MARTHA’S MIND WAS in turmoil. Nothing could have prepared her for the demands now being made on her, and the expectation of utter strangers that she could help them. More stories had appeared in the newspaper. Lara Chadwick had tracked down two people who both claimed to have been healed by her: the student with a stammer she remembered, but for the life of her she couldn’t recall the child with a broken wrist that she was supposed to have helped.
How could anyone believe that she – Martha Anne McGill from Easton, Massachusetts – had been blessed with the gift of healing! She was just an ordinary woman, nothing special, so why had this happened to her?
A quiet person by nature, she was uncomfortable with so much attention and the invasion of her privacy. There were people constantly outside her home or driving up and down her street; already her neighbours were complaining. It had got so bad that now even in traffic she became suspicious of cars stopping beside her. The intrusion of these strangers on her family life was unbearable and at times she even worried for her children’s safety. Mike blamed her for it all, she knew that. If he had his way she would never have volunteered to help the Lucas boy and would have simply stood on the pavement with the rest of the onlookers. A thought she could not begin to countenance! Would it have made a difference? That she would never know.
What she did know now was that she found it impossible to turn away those that came to her for help, who were in need of healing.
‘You’re far too soft, Martha!’ joked Evie. ‘That’s your problem.’
Her best friend was right. She was prepared to spend time and listen to people, and in the simple act of laying on hands experienced a power and energy for which there was no rational explanation. It was all so complicated! She stretched her fingers and hands, studying them, feeling her palms and wrists and pulse points, searching for an answer.
She phoned Rianna Lindgard’s surgery. The receptionist told her there was a six-week waiting list excepting emergencies.
‘I’m a friend of hers,’ insisted Martha.
Moments later the girl managed to slot her in for a cancellation appointment the following day.
Martha left the car at the station and took the T to town. Boston was a nightmare, with roads up everywhere as the planners tried to sort out the tangled mess of city traffic by building new roads, tunnels and bridges. It had been christened ‘The Big Dig’ and seemed to be going on for ever.
It was raining lightly as she made her way towards Huntingdon Avenue, where Rianna’s surgery was situated. Two other people were already in the waiting room but the receptionist ushered her in ahead of them.
‘Well, Martha, what brings you to this neck of the woods?’ asked Rianna. ‘I thought you went to Gibson Daly out near where you live.’
‘We do,’ she sighed, settling herself into the ultra-modern black dental chair, which even contained a TV screen. ‘It’s just that I want your opinion on something, Rianna, and I hoped you might be able to help me.’
‘Tooth trouble!’ smiled Rianna.
Funny, she looked different in her white coat with her dark hair pinned up off her face, a little older.
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘Oh, gums bad?’
‘No, Rianna. I should have probably phoned you, but I want to ask you a favour. Will you have a look at my hand?’
‘Your hand! Are you mad? What do you want me to look at that for, have you hurt it?’
‘No, Rianna, but I want to get it X-rayed. Both of them.’
‘You should be going to a doctor, Martha, that’s certainly not my field.’
‘Please, Rianna. The doctor’s going to think I’m crazy if I go ask him and I’d have to get an appointment for the hospital.’
Rianna considered for a minute, then leaning forward she took Martha’s right hand in hers.
‘The magic hand,’ she murmured, turning it back and forwards, feeling the fingers and knuckles and wrist and palm. ‘Seems totally normal to me, Martha, but I’m not really set up for anatomy. Still, I’m sure we can get a photo of these beauties if we try.’
‘I just feel such a freak, Rianna, and I need to know is there some strange kind of reason why I have this power.’
‘You’re not going to go blowing all my expensive fancy equipment on me now, are you!’
‘I hope not.’
Rianna and herself had met in the hospital after giving birth to their firstborn sons more than fifteen years ago. Patrick and Alex had been born within hours of each other, which seemed to create some kind of bond between them. The kids and moms always sent cards and presents to each other and kept in touch over the years. Even when she and Mike had moved to California, Rianna would make incredible long-distance calls to tell her the most trivial things. After they had moved back East Martha was only glad that she was there to offer her love and support when Andrew Lingard was involved in a tragic skiing accident in the Blue Hills and broke his neck. Three months later Rianna and young Alex lost the most important person in their life. She was filled with admiration for Rianna, who had gone back to dental school to continue her studies and ended up taking over her husband’s practice.
Rianna asked her to spread her fingers against the solid base of the instrument table as she manoeuvred the X-ray camera into position.
‘OK, keep still a sec.’
She repeated the procedure with her left hand.
‘Right, we have to wait a few minutes. Do you want me to give you a nice polish while we wait?’
‘Sure!’
‘Why not!’
Martha’s teeth were white and sparkling when Rianna told her that her hands were perfectly normal. ‘There is slight evidence of a break years ago on your middle finger, that’s all.’
‘Basketball when I was about sixteen.’
‘Well, there you go then, but otherwise horribly normal and no need to call out the X Files brigade.’
She felt relieved as she thanked Rianna and arranged to invite her and Alex over for Sunday lunch in about a fortnight’s time.
‘Tell Mike and the kids I said hi,’ added Rianna, as she left her office.
Somewhat reassured Martha went out into the street. She had some time to kill before she went home and the evening rush hour started, and decided to do a bit of shopping in the stores up around Copley Square.
Rianna Lindgard stretched her aching legs and feet. She had just finished an exhausting root canal job on a very tetchy businessman who was booked to fly to Tokyo first thing in the morning. She was as polite and kind as could be but longed to be home with Alex, eating spaghetti carbonara and drinking a chilled Martini. Lucy her assistant had gone already as there was no point in her missing her train to Braintree.
She checked everything was unplugged and turned off, and that her equipment was sterilized for tomorrow. Noticing Martha’s X-rays over on her desk, she thought she’d leave them for Lucy to file in the morning. Lifting them up, her eye was drawn to a whitish circle of light that seemed to have developed around the edge of the hands and finger bones. Was it a fault in her machine? It hadn’t been there earlier on, she was sure of that. Curious, she placed them safely away in her own drawer. Maybe Martha really had the power she believed in.