THE DRIVE ALONG Penton Avenue and Columbus Drive was busy as mothers like herself ferried their offspring to the local schools, open finally after the long summer break. Martha dropped Patrick and Mary Rose first at St John’s before driving back in the other direction with Alice, who attended Bishop Delaney Junior School. Alice was fussing about the hardness of her new shoes after weeks of slopping around in sandals and was worried in case she was not in class with her best friends.
‘You’ve just got to wait and see,’ she told her.
It was unlike her youngest to worry so Martha decided to accompany her to the school yard and give her a bit of moral support. The two of them joined the growing throng of parents and children outside the school.
‘Be positive and optimistic and your child will sense it.’ That’s what all the good parenting books told you to do. Martha did her best to appear relaxed, aware of her daughter’s small hand clenched in her own as they walked towards the main entrance, both of them searching for the familiar face of any of Alice’s schoolfriends. She nodded as Abe Harrison and Kate Nils, both teachers she knew, passed by, trying to look cheerful at the start of another term. It was hard on everyone getting back into the routine of school.
Crowds of children pressed past them: new bags, new shoes, new haircuts.
‘Mom, there’s Becky!’
Martha smiled, recognizing her daughter’s play-mate who had just returned from vacation. The two girls raced toward each other, as she and Evie Hayes watched on.
‘How you doing, Martha?’
‘Fine, Evie. Fine. You look great! Tell me, how did the house on Eagle Lake work out?’
Her friend seemed totally relaxed and refreshed, her skin a golden honey colour, her short brown hair sun-tinted a shade lighter.
‘We had the best time ever. The house was right on the shore and the kids just swam and fished and sailed from sunrise to sunset while Frank and I lazed and unwound. You and Mike would adore it. I honestly think it was one of our best vacations ever.’
The two girls’ heads were together, whispering as two more friends arrived over. Martha was relieved that Alice had company as the yard bell sounded and the children began to organize themselves into some semblance of a file to line up at the school entrance.
Alice wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tight, Martha breathing in the sweet scent of her daughter’s apple shampoo as they said goodbye.
‘See you later, Mom!’
The parents stood clustered together as their offspring entered the school building, one or two dabbing at their eyes or running to look in the windows. Martha almost dreaded the still and quiet of home that awaited her. As she stood chatting with Evie, a few of the other mothers joined them.
‘I heard about the Lucas boy,’ Kim Hamilton interrupted.
‘I know, it was such a terrible accident!’
‘No, I mean about you. How you saved his life – healed him.’
Martha took a deep breath. She was real fond of Kim, with her sparky sense of humour and good nature, but her friend did have a tendency to get things wrong. ‘Kim, I just happened to be there, and did what any of you would do, that’s all,’ she said.
‘That’s all? Not the way I heard it! I heard you all but brought that poor boy back to life! That in front of everyone you laid your hands on him, and somehow he started to breathe again.’
She could see a flabbergasted Evie staring at her, and the others intently watching for her reaction.
‘Hey, come on. Don’t be crazy, I just helped him. You know, he was in a lot of pain, and shock, stuck under that Jeep.’
How could anyone imagine that she had such a power? It was just her adrenalin and sheer necessity that had made her keep trying to save the Lucas boy.
Kim raised her eyebrows. Evie looked puzzled and Martha could sense everyone else’s curiosity.
‘How’s he doing anyway?’ interrupted Berry Wilder, who had four boys of her own.
‘His mother Susan’s still up at the hospital and he’s had a lot of surgery and is in pretty poor shape.’
‘It’s just awful for her. I don’t know what I’d do if something like that happened to any of my boys, some lunatic driving over them.’
‘I don’t think it was her fault,’ argued Martha. ‘Timmy just came out of nowhere.’
‘Still, she should have been more careful!’ insisted Kim forcefully.
The school yard began to empty, and Martha and Evie walked companionably to the roadside. It was an unspoken agreement to stay home the first morning of school and not to go gallivanting, in case the school principal phoned. Mindful of this, Martha arranged to meet Evie later in the week for coffee.
Dishes and laundry and mess were all there waiting to greet her as she stepped through the door of 552 Mill Street. Putting on an old Paul Simon CD to cheer herself up, she set to her household chores, trying not to notice the silence of a house absent of children. An image of each of them sitting at a desk and learning comforted her. She made a long phone call to her mother and read four chapters of a novel that had been languishing behind the range of cookery books in the kitchen. A dark and depressing story of family secrets that she was really in no mood for, so she put it aside yet again. She resisted the urge to click on the remote control, knowing that if she did she would waste an hour or two watching some stupid soap or mindless TV game show. The day dragged on as she counted the time until she was to collect Alice and hear all her news.
Sunlight splattered the pavement as Alice Kathleen McGill skipped through the school gates, smiling gap-toothed, triumph written across her face. Martha was pleased at such happiness as she rushed to greet her.
‘Becky and Gary and Lisa are all in my class!’
The very air was electric with currents of expectancy, seconds later balancing out and calming as parents and children were reunited.
As she bent down to hug Alice, Martha was aware of heads turned in her direction, of being the subject of whispers and gossip and nudges.
‘You heard, Martha healed the Lucas boy!’
‘Fifty people saw it! She just laid her hand on him and got him breathing again.’
‘Martha McGill, you know the woman that drives the silver Volvo, is some kind of healer, saved the Lucas boy’s life.’
Embarrassed and not wanting to get into conversation with anyone, Martha grabbed Alice’s new dolphin schoolbag and began to walk quickly toward her car.
‘Mrs McGill, Mrs McGill! Please wait up!’
Martha turned. A woman with a son of about eight and a small boy sitting in a stroller was coming towards her.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. My name’s Ellen Glass. My son Karl is in the third grade with Susan Lucas’s boy and this here is Mark. I heard what you did for Timmy the other day. Susan says it’s a miracle he survived, and that likely he would have died excepting for you.’
Martha felt awkward and unsure of what to say.
‘Well, I don’t mean to interrupt, I know you must be busy, but I wonder if you could look at my son, help him?’
Martha hadn’t a clue what the skinny woman with her hair tied up in a streeling ponytail was talking about, or what she was expecting.
‘Listen, Mrs Glass, there’s been some kind of a mistake. I don’t know what you heard about the other day but whatever you heard, it’s wrong. It’s a mistake. I’m not able to cure or heal people, really I’m not!’
‘My boy needs help, Mrs McGill, honest he does. He’s got asthma real bad and I’d try anything, anybody, if I thought it would help him.’
Martha let out an exasperated breath. What did this woman want from her?
‘I’m not a doctor or nurse,’ she told her.
‘I know that. He’s been to them all! Paediatricians! The hospital and all sorts of doctors. They keep on trying him with different medicines and sprays and inhalers, but he just keeps wheezing. Sometimes he wheezes so bad I get scared. I have to get up in the middle of the night and use a nebulizer just so that he can get enough breath to sleep.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you,’ Martha insisted. ‘I truly can’t.’
‘I get scared! Please, Mrs McGill, Martha, please try it, just lay your hands on him.’
Martha laughed, hysterical almost, hoping that no-one could overhear this crazy lady who’d pushed the stroller almost across her. Alice’s eyes were huge, questioning, confused. How could anyone possibly think that she might be able to heal their child? The mother must be unbalanced to believe such a rumour – or plain desperate! The small boy in the buggy looked up at her. His face was pale, with a sheen of grey blue under his eyes. He should have been running around roughhousing at home instead of sitting there, looking tired and resigned.
‘Honest, you should bring him to a clinic or the hospital, Mrs Glass.’
‘What harm will it do? Please, just touch him.’
Martha could see the anxiety in the other woman’s face, and the small boy looking up at her, worried.
She bend down towards him; his eyes were clinging to hers, watching her. He had a Disney T-shirt on and a pair of elastic-waisted denim shorts. Martha touched him without thinking, stroking his cheek with the side of her finger and cupping his face. ‘You are such a cute boy, Mark. Such a good boy,’ she said.
His brother Karl and Alice watched as the child listened to her.
Even now she could feel it, the sense of fear, of worry, far too much for a small boy. Running her hands along the base of his neck and across his chest-bone she felt it: the slightness of breath, the irritation of his lungs that made him cough and wake and wheeze. The palms of her hands and fingertips were warm already as she spread them against his skin, conscious of the heat that seemed to be flushing through her own flesh and bones. What was happening? Perhaps it was some weird kinetic connection. Was it the same as the last time? She wasn’t sure. The mother was watching her, her face filled with hope.
Martha was touching Mark, feeling his every breath, but it didn’t seem to be working. His perplexed child’s eyes stared up at her. Martha was unsure what to do next. The children, curious as to what was meant to be going on, stood transfixed beside them. Martha was about to give up. She felt like some kind of sideshow fraud pretending to do something she couldn’t.
‘Please! He’s been so sick for so long.’
Martha studied him. No little boy deserved to have such poor health, not to be able to run about and take a proper breath of good air. Silently she prayed to that greater power, to God above, to help this child and make him stronger. She felt the heat travel through her and move inside him to soothe and coat and protect those raspy lungs from infection, and irritation and allergy. She knew that Mark could sense it too. A few minutes later she stopped.
‘Is that it?’ demanded his mother.
‘I guess so.’ Martha shrugged; this hadn’t been her idea, for sure. ‘I touched him like you asked, Mrs Glass, but I don’t expect it will make any difference to Mark and what’s wrong with him. What he needs is the care of a good paediatrician or allergy specialist – not someone like me.’
She could see the other woman’s disappointment and managed to detach herself and Alice from her, with the excuse that she was already running late and had to collect her other children from school.
That night, curled up in bed against Mike’s back, a position she much enjoyed, Martha ran her hands along the familiar map of her husband’s ribcage and stomach.
‘Mmmm,’ he sighed.
‘Mike – listen, how do my hands feel?’
‘They feel good . . . real good.’
‘No, Mike, honest, tell me, do they feel different?’
‘Is this some kind of a trick question, Martha?’
‘Do they feel warm, I mean hot when I touch you?’
Mike McGill laughed aloud.
‘Of course you’re warm, you’ve been snuggling up to me for the last quarter-hour.’
‘Mike, be serious! I was just wondering if there is anything different . . . different about me?’
Mike rolled around to face her, his arm pulling her closer; and he reassured her that despite sixteen years of marriage little had changed and she was still the woman he wanted. Trying to push away the crazy thoughts that plagued her, Martha relaxed and concentrated on Mike and their lovemaking.