TWENTY-FIVE

“He can walk? That guy in the wheelchair?”

“Yes.” Dave said. “Well, right now he still needs a walker. But he says he can feel himself getting stronger every minute.”

“Don’t say it’s a coincidence,” Emma said. Again, she looked around, like this was national security. “I looked it up in three medical dictionaries, and they all agreed. Spinal-cord paralysis is not reversible.”

I was sure my cheeks turned bright red. “That’s great.”

Emma led me to a small maroon car. “Before you held his hands, he was looking at life in a chair. Now he is getting ready to walk down the street.”

They were not joking. Dave pointed his key at the car and clicked the door open. “We’d like to take you to see him,” he said. “What do you say?”

I didn’t move.

“Say yes,” Emma said, getting into the passenger seat. “He wants to thank you. He is so grateful for everything you’ve done.”

This had to be a trick. “Who else knows?” I peered around the back of the car, just to make sure we were really alone.

“No one,” Dave promised. “Trust me. We’ve been very careful. There will be no coverage.” He opened the passenger door. “When something like this happens, we control how the word gets out.”

“That’s funny.” He didn’t sound so pious now.

He looked at me like he knew something I didn’t. “Janine, in this world … where there are so many people in desperate need …”

“Don’t preach to me about this world.” I’d had my share of revelations. “I already know—you can control very little.” You can prove even less. This guy might be willing to thank me privately today, but tomorrow, no doubt, I was going to see him on TV grabbing his fifteen minutes of fame. “You can swear all you want that you won’t tell, but we all know that if this kid wants to, he can sell his story and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Still, I got into the car.

Yesterday, he’d been the good-looking paralyzed guy. Now he could walk.

I was curious.

Dave’s backseat was full of boxes of shiny brochures. Find the healing power that is within you! Trust in the Lord! His mission’s logo included two imperfect hands. They were posed to welcome me.

Of course, the hands were scarred—jagged crosses over each palm. The fingers veered off to the sides. I didn’t have to ask whose hands they were supposed to resemble.

“When Brian’s mother first called,” Dave said, starting the car, “I was sure she was exaggerating. Or hysterical. Honestly, I thought the stress might finally have gotten to her. She’s been alone for a very long time.”

Emma said, “We doubted her. But then we watched him stand up. We filmed him taking his first steps.”

Dave drove a little faster, away from my neighborhood and into Bethlehem. “It was all very exciting. We’ve been waiting a very long time for an event like this.”

Emma opened her window a crack, which created a vibration in the car, a thump, thump, thumping of airflow. She said, “He described it like hitting a wave. First he could feel his feet. Then his legs. He thought he was going crazy. Six hours later, he could wiggle his toes. Then he tried to straighten his knee. Then he called for his mom and right in front of her, stood up out of the chair.”

“Incredible.” I bet someone was already writing a script to turn his story into a ripped-from-the-headlines movie, the kind that play back-to-back late on Sunday nights.

Dave said, “Brian has always been a true believer. When we were still at your house, Emma swore she saw the light of God in that boy’s eyes.”

I closed mine. Even though Brian’s were cute, I didn’t like thinking about eyes. Eyes reminded me of Emir and death and pain. Just the word triggered the memory. If there really was a God, Dave would stop talking about eyes. This light would stay green and we’d drive right past the white church. No stopping. No memories. No questions about Abe.

Naturally, the light turned yellow. Instead of speeding through, Dave took his time. A family walked right over the spot where Abe lay dying. I asked Emma to roll up the window. She looked at the intersection with interest. “Is that where the miracle happened?” (She might have been sweet and amazing, but she was also very predictable.)

“It was an accident, not a miracle.” This was the longest light in the town. “His doctors believe in medicine. I’m sure there is another reason for Brian’s recovery.” The light needed to turn green.

“I don’t agree,” Emma said. “Traditional medicine does not always have an answer. Sometimes, people have to look at alternatives. Sometimes,” she said, smiling at Dave, “they need to open up their mind to see the answers.”

Turn green. Turn green. “That’s easy to say, impossible to prove.”

“No one is doubting the validity of science,” Dave said. “But my feeling is this: when science doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean you’re out of options. That’s all.” Emma told me about a lady who had some undiagnosed fatigue disease. “Drugs didn’t work, neither did therapy. Once she put her faith in God, she began to grow stronger.”

On “stronger,” the light finally changed. Dave made a quick left, then another right. This was not the way to the hospital. I asked, “Where are we going?”

Dave smiled into the rearview mirror. “To the hotel. The college rented me an executive suite. Part of the perks of being a scholar-in-residence.”

I looked at Emma. “What about you?”

“A few of us from the mission came along. I’m staying in the hotel too. So are Brian and his mom.”

That sounded wrong. “Wait a minute. Your parents let you do this? What about school?”

“My parents support my beliefs,” Emma said. “I already have a GED. What’s so strange about that?”

What was so strange was everything. She was a girl—she looked no more than fourteen, but must be at least seventeen—and she was following this man, a preacher, instead of going to school, making friends, hanging out with guys. She was strange because she didn’t seem to have a bad thing to say about anything. She wore ridiculously ugly clothes that didn’t look new or even vaguely appropriate. For a moment, I wondered if she had done something terrible—if maybe she was hiding from the cops. Or if Dave had kidnapped her—you heard about things like that—men brainwashing girls and holding them captive for years.

I just said it. “You two aren’t … you know … ,” I stumbled.

They both laughed. Dave said, “Janine. Don’t be ridiculous. Emma is like a daughter to me. She’s also a huge part of the mission.”

I stared at my hands. The air had made my knuckles look a little bit purple. “Could you turn up the heat? My hands are cold.”

Emma told me not to be embarrassed. “Last year, I probably would’ve thought the same thing.” She turned around and faced me. “Before I met Dave, I was cynical. But he changed my life. His words made so much sense. Bad things do happen. But if we have faith in God, we can help ourselves.” She blasted the heat, but the creases in my hands still looked discolored. “Miracles happen, too. They happen every single day. Successful people rarely get there by traveling in a straight line.”

Four turns later, Dave drove onto the main street toward the Hotel Bethlehem. The hotel was the tallest building on the block.

Dave parked the car in the garage. We walked up the stairs, past the man in the big black coat and tall hat, into the lobby. “This is nice,” I said. Lo and Sharon sometimes came here for Girls’ Night Out, but I hadn’t been here since Miriam’s bat mitzvah reception. At the party, Miriam’s mom had joked about the paranormal activity that was part of the history of the hotel. Apparently, some guests had sworn ghosts had woken them up or appeared in their mirrors. Dave hadn’t seen anything like that. “It’s really very nice. Much nicer than the last place we traveled to.”

We sat down in the lobby. “Brian and his mom will be here any second.”

I stared at the elevators until the door opened and out stepped a woman in a dress she was ten years too old for. The hem was too short, the neckline too low. She was trying too hard—the fabric looked way too shiny.

She looked dressed for a party.

She held the elevator door with an outstretched arm. “They’re here, Brian.”

He took one step. Then another. Until he stood next to her. Yesterday, he had popped a wheelie. Today, he walked out of the elevator on his skinny, shaky, bare legs and pumped his fists.