The Miracle (3 page)

Trask's countenance was expressionless. "I'm sure Marguerite is competent enough to handle Viron. She has Viron. You have the Virgin. Don't try to rewrite me, Liz. Just get me an eyewitness piece on the return of the Virgin, and you'll have a big one, big enough to make everyone happy."

She was tempted to go to the mat with Trask, tell him he was only insuring her dismissal by sending her to that holier-than-thou hick town in the Pyrenees. Whereas he had given Marguerite a sure thing, and it wasn't fair, wasn't fair at all.

But she could see only the top of his head now, the formidable Mencken hairstyle, and she knew that he was done with her and bent to his work. She saw that it was no use fighting further.

Sensing her presence, he growled without looking up, "Get going, young lady. File it. There are plenty of poor souls out there waiting to be saved."

"Fuck them all," she said under her breath, and turned to leave, and dehver the news, wondering who on earth could possibly believe it.

Chicago and Biarritz

It was a half-block's walk from the parking lot to Dr. Whitney's twenty-third floor suite of offices in the high rise in Chicago's Loop, just across from the elevated, and although the drizzle was light this morning, it had been enough to saturate Amanda Spenser's jaunty blue rain hat and blue raincoat. In the hall, going toward Dr. Whitney's suite, Amanda removed her soggy rain gear, and paused briefly in the ladies' room to see if the hat had messed her neat bobbed brown hair. It had, indeed. She patted her hair into place, took off her tinted blue-rimmed prescription glasses which she used for driving, wiped them dry, tucked them into her purse, and headed for her appointment with Ken Clayton's physician.

Once inside the tasteful reception room, the fabrics on the furniture all a restful pale green, Amanda hung her hat and coat on the wooden coatrack and went directly to the gray-haired receptionist behind the counter.

The woman was expecting her. "Miss Spenser?"

"Right on time, I hope."

"Oh, yes. But I'm afraid the doctor is running a few minutes behind. He'll be with you shortly. I know he's eager to see you. If you don't mind taking a seat—"

"Not at all."

"By the way, how is Mr. Clayton?"

"Still somewhat weak, but well enough to go to the office every morning and work a half day."

"I'm glad to hear that. He's such a wonderful young man. One of the most charming I've ever met. We all wish him the best, Miss Spenser."

"Thank you," said Amanda, taking a magazine from the wall rack, any magazine, in this case a medical magazine. Sitting, settling back, she thumbed through it. Pharmaceutical ads on every page. Then an article with color pictures and charts on diabetes. Amanda had no patience for it. She kept the periodical open on her lap, but blankly stared through it.

Yes, Amanda thought, the receptionist was right. Ken was extremely charming. Amanda had been charmed an hour after meeting him two summers ago. There had been a barbecue on the patio of the palatial residence of the elder Claytons', Ken's parents, on Chicago's North Shore. An informal outdoor dinner mostly for the members of Bernard B. Clayton's prestigious law firm, in which his son, Ken, was a partner specializing in estate planning. One of the firm's juniors had brought Amanda along.

After that, Amanda and Ken began seeing each other regularly, and within a year were living together in Amanda's five-room apartment off Michigan Boulevard. Everyone said they made a perfect couple. Ken, at thirty-three, was five foot eleven, with a shock of unruly black hair, collar-ad masculine features, brawny and athletic (a champion at handball). Amanda at thirty was equally trim (tennis her game), actually comely and fair, brown eyes wide set, a broad tip-tilted nose, a generous rosy mouth, a svelte figure, abundant bosom, shapely legs. And a brain, a brain as fine as Ken's.

Strangers were always surprised to learn that Amanda was a well-paid, full-time clinical psychologist, dividing her crowded days between a carefully limited private practice and an associate professor's post in the department of behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago. Her interest in psychology had been inspired by reading Alfred Adler at an early age. Her role model had been the psychoanalyst, Karen Homey, for Amanda the greatest woman in the field. The fact that the famed John B. Watson had got his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago helped direct her to that school, and learning that Carl Rogers had once been director of the University of Chicago Counseling Center encouraged her to serve there for a period, which in turn led to her current private practice.

She was busy, and so was Ken, and they had time for each other only on late evenings and weekends. They spent more than half of their togetherness in bed. They were sexually compatible, and made love at least four times a week, and it was divine because Ken was thoughtful and experienced.

A year ago, secure in their relationship and their need for one another, they had decided to get married. Bernard and Helen Clayton, both devout Catholics, had wanted a formal church wedding, and Ken didn't care one way or the other, and neither did Amanda, whose Minnesota father had been a nonpracticing Catholic and her mother of no remembered religion at all.

The marriage had been planned for August of this year.

But then, one early evening, in the midst of a handball game. Ken collapsed. His right leg had given way, and he had folded up. His leg, actually his thigh, was causing him unremitting pain. This had been less than six weeks ago. Dr. Whitney, the Clayton family physician, had dispatched Ken on a round of specialists, examinations, tests, X rays.

Finally, the verdict was in. A sarcoma, a bone cancer. Deterioration of the bone tissue involving the head of the right femur, or thigh. Gradually, the disease would worsen. Ken would lose mobility, require crutches, eventually a wheelchair. Most likely, the cancer would be fatal. The options for a possible cure were threefold: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. Was the condition operable? It was. Dr. Whitney began to investigate the chances of successful surgery. The prognosis was gloomy, the odds weighted against success, but still there were odds, and there was no alternative.

So surgery was settled upon. It was to be performed almost immediately. The Clayton wedding date, the marriage of Ken and Amanda, was indefinitely postponed.

Amanda considered her feelings. She felt like a widow, and she was not yet a bride.

But still there was the surgery. That was the hope.

"Miss Spenser," she heard the receptionist say. "Dr. Whitney can see you now."

The receptionist was holding the hall door open. Amanda, clutching her purse, was on her feet and through the door. She went down the short corridor, and turned into the doctor's private office, shutting the door behind her and wondering for what reason he had summoned her. It seemed a portent of some unhappiness.

Dr. Whitney half rose from his desk chair. "Miss Spenser," he said, and gestured her to a chair across from his desk. Dr. Whitney was one of those physicians whose very aspect inspired confidence. He had a square, nicely aging face, a few good wrinkles, a furrowed brow and

hair whiting at the temples, not unlike those pseudomedicos in television commercials whose presence bespeak experience, wisdom, and authority.

As Amanda sat, Dr. Whitney lowered himself onto his leather chair, closed the manila folder on his desk, and went right to it. "Miss Spenser, I thought it best if we could talk face-to-face. I wanted to discuss Ken's surgery. I hope this sudden call didn't inconvenience you?"

"Nothing is more important than Ken's surgery."

"I know he told you about it, that it is the primary option we have."

"He told me a little. Just that there were no guarantees, but that there was a fair chance, and that he was going to go through with it. I was glad he was going ahead. I encouraged it." She hesitated. "What are his chances?"

Dr. Whitney measured his words. "With surgery, some. Without surgery, none. There is some advance work being done in this field, but I'm afraid it hasn't come to fruition yet. About a year ago, I read a paper by a Dr. Maurice Duval in Paris who had evolved a new technique, surgery and implants coupled with genetic engineering. But his experiments at that point, although fully successful, had involved mammals other than man. I discussed this with several highly accredited local surgeons, who had also heard of Duval's progress, but they felt that it was not ready to be applied to human beings as yet. So, since time is of the essence, we are left with the only surgery we know and can depend upon, standard bone surgery with replacement of the malignant portion of the femur. Sometimes it works successfully."

"Sometimes," Amanda echoed dully.

"Let me be more precise," said Dr. Whitney, "based on case histories of these surgeries. If undertaken right away, before there is more deterioration. Ken may have a 30 percent chance of getting rid of his cancer and being restored to normal life. But the fact remains, statistically, that there would also be a 70 percent chance of failure. Nevertheless, I repeat, there is no other choice but to go right ahead."

"Well, when do we go ahead?"

Dr. Whitney frowned. "We don't," he said simply. "I had the surgery scheduled for this week, but now the operation has been cancelled."

Amanda was on the edge of her chair. "For heaven's sake, why?"

"That's the reason I called you in today, as the one closest to Ken, to discuss the problem with you." Dr. Whitney cleared his throat and looked away. "I saw Ken late yesterday, and outlined one final time

what had to be done. He approved, approved of the surgery. This morning, first thing, he telephoned me. He had changed his mind, was turning down the operation."

Amanda was shocked. "He what? He won't go through with it? I didn't talk to him this morning—he was still asleep—so I haven't heard about this. But it makes no sense. Are you sure? We had agreed surgery was his only chance."

"Apparently Ken doesn't think so. He now thinks there's a better course. Have you seen this morning's paper?"

"Not yet."

"Have a look." Dr. Whitney took the Chicago Tribune off the comer of his desk and held it out for Amanda. She surveyed the front page and was more bewildered than ever. "There's just some headline about Lourdes."

'Turn to page three. Read the full story."

Amanda opened the paper, and the headline hit her. VIRGIN MARY TO RETURN TO LOURDES. The story that followed was bylined by someone named Liz Finch, and it was datelined Paris.

Amanda hastily read the news story. When she was through, she let the paper drop to the floor, and met Dr. Whitney's eyes. She was aghast as the full import of what was happening struck her. "The Virgin Mary returning to Lourdes to perform a miracle? The hallucinating of an adolescent peasant girl over a century ago? Are you telling me Ken has read and believes in this?"

"Yes."

"Ken depending on a miracle to save him instead of surgery? Dr. Whitney, that's not like Ken, you know it isn't. He doesn't believe in miracles. He's hardly a churchgoer. You know him. He's reasonable, logical, intelligent—"

"Not anymore, he's not," said the physician. "Not when he's so desperate."

"But I'm telling you it's not like Ken."

"You know his mother fairly well, don't you? You know Helen Clayton is a fervent believer. Can you imagine how this story affected her? She was all over Ken at once. Since she doesn't like the surgeon's odds, she's decided that Lourdes will offer her son a better chance for complete recovery. She's already sent Ken to see their priest. Father Heam, and it was after seeing Father Heam that Ken phoned me and cancelled the surgery. He told me that he's going to Lourdes. He's been brainwashed into thinking he may have a good chance for a miracle cure. It was no use arguing with him. One can't argue with blind faith. Even when it's out of character."

Amanda sat there, worrying her purse, deeply shaken. "Dr. Whitney, I try to deal with realities in my work. You know I'm a psychologist."

"I know."

"Perhaps this is a momentary aberration of Ken's that will pass. Let me ask you a question. What if we let him go to Lourdes, let him pray for a miracle, let him believe in the fairy tale until he sees for himself that it hasn't cured him? Couldn't he return here then, having come to his senses, and undergo the surgery?"

"Miss Spenser, I must be absolutely candid with you. I will say again what I said earlier. In this kind of disease, time is of the essence. The loss of a full month may make Ken almost inoperable, at least reduce his chances for a successful surgery from thirty percent to fifteen percent. His chances for survival are low enough. To cut them in half again reduces his chances drastically. Such are the facts. Unless he is saved by a miracle, he won't be saved at all. I'm sorry. But I had to apprise you of the turn of events, and the current situation, and hope you could influence Ken's thinking. I'm hoping somehow you can do something about it."

Amanda gathered up her purse and resolutely stood up. "I am going to do something about it. Immediately."

Dr. Whitney was on his feet. "Are you going to speak to Ken or his mother?"

"To neither. They'd be impossible to talk to in their present state. I'm going to talk to Father Heam. Right now. He's our only hope."

It was not until late afternoon that Amanda Spenser was able to get an appointment to see Father Heam. Even that had been difficult to arrange on such short notice, but she had invoked her friendship with Bernard and Helen Clayton and explained her relationship with Ken Clayton.

In a way, however, the delay had been a good thing.

After making her appointment, Amanda had realized that she was poorly prepared to debate with an educated Catholic priest about Lourdes and miraculous cures. While she knew vaguely about Bernadette and her visions, probably from having once seen the film The Song of Bernadette revived on television when she was in college, she knew nothing about the miracle shrine itself.

Since Father Heam could not meet her until four-thirty in the afternoon, Amanda had five hours to brief herself for the visit. More than an hour of it she had devoted to calling her secretary and arranging to have all her sessions with her patients cancelled for this after-