This bud of love . . . may prove a beauteous flower.
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Drums begin the cadence. The marchers begin to move, shuffling at first, then striding, until the parade stretches out behind the huge flag that Annie Clements carries: red and white and blue, flapping in a stiff breeze that pushes Lake Superior’s chill across the peninsula. With more and more strikebreakers showing up in town, the Women’s Auxiliary and their children now march in the middle of the column, with union men forming a protective shield all around them.
Eva always marches beside Annie, despite the danger. Jack Kivisto is somewhere behind them with the men. If this is a courtship, Annie thinks, it’s an odd one. The boy barely speaks, and yet, after every parade, he walks Eva to the church and waits in the baptistery while she goes inside to pray for whatever it is she prays for each morning. A wedding most likely.
Annie herself has become uneasy about the couple. It’s not a good match. Eva’s full of life and enthusiasm. Jack is too silent, too broody. Annie fears they’ll come to hate each other before their first anniversary. Shifting the weight of the enormous flag in its leather holster and bracing it against the freshening breeze, she lets her mind go silent for a moment and the questions come to her unbidden.
Did I ever really love Joe? Did I change? Did he?
Things might have been different if she could have given him children. She might not have had so much time for the union. He might have had the kind of wife he expected.
She glances at Eva. Maybe I should say something, Annie thinks. What you want when you’re so young . . . it changes. I was just like you when I was fourteen. I wanted my life to start. You change when you’re older. You want different things. You meet other people.
Of course, nobody wants to hear that when they’re young and in love. . . . And infatuations can burn out as quickly as they flare up.
Maybe, Annie thinks, this will take care of itself. And so, she holds her peace.
* * *
Father Albin Horvat is also concerned about young Eva Savicki. He has known her since she was a babe in arms. He married her parents and baptized their six children and buried four of them. He gave First Communion to Kazimir and Eva, and later on said the Requiem for their parents when Kazimir and Eva were orphaned.
Kaz was an altar boy when he was small; since then, he has fallen away somewhat. Of course, he was sad after his father was killed—something children in Calumet almost expect—but he remains bitter about his mother’s death. Kazimir blames God for taking her while James MacNaughton lives on in luxury. Eva, by contrast, has been consistently devout and still attends Mass on Sundays and feast days. Lately she’s also been showing up for Mass every morning after the parade. Before she leaves, she lights a candle, kneels again, and prays and prays and prays, hands clasped, eyes tight shut, her chestnut hair often tumbling sideways a bit, for she has only recently begun putting it up into a grown woman’s pompadour.
Watching unobserved from the sacristy, Albin Horvat wonders if perhaps the girl has a vocation to the religious life. Except . . . There is always a blond boy waiting for her in the back of St. Joseph’s. A Finn by the looks of him. Protestant, no doubt. Is Eva trying to discourage his devotion by demonstrating to him the sincerity of her intent to become a bride of Christ? Or is she trying to convert the boy so they can marry in the Church? She’s all alone, apart from her brother. Maybe that’s why the girl is in such a hurry to grow up. She wants a family again.
“Father?”
The unexpected voice behind the priest makes him jump. “Kazimir! You startled me!”
“Sorry, Father. I just . . .” The boy lifts his chin toward his sister. “I think you should know something. About Eva.”
The blond boy, Horvat thinks, expecting to be told of the need for a hurried wedding.
Kazimir says, “She’s praying for a miracle.”
The priest is not relieved by that. This sort of thing is always dangerous territory for the faithful. “A miracle,” he repeats neutrally.
“Yes, Father. She thinks Saint Catherine will help because that’s the saint who talked to Joan of Arc.”
“And . . . what sort of miracle does Eva pray for? Do you know?”
“She wants three miracles, really, but I know only one of them. The union is being thrown out of the office. MacNaughton made the landlord throw us out. Mr. Glass is letting us put our boxes in his storeroom, but it’s not big enough for the desks. And there’s nowhere to put the food bank and to do the clothing collections or to paint banners for the parades, and we can’t do that stuff at home because company houses are all too small anyway, and everybody’s afraid MacNaughton’s spies will find out and get them evicted. So Eva’s praying that the landlord will change his mind or something. But God helps those who help themselves, right? That’s what it says in the Gospels, doesn’t it?”
“Well,” Albin Horvat says kindly, “I believe that was something Ben Franklin said . . .”
Kaz shrugs: It’s all the same to me. “Anyway, that’s why I decided to talk to you instead of Saint Catherine. My sister can pray for the other miracles, but I think you can do this one.”
The priest listens silently to Kazimir Savicki’s plan, although he’s halfway there before Kaz has finished. No need to bother Saint Catherine with this, he thinks.
He even knows what he will say when Pharaoh’s heart is hardened.
* * *
On September 29, with one day left on the union’s lease, the strikers’ parade does not circle the city of Calumet. Instead, union members and their families converge by the hundreds on the street outside the office. Box after box is handed from Charlie Miller to Michael Sweeney to Kazimir Savicki to Jack Kivisto, moving down the staircase, in a kind of bucket brigade. Out on the street, strikers carry the boxes through town to St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, where they are greeted by Father Albin Horvat and a beaming Eva Savicki. Then it’s through the carved oaken doors and downstairs to the parish hall, where the Women’s Auxiliary awaits.
There is more space in this big rectangular room than the union has ever had before, and the ladies mean to do things properly this time. The big wooden desks and chairs were hauled down the street the night before; those were placed at the near end of the hall, close to the doors, so they didn’t have to be lugged any farther than necessary. Tall metal filing cabinets are already in place. Long tables on folding legs—meant for parish weddings and baptisms and first communions and funerals—await. Food donations will go on the tables nearest the parish kitchen, at the far end of the room. Clothing will be along the sides. Down the center aisle, another set of tables will soon serve as a staging area where donations can be unpacked and sorted for distribution. For now those tables are left clear.
It’s close to sundown when the last carton has been delivered, its contents unpacked and deployed. Only then are those central tables put to work as the women begin ferrying baked beans and piles of pasties and jars of pickles and dozens of fruit pies from the kitchen.
The room is noisy with shreds of song, and shouts, and raucous laughter, but when Father Horvat steps to the center of the hall and raises his hands, quiet gradually settles in anticipation of a prayer of thanksgiving after the meal.
Having duly delivered it, the priest once again raises his hands for attention and asks, “Are there any Baptists or Methodists here?”
Already the Catholics are grinning, but the Protestants look around, not sure what to make of this.
“No Dutch Reformed either?” Horvat asks. “Mormons? Mohammedans?”
He waits a moment, brows raised, as though he really expected an answer.
“No? Well, then! Mr. Glass?” he calls, looking toward the doorway. “I believe your grandsons can bring in my delivery now.”
Grinning, the Glass boys troop into the parish hall, each carrying a heavy crate, and the laughter starts when bottles are heard rattling inside. Growlers of beer and bottles of wine join jugs of homemade vodka and šlivovitz that have already begun to appear from under a pile of children’s outgrown coats. An accordion comes out. A fiddle. A tamburica. Tables are shoved to the periphery, and to grinning anticipation, Joe Clements steps to the center of the room, for everyone in Calumet knows that this is how Joe Clements wooed young Anna Klobuchar, and they all look back on those days fondly.
The space around him empties. The music begins. The crowd chants, “Annie! Annie! Annie!” Wiping her hands on a dishrag, she comes to the kitchen doorway, her apron spattered, strands of hair loosened around her face. She shakes her head, blushing, smiling, eyes on the floor, while neighbors and friends clap to the stately rhythm of the music, calling, “Go on, Annie! Dance with him!”
Annie pulls her apron off, lifts her head, and straightens her back, waiting in the kitchen doorway for Joe to make the first move as is his right. Unsmiling, dignified, regal, he puts one hand behind his back and extends the other toward her in what is both a command and an invitation. With a deep breath, she meets his eyes and walks forward in time with the music, joining him, placing her hand in his. For a moment, they both stand still. And then the dance begins.
It is a sort of waltz, stately and solemn, with increasingly complex figures as the two dancers step apart and together, first right, then left, retreat and approach: a pantomime of feminine reluctance and masculine insistence.
At the priest’s side, Michael Sweeney watches the pair of them, his face unreadable. “This is a štajeriš,” Father Horvat tells him, as though it were the dance that has caught Sweeney’s interest, and not the couple themselves. “The first dance at a Slovene wedding. The bride is young and inexperienced,” the priest explains as Annie backs away and Joe stamps ceremonially. “The groom must teach her, you see.”
Annie returns and Joe takes both her hands, now lifting them high above their heads. As tall as Annie is, she passes easily beneath the arch their arms make, twisting and turning, but no longer breaking contact, coming closer, lingering a moment longer each time in Joe’s protective, proprietary, increasingly erotic embrace.
The rhythm picks up. A circle of men forms around the couple, and a circle of women around them. As they turn and turn, Annie’s gaze sweeps past the Irishman, unfocused, vague, while Joe’s hard eyes return again and again to the photographer.
“You see?” Horvat says gently. “How the community supports the couple?”
“No escape,” Mike Sweeney murmurs. “What God hath joined together . . .”
“Let no man put asunder,” the priest confirms. “Annie means a great deal to this town,” he continues, “and she is Joe’s wife.”
The štajeriš gives way to a Finnish humppa and then to a Polish polka. For a time, the priest simply rests a benign gaze on the celebration, which is getting louder by the minute, but he and Michael Sweeney do notice when Joe gets Annie’s coat and the couple leaves without farewells: as a shy bride and an eager groom might sneak away from a wedding party.
Carrying a beer, Charlie Miller makes his way to Sweeney and the priest, standing at the edge of the twirling, stamping crowd. After the three unattached men clink glasses, Miller says, “I’m sure that liquor wasn’t paid for by the union, because we’re dead broke.”
“And I certainly hope it didn’t come out of the poor box,” Sweeney says piously.
“My sister is a lovely soul,” the priest replies serenely. “Very pretty, too, if I say so myself. A few years back, she caught the eye of a rich man . . .”
There are only two likely outcomes from such a revelation, and Miller takes the more optimistic guess. “She married well.”
“Define ‘well,’ ” Mike murmurs.
Horvat grunts. “My brother-in-law is a very successful businessman. A decent person in his own way, but to tell the truth,” the priest confides, “I never really liked him.”
“And it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven . . .” Miller suggests.
“Yes. So my sister makes sure that their prosperity is shared with the less fortunate.”
Mike Sweeney nearly drains his glass before he can make his face merry. “I imagine your brother-in-law would be dismayed by the way you’ve spent his wife’s donation.”
“From what I hear,” Horvat says lightly, “even the happiest of couples have secrets from each other.”
“And the unhappy ones?” Mike asks then.
“Nothing stays secret forever.”
Charlie Miller clears his throat and changes the subject. “Father, you know MacNaughton will come after you for taking the union in.”
“Oh, yes,” Horvat replies serenely. “A lawyer visited me at the rectory this afternoon. He informed me that union activities are not an approved use of church property.”
“And you said?”
“I thanked him for his interest in St. Joseph’s charitable work and pointed out that many are suffering in these unusual times. The parish is now sponsoring a food pantry and a clothing bank—for the poor and the needy, no matter who they may be. A number of parishioners have volunteered to assist me. Certainly there is nothing wrong with that?”
“Nicely done, Father.” Sweeney holds up his glass again, and the priest meets it with his own.
“How did the lawyer take it?” Miller asks.
“There was a certain amount of sputtering. He threatened to go to the bishop about it.”
Sweeney laughs. Miller frowns his confusion. He is not a Catholic.
“Mr. Miller, I’m a Jesuit,” Horvat explains. “That means I don’t answer to the bishop.”
“Did you give that lawyer the pope’s address?” Mike Sweeney asks.
The priest takes another sip of beer. “And I invited him to make a donation to the poor box on his way out the door.”
* * *
Overnight, the exuberance of the celebration dissolves in a steady, chilly rain. Fewer than half the usual number of marchers assemble at St. Joseph’s on the last day of September.
Understandable, Annie thinks. It’s only to be expected that so many, warm in bed, would hear the rain drumming on the roof, feel the cold seeping through the walls, and think, Not today. Just this one time, I’ll stay home. Men like Joe, remembering wedding nights and wanting more in the morning. Women, though never Annie herself, waking to a familiar sickness. Children, up too late, sleeping heavily, sweetly. Footsore grandparents with arthritis that’s more miserable in bad weather, groaning at the thought of moving across the room, let alone marching in the rain around the city.
This morning’s bad weather provides Annie with an exact count of how many will still show up no matter what: a third of those who voted for the strike. Close to three thousand marchers have converged on the church by seven in the morning, their umbrellas making a black, dimpled roof over their heads and the street outside the church. She is heartened by their determination, their stubbornness, even as she is aware of cracks developing in the summer’s solidarity. Women now come to her, often in quiet pairs, their arms linked as though they need support to approach her with their doubts. Annie, do you think the parades are doing any good? Annie, my husband, he say we never gonna make back the money after the strike. Annie, how long can we keep going?
“If we quit now, it will all be for nothing,” she tells them. “We are going to keep going until the union is recognized.”
Nobody says it, but this in itself is an admission that the strike will not win all they hoped for. Recognize the union: that’s the irreducible demand. The rest is negotiable.
There have been hints of progress. A small company up in Copper Harbor sent feelers to Charlie Miller about a settlement. They’re willing to talk about reduced hours and some kind of raise. Charlie and the Local 15 officers were quietly jubilant and made plans to start direct negotiations. They were careful not to discuss any of this in front of Joe Clements. MacNaughton still got wind of it somehow. Maybe someone up in Copper Harbor told him. Either way, he killed the deal before it could be made.
One man, Annie thinks. How can one man dictate the lives of so many? One man with one word: never. Just refuse, refuse, refuse. I will outlast you—that’s his only message to the union. The weather will get worse. The parades will get harder. Your strike fund will run dry again. No one will bail you out the next time. The company can absorb the losses indefinitely. Give up. If you don’t like the work, leave. It’s the only sensible thing to do.
And then there’s Joe. Every now and then, he looks up from the Mining Gazette and announces, “Calumet & Hecla’s still turning a profit.” Still selling copper piled high in the warehouses—just like Charlie told her they would.
There are days when Annie herself would quit, if not for the specter of Charlie Miller’s satisfaction. She’d march to the North Pole rather than listen to him say, “I told you so.”
“What is the price of copper?” she asked when all this started, and the voices of the women answered: My father. My husband. My son. My brother. . . . Hands. Arms. Legs. Backs ruined. Skulls cracked. Coffins filled. “Don’t lose hope now,” Annie tells herself and anyone else who shows signs of wavering. “The strike is for your children. It’s for their future, not just ours. Don’t let them down.”
A tall figure comes around the corner, stalking toward the marchers on long legs, secondhand coat pulled tight, battered fedora crammed low over damp curls, umbrella streaming drips all around him. Michael Sweeney has taken to walking the route at dawn, before the marchers set off. Reporting back. Suggesting alterations in their course if the company has set up roadblocks.
“You’re screwing that mick, aren’t you!” Joe shouted, mean with drink after the brawl at the Truro Pub, looking for a way to unload an anger too big to carry. “What is going on?” “Nothing!” Annie told him over and over, and it was the truth, but it only made Joe madder. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I can’t see it? What is he to you?”
She had no answer for him then, and took that beating as though it were a fall on the ice, or a chest-rattling cold, or some other force of nature that had to be endured. She has an answer now, though it’s one that Joe would scoff at. Michael Sweeney is a partner. He is someone who doesn’t need her failure to prove him right and doesn’t need her sympathy to keep him going. He doesn’t resent her strength or try to own it. She’s not a beast of burden to him. And no matter what he writes for the papers, she’s not a heroine to him, either. He is an equal. Whatever he says to her is said plain and true. No vinegar, no sugar. No blarney. Just truth. And that makes his friendship precious.
“The headquarters is surrounded by hired goons wearing badges,” he tells her when he’s close. “Not locals. Bowery lads, from the sound of them. They’re carrying guns.”
His warning is passed back through the marchers, rank upon rank, as is Annie’s command: “Best behavior, everyone! Don’t give them any excuses! Don’t answer back.” Then she hoists the flag pole into the cross-chest holster Michael got for her from Major Van Den Broek, and calls out the morning’s slogan: “Come to the table, MacNaughton!”
Thousands of voices, rank upon rank, take up that demand. They keep it going all the way to the company’s General Office Building, where they pause for a quarter of an hour, shouting loud enough to drown out catcalls and obnoxious remarks from the “deputies” outside MacNaughton’s fortress. There is no sign that anyone inside hears them. There never is, but they keep it up until Annie wrestles the flag into its holster again and leads the way back toward the center of town.
In front of St. Joseph’s, the marchers disperse, soaked and shivering. Annie rolls the sopping wet flag around its pole and lugs it down to what she is careful to think of as the parish hall, not the union office. The flag will mildew if it’s not hung out to dry, so she brings it to the kitchen and wrings the rainwater out of it, twisting it like a rich lady’s freshly washed bedsheet and spreading it out to dry near a radiator.
Joe comes down the stairs with the mail and his newspaper tucked into his jacket to keep the rain off. He’s been nicer since the last beating and lately he’s been going to the post office when she’s out marching. That’s his way of apologizing: he picks up the mail and delivers it to the union office. Then he stakes out a chair by the coffee table and reads the Mining Gazette. No one bothers him.
She squeezes past the crowd of women that already surrounds her desk. Questions pummel her before she can even sit down. Annie, can we get more ink to print the flyers? Annie, is this the right translation for that word? Annie, I finished with the pantry. What should I do next? Annie, did the Houghton Auxiliary give us a date for that meeting? Annie, I need a signature for this. Who should sign it?
She deals with each problem, aware that her patience is fraying. Old Moishe Glass has lectured her about this failing. “Why you trying to do it all? Give others responsibility! You’re an organizer! So organize!” Good advice, but sometimes the morning just comes at Annie so quickly, she doesn’t have time to think about who might help her. It’s usually faster to do it all herself.
She has, at least, managed to take Mr. Glass’s suggestion about making Carla Caretto the Auxiliary’s treasurer. “She’s honest,” he told Annie. “I know this. Sometimes I send a kid home with the wrong change. An extra nickel, maybe. Carla, she send that kid straight back with the nickel. And she’s a widow. Could use a little salary, right?” He was right, of course. Carla is a neighbor, a friend, and a willing worker with a good head for figures—as much a partner now as Michael Sweeney.
With questions answered and tasks apportioned, she kicks off her wet shoes, shoves cold feet into the slippers she leaves at the office, and glances at her husband. Joe’s concentration on the Gazette is as much a camouflage as a genuine interest in the industry news. Does he realize that nobody talks to him anymore? Maybe, though it’s not much of a change. He was always against the strike and has been a loud skeptic since it began.
That’s part of our problem, she thinks. MacNaughton is one man with one decision and one strategy. We’ve been fragmented from the start. There were those like Solomon Kivisto who wanted no part of the union, and those like Joe who voted against the strike. There are those who want to go back to work now, just to cut their losses and be done with it, and those who want to hold out but only to a certain point. And then there are those who would rather die than let MacNaughton win.
“How long do you think you can keep carrying that flag?” Michael Sweeney asked her once. When was that? Two months ago? “Forever,” she told him then, but . . .
She was working as hard as she could before the strike started. She still does laundry for two ladies in Laurium. This afternoon, she’s got her own laundry to do. There’s applesauce to cook and can. It’s almost time to butcher the hog. And on top of the usual grind of marches and meetings, in addition to all the begging letters and all the reports she writes, they had to move the office! All that packing, labeling, carrying, unpacking! All the decisions and reorganization—put this here and that there—and then cooking for the party, and then Joe proving who’s boss.
Stop, she tells herself. It was a late night, that’s all. You’re tired and you need to catch up on sleep. Sunday. You can sleep in on Sunday. Just do the work in front of you, she tells herself. Right here. Right now.
The morning settles into quiet busyness. Eva Savicki sits on the floor with a ring of little kids around her, teaching them the alphabet song. A dozen women rummage through the racks of clothing: some organizing the donations, others looking for something that might fit the growing children who squirm nearby. Others are in the parish kitchen, sorting jars of thimbleberry preserves and pickled eggs, arguing over whether the Auxiliary should try to store things like onions and potatoes and cabbage here or just let everybody keep their produce at home and bring some in when someone asks for groceries. “Who gonna ask if they need?” Carla Caretto demands. “You know they too proud! We should just send the boys out with baskets. Regular, every week, so nobody gotta beg.”
Charlie Miller has a knot of serious-looking men around his desk, discussing what to do about the goons. “We might be able to get an injunction against them if they block the marches,” he’s saying as quietly as he can, “but we can’t afford a lawyer. There’s nothing left in the strike fund now. Boys, I think we have to settle with C&H. If we can just get one smaller company to recognize the union, we can start negotiations again after we—”
“What did you say?” Annie cries.
The men are staring at her. Frowning. There she goes again, their faces say. Sticking her nose into our business. They can see that she is shocked, but what startles her is not their willingness to discuss capitulation. It’s the abrupt collapse of her own determination. The shattering relief she feels at the thought that all this responsibility will be taken out of her hands. The possibility that she’ll soon be done with all this bucking up and soldiering on.
Shamed by how close she is to giving up, she shakes her head and waves their attention off. “I— Never mind. Sorry for the interruption.”
Pretending she does not hear the rest of their conversation, she goes back to sorting the mail. Carla Caretto will get the bills. Michael Sweeney will get the queries from newspapers about articles. The Federation has sent them a sample flyer to adapt for local use. She herself tallies the small donations and sets aside letters of encouragement from other unions to be printed in the union newspaper. There’s really nothing out of the ordinary until one envelope that catches her attention when she notices who it’s addressed to. Not to Copper Union Lady or Mrs. Clements or, absurdly, to Joan of Arc, but to Miss Eva Lucyna Savicki.
“Eva,” she calls. “There’s something here for you.”
Eva scrambles to her feet. “Keep practicing your letters,” she tells the little kids, and makes her way to Annie’s desk. “Who would write to me?” she wonders aloud and takes the envelope; but when she sees the West Virginia postmark, a small moan escapes her.
“Eva! What’s wrong?” Annie asks. “What is it?”
Hands trembling, Eva breaks the seal; she pulls out a single sheet of paper and closes her eyes before unfolding the note. It might just say, Sorry, I’m too busy. It might be a flat no. Solve your own problems. Or, The Upper Peninsula is too far, too remote. You’re practically Canada, for Lord’s sake.
She considers going upstairs to say a whole rosary before she reads it, but with all her faith, not even Eva Savicki believes prayer can change words inked on paper.
Over in the kitchen, Carla Caretto is telling the other women, “Like a pasty, kinda. Yeah! Italian pasty! What you got? Little flour, little salt, some water, make a dough. Roll it out. Few tomato. Some . . . funghi. How you say? Musharoom! Maybe little bit meat, if you got it. Some cheese. All together, you got a nice supper.”
“But you leave the dough flat?” someone asks, and Carla is about to answer when Eva Savicki screams.
And screams again, and bends in half, and straightens up, and finds that everyone’s eyes are upon her, and their faces are full of anxiety. Kaz is pushing through to her, calling, “Eva! Eva! Eva!” and it’s only then that she realizes that she is his last person on earth, and she’s sorry for scaring him, but she still can’t speak and only shakes her head as if to say, There’s nothing wrong. Because this is not a tragedy or a disaster, and everyone can see that now as she hops up and down holding the letter high. She wants to be like Annie—serene, confident, resolute—but what she has to say comes out in a fourteen-year-old girl’s high-pitched breathless rush: “She’s coming! I wrote to her and told her about Annie and the strike and all of us, and I asked her to come and help, and I prayed and prayed to Saint Catherine, and she’s coming!”
Annie’s brow wrinkles. “Saint Catherine?”
“No!” Eva shouts with exasperated excitement. “Mother Jones! Mother Jones is coming to Calumet! I told you, Kaz! I prayed so hard, and it happened!”
There is astonishment among the grown-ups at first, and then the cheering starts, and the kindergarten kids are jumping up and down with excitement, and her brother is bewildered. Because she only told Kaz that she was praying but not what for, and he had no idea that this is what his own little sister was trying to do.
And then she sees Jack Kivisto, at the edge of the crowd, a little apart, as he always is even when surrounded by people.
His eyes meet hers. She waits, squealing when he smiles a little and shakes his head, for she did indeed tell Jack what she was praying for and asked him to stay with her in the church while she did so. Because she wanted him to see what true faith could accomplish.
Jack stands still, trying to decide what he thinks about what Eva has done. He certainly does not believe that dead Catholic ladies can make God do things, no matter how sincerely a girl in Calumet, Michigan, asks for their “intercession.” Whatever that is. Besides which, his father used to say that Mother Jones is a socialist rabble-rouser who’d show up at any strike. So by that standard, this is not much of a miracle, and yet . . .
At least for the moment, his habitual wariness retreats and in its place comes . . . what?
Something he has not felt before. Something that goes beyond toleration of this giggly girl, whose habitual enthusiasm is wearying and whose devotion he has found bewildering and burdensome, for his family’s future depends on him, and that alone is almost more than he can carry. Even so, at least for the moment, he allows himself to feel something new.
Respect. And maybe even . . . a glimmer of reflected joy.
Without a decision, he finds that his arms have opened to her and she rushes to him, and the shock of touching a girl—this girl—feels like nothing he’s ever experienced before. He tells himself that this is just like taking his little sister into his arms when she runs toward him at the end of the day, but Eva is not a bony little girl. She is a grown woman, nearly, and her body fits his with soft and startling ease.
There is a sort of shift within him, like the hanging wall of a stope crumbling all at once into a drift, like the breaking up of ice on the lake. He steps back, away from Eva as she weeps and laughs and hugs him again, for this feeling is something he will need to retreat from and think about when he is alone again. It is something he will have to remember and reconsider.
And that, perhaps, is as close to a miracle as anything Saint Catherine might provide to a fifteen-year-old Finn.