to him, her teeth sticking through her sad smile. “Harvey, someday you’ll realize that God’s way is more important than what you want.”

He stood over her. The air seethed through his nose. His hands clenched into fists as big as cans of baked beans. Without a word, he walked to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. The whole trailer rattled.

“Willy, don’t let anybody change your good thoughts,” Mama said. She picked up God’s books, her bottle of Diet Coke, and the Sleeping Beauty glass. She dragged the telephone with the long extension cord into their bedroom. The door clicked shut.

I wondered if she’d left me alone because she’d heard my bad, sickness-causing thoughts. She wanted to shield herself from both Pop and me.

When Pop got back from the bathroom, I said, “Is Polly going to die?”

His whole face pinched into a scowl. Then his eyes turned gloomy and his face softened. “I think you’re the only one who can save her.”

“I’m praying as hard as I can. I’m knowing the truth.”

“You’re the best person in this family. You’re our Magnum, PI. I know you won’t let your mama ignore your sister.”

“Mama’s reflecting God to heal her.”

His great head slowly shook back and forth. “Polly’ll die unless she goes to the hospital.”

A sob welled inside me. “Why don’t you drive? You could take her.”

He pushed blond hanks of hair off his forehead and squinted. My own pop, the biggest, strongest man I knew, was holding back tears.

“She’s got my keys, Willy.”

A body couldn’t be mended in a hospital. If I thought it could, I’d weaken Mama’s positive healing thoughts. But if I didn’t convince Mama to let Pop take her, Polly would die. Something lurched and twisted in my stomach. It’s mortal mind, I thought.

“Maybe your mama should stop being so proud of her holy beliefs,” he said. “I think she’s drunk. Drunk on God. Do you hear her muttering away like some nun in there?”

I couldn’t hear anything. “Pop, call 911.”

“She’s got the phone.” He bit his lip. After a few shuddering breaths, he said, “You’re the only one who can convince her.”

My father could have bashed through the flimsy door and taken the keys. He could have grabbed the telephone. But Mama had so filled herself with God, I couldn’t imagine him overpowering her.

I ran across the kitchen linoleum to their bedroom. The phone cord snaked underneath the door. “Mama,” I yelled. “God wants you to take Polly to the hospital. She’ll die if you don’t.”

Mama was reciting something inside. It had to be Mary Baker Eddy’s words.

The door was locked. I pounded on it. “Mama, please.” I started to cry. “At least give Pop his keys. Let him call 911.”

“William Kogan, you listen to me. Your father put those beliefs in you just to hurt me. Don’t you give in to that. Your sister is in no danger.” Her voice was as calm as air.

“Please give Pop his keys. Please let him take her.”

“I don’t have his keys.”

On the couch, Pop shook his head and his eyes crinkled. He pushed the remote control button to turn off the TV. To the blank screen he demanded, “How could I expect a woman like her to do the right thing?” He turned his unwavering eyes to me. “She loves God more than her own children.”

“Mama, give him the phone.”

Pop gathered the newspaper. I followed him through the kitchen to Polly’s room in the back of the doublewide. He sat on the floor beside her bed. His head reached above the little side table.

She sat on top of the covers, her lower body limp, her back upright and sunk into the pillows behind her. “Where’s the medicine, Pop?” she said.

Pop reached up his arm but he didn’t hold Polly’s hand. He never did. His palm covered the base of the Snow White lamp on the table.

Polly smiled at me. Just moving her lips stirred a small cough. “I love you, Willy.” She took a big wheezing breath and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Maybe we should fold our hands and pray,” I said.

Polly shook her head. “Never.”

Pop’s laugh, long and hard, sounded like its own loud cough. Polly stared at him, her eyes watery.

I went to the bathroom. Two of Mama’s pink towels lay in strips on the floor. Pop must have torn them up. In Christian Science you’re not supposed to talk to God like a person, but I did anyway. As I relieved myself, I prayed. “Help me heal Pop and Mama so we can heal Polly. Don’t let her die. Please. I’ll be a better Christian Scientist.”

Back in the kitchen, I heard Mama’s low phone voice murmuring through their bedroom door. She must have called Betty Treeble, the practitioner. I set my ear against the cool plywood.

“I know it’s true, but it’s not helping,” she said. The next phrase came from Mary Baker Eddy. It was a phrase we’d recited in Sunday school. “God did not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

From Polly’s room, Pop yelled, “How can you expect to heal her when you’re afraid?” He could hear every word—even if it was whispered—in that trailer.

Polly coughed so hard I thought she’d throw up her insides. In the in-between silences, the newsprint crinkled as Pop turned pages. Then a ticking noise too irregular to be a clock. It sounded like his camera. I buried my head in the couch. I prayed with all the words I remembered from Sunday school.

When I awoke, sunlight slanted through the windows. I listened for Polly’s cough. Nothing. Our house was silent. My eyes filled with tears. God had not healed her and she was dead, dead because I’d selfishly slept instead of praying.

But the drapes were drawn back. Mama had lit the stove. The air was filled with the most wonderful smells—pancakes and bacon.

And then I saw Polly in the kitchen. I jumped up and ran to her. “You’re healed,” I shouted. “Mama, you healed her.”

“There’s not a spot where God is not,” Mama said.

Polly gave her the kind of grimace that she’d later transform into a sneer. She turned away from Mama and wrapped her arms around me. Her breath sounded scratchy, as if part of the false belief in asthma still clung to her.

“Willy, we only have each other.”

I tried to pull away. I wanted to see in her face what she meant. But Polly held me tight.

At last she let go. I looked up at Mama. Her lips pressed tightly over her teeth. She was staring at Pop as he walked out from Polly’s room, his camera cupped in his hand. A pile of torn-up newspaper strips lay on her floor.

A thought descended over me, a thought so twisted it had to be mortal mind. Maybe Pop had healed Polly by taking pictures of her. In the pictures, Polly was the image and likeness of God.

Polly left the trailer and slammed the door.

“Harvey, I’m so proud of you.” Mama was beaming up at him.

“What?” he said.

“You only made Willy say those things because you loved your daughter. It was the way you reflected God’s love that healed her. It shined right through you, Harvey Dean Kogan.”

Mama touched my head. Her hand was so light it must have been filled with God’s Spirit. My whole body tingled.

“Willy, your love helped heal her too,” Mama said.

“Maybe we should all get in the van so we can ascend to Heaven,” Pop said.

Mama gave him her warm smile, the one that said you weren’t being nice but she loved you anyway.

“Each of us gets closer to God in fits and starts,” she said. “God will tell you where to find a job, Harvey. You just have to listen.”

Pop reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his van. His eyes met mine and slipped away.

“Just where I knew those keys would be,” Mama said.

Something stuck in my throat—words my mind couldn’t grab hold of.

Pop yanked open the front door and slammed it behind him. I stared at that door, my whole body stinging. I still hear his keys jingling.

“Willy, let me tell you something about your father. He thinks he’ll feel stronger if he destroys my faith in God. Today he learned he can’t. I think this is another healing.”

Mama went to her room and shut the door. I looked at the plate of pancakes and bacon on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t hungry anymore.

A sound came from Mama’s room. It was so strange I wasn’t even sure it was her. I put my ear to the door. She was crying.

I went outside but didn’t see Pop or Polly. Pop’s hatchet leaned against the elm tree. I picked it up and reared back. After a few blows, I flung away the hatchet and kicked the tree until it bruised my feet.

Pop had only pretended not to have his keys. What kind of monster would try to destroy his wife’s faith by manipulating his son and risking his daughter? It took me years to craft that question. Probably Polly was never as sick as my young mind thought she was. Or maybe Mama really did heal her—as hard as that is for a skeptical banker to believe. In any case, she only channeled enough of God into her daughter to cure her asthma and not her spirit. Christian Scientists would say that’s impossible. They’d say that’s why the asthma came back. Even at seven years old, I knew it was only half a healing.

Years later, I found out what Pop did after he left that day. Katherine Miller made the mistake of jogging in a park while her husband looked after their sunburnt kids. The Preying Hands’ photo recreated the famous Rodchenko picture of a black trumpet player. He photographed Katherine Miller’s severed head from below, her makeup-darkened cheeks puffed out by wads of Kleenex. Instead of a trumpet, she blew a whistle. Next to her face he’d placed a tube of Coppertone with the picture of a dog pulling down the little girl’s bathing suit. “That picture made all my senses jingle and jangle,” he told the prison psychologists.

To Mama, a body was nothing but a kind of metaphor, a reflection of a person’s thoughts. My father believed the same thing.