The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (19 page)

Rose shrugged. “Mom didn’t have Antoinette to deal with. Mornings aren’t always easy with her.”

Lily glanced at Antoinette, who growled and started walking in circles.

“Change always came easy for you,” Lily said to Rose as she turned from Antoinette.

Rose flinched. “Easy? You think this has been easy for me?”

“Easier than it is for me, I mean.”

Rose frowned. Two sharp lines appeared between her eyes. “I’m dying. I’m leaving my daughter. You think that’s easy?” Her voice went up a notch.

Lily shook her head. “I don’t mean it like that. Things come easier for you. People like you.” At school, Rose had always been surrounded by friends. Lily was lucky if she made it through lunch without someone “accidentally” spilling milk in her lap.

“People like you too, Lily. You just don’t let anyone get close to you. So what if you have a few odd habits? We all do. Most people are just better at hiding them—” Rose stopped talking. “Where’s Antoinette?”

“By the door,” Lily said as she turned around. The door was open. “She was right there.”

“Antoinette?” Rose hurried outside with Lily close behind her.

Rose stopped abruptly. Antoinette was kicking her feet through a semicircle of dead pansies. “You can’t run off like that,” Rose said.

Antoinette kept swishing her feet through the flowers. When she saw Lily, she growled.

The anxiety Lily had felt since coming home threatened to explode. She started to count.

Now that they had found Antoinette, Rose resumed her conversation with Lily. “You said earlier that you used to dream about being me. Well, I’d give anything to switch places with you. You’re the one who will be here when Antoinette finishes school. You’ll see what she looks like at twenty. At thirty. That’s something I can only imagine.”

Rose glanced at Lily’s lips, which moved as she counted, and grabbed her shoulder. “Are you listening to me?”

At the same time, Antoinette started humming.

Lily stopped counting. “What’s she doing?” she asked.

Antoinette was now kneeling in the middle of the dead flowers. She had closed her eyes and was running her fingers over the browning petals as she hummed.

“Shit!” Rose said. “Pick her up. Pull her away from the flowers.”

“Why? They’re dead. She can’t hurt anything.” The wind lifted Antoinette’s hair, swirling the strands around her head.

Rose’s face, already pale, went paler still. “Help me, Lily. I can’t lift her.”

The desperation on Rose’s face spurred Lily into action. In four steps, she was at Antoinette’s side. The girl kept humming as she pushed her hands deeper into the soil.

“Your mom wants you to come with me,” she said. As she reached for Antoinette, she prayed the girl wouldn’t scratch her again.

Just before they touched, Antoinette stopped humming.

“Pick her up!” Rose yelled over the rising wind.

At the same time, Antoinette looked Lily right in the eye and smiled.

Lily’s skin prickled.

“We’re too late,” Rose whispered.

Antoinette slumped forward, and the dead pansies blushed back to life.

“Oh my God!” Lily stumbled back. “It’s not possible.” She forgot about the mounting storm, knelt, and cautiously touched a flower petal. It was fragile and unbelievably soft.

Then Rose was there. “Don’t let her seize this time,” she murmured as she turned Antoinette onto her side.

A statistic flashed through Lily’s mind: a major cause of death in epilepsy was asphyxiation due to the inhalation of vomit. She shook off her wonder at the flowers and helped Rose hold Antoinette on her side.

“Is she seizing?” Lily asked. She had never seen a seizure before, but she thought there should be shaking involved. Antoinette was still.

“No,” Rose said. “She’s sleeping.”

Then Rose’s earlier words flashed through Lily’s mind: “Don’t let her seize
this time
.”

“You knew.” Lily gestured to the now-brilliant yellow pansies. “She’s done this before.” Everything she had seen since coming home flashed through her mind: the clematis over the porch, the wisteria draping the gazebo, the lavender at the farmers’ market—all flowers blooming out of season.

Rose kissed her daughter. “Yes. I knew.” The anger in her voice had evaporated. “Flowers. People. She fixes them all. Antoinette’s the reason I’m still here. I would have died long ago if not for her.”

Lily stared at her niece, numb with wonder. One thought went through her mind. If Antoinette could do this, she could heal Rose.

She could
heal
Rose.

“The healings are temporary,” Rose said, dashing Lily’s hope before it could fully form. “She seizes with more complicated healings, like my heart condition. And the seizures are getting worse each time. She’ll die if she keeps doing this.”

Tentatively, Lily stroked Antoinette’s hair, unable to believe what she had just witnessed. Lightning flashed, and automatically she started counting. “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mis—” A crack of thunder stopped her.

Rose touched Lily’s shoulder. “The storm’s getting closer. We need to get her back to the house. She’ll sleep for a while now.”

The wind had begun to roar and rain had started to fall, but Lily couldn’t move.

“Come on, Lily,” Rose said. “I need your help. I can’t carry her anymore.”

Slowly, Lily lifted her niece and followed Rose back to the house. As she did, she counted each step away from the spot where Antoinette had performed a miracle.

ROSE’S JOURNAL

June 2008

I MISS MY
sister.

More than a year has passed since I spoke to Lily. Every time I pass the phone, I chant,
Ring!
But Lily doesn’t call.

I’ve started talking to her in my mind. I tell her about the flowers we’re growing. I tell her that Seth keeps an old picture of her in his back pocket. I tell her that Antoinette loves flowers the way she does.

Then I remember the way she shrank from Antoinette during Mom and Dad’s funeral, and I feel a rush of anger. I love Lily, but I live for Antoinette.

Right now, Antoinette toddles toward the Bakery Barn. I count her steps as if, like Lily, I need numbers to make the moment last. A small garden filled with purple petunias, pink zinnias, and yellow daylilies frames the bakery entrance. The zinnias and daylilies are bright, but the petunias have wilted. The sun is directly overhead. It burns my shoulders and the top of my head.

As Seth and I walk to a metal table, I shield Antoinette’s view. If she notices the flowers, she’ll have a meltdown. When she sees a flower bowed under the summer heat, she stomps her feet and flaps her hands. She seems to have an emotional connection with nature. She only calms after I water the plant.

The patio is empty. Seth selects a table next to the door. His skin is tanned a deep brown, and his hair is streaked with gold. When we were kids, he walked as if he carried a heavy burden, and he rarely smiled. Now he sings while he works, and sometimes Antoinette hums along with him. It seems he has found his place in life.

“Can you watch Antoinette?” I ask him. “I need to talk to MaryBeth.” I want to head off Antoinette’s meltdown if she notices the plants.

“Sure. But when you come back, I want to hear what the doctor said.” Since returning home, Seth has driven me to the cardiologist every three months.

I nod, then pop into the bakery. A young girl with spiky hair and a nose ring mans the counter.

“Is MaryBeth around?” I ask.

The girl rubs her nose ring, a small diamond stud. “I think she’s in the back.” She points to a room separated from the front of the store by a thick brown curtain.

I walk around the counter and sweep back the curtain. “Eli? MaryBeth?”

The room is well lit. MaryBeth leans over an antique desk that’s covered with receipts. Half-moon glasses perch on her nose. Her short hair is messy. She looks like she’s been working since the dark morning hours. Judging by the rows of cookies and cupcakes in the bakery case, she probably has.

“Rose!” Her arms are thin but strong, and her tight hug reminds me of Mom. I don’t want to let go. “Is my favorite girl with you?” she asks.

“She’s outside with Seth. That’s why I’m here. Your petunias are a little droopy. Antoinette can’t stand seeing flowers in distress. If you’ve got a watering can, I’ll take care of them.”

MaryBeth drops her glasses on the desk. “Well, we can’t have her getting upset, can we? I’ve got a can under the sink.”

I don’t mean for MaryBeth to stop what she’s doing, but she waves away my offer of help. “Go sit with Seth and your daughter. I’ll be out in a minute.” She steps back and looks at me. “And get something to eat. You look hungry.”

I’ve lost weight, but I didn’t think it showed. Between working the fields and caring for Antoinette, I’m so tired I often go to bed without eating. Seth’s help makes it easier, but he’s not the one who wakes when Antoinette has a nightmare. He’s not the one who lies in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering who will care for her after I’m gone. I stop at the counter and order three cupcakes from the girl with the nose ring.

Antoinette is sleeping on the ground beside the garden when I come outside. Her hands are covered with dirt.

“Did she scream herself out?” I set a cupcake in front of Seth. It’s his favorite, chocolate cake with vanilla icing.

“No,” he says as he peels back the paper wrapper. “She saw the flowers, stuck her hands in the ground, and started humming. After she finished, she leaned over and closed her eyes. I think the heat got to her. No one’s here, so I let her sleep.”

I set the other cupcakes on the table and kneel beside Antoinette. Her eyelids flutter when I stroke her shoulder. “Wake up, sleepyhead. You can’t just lie down on the sidewalk and take a nap.”

She smiles, and I feel full of light. Antoinette isn’t an easy child, but she’s
my
child. My past, present, and future are in each breath she takes.

I don’t notice the petunias until I help her sit. When I do, I blink twice. “Did I miss something? They were droopy and brown before, right?” The flowers beside the door are a purple so bright it almost hurts my eyes.

Before Seth answers, MaryBeth arrives with a watering can and walks to the flowers. “I thought you said they were brown. I’m no gardener, but they look okay to me.”

I shake my head and guide Antoinette to the table. She grabs a cupcake and squishes her hand in the icing. “I must be seeing things. I could’ve sworn they had wilted.”

June isn’t Kentucky’s hottest month—that would be August when the air burns your lungs—but sweat popped out along my arms as soon as I walked outside. I chalk up my confusion to the heat.

Antoinette shrieks—her happy sound. White icing coats her hands and her mouth. I laugh. “You like that?”

Antoinette flaps her hands. Then she takes another bite of her cupcake. Most of it makes it to her mouth. When she grins, chocolate crumbs coat her teeth.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” MaryBeth says. “Eli will be sorry he missed you. He went home after the morning rush. A bakery’s not the best place to be during the summer. All that heat.

“Speaking of which, I’ll bring out a pitcher of sweet tea,” MaryBeth says. “Y’all can’t sit out here without something to drink.”

As soon as she leaves, Seth says, “What did the cardiologist say?”

I hear him, but I can’t get my mind off the flowers. “Did you see the petunias when we arrived? Were they wilted?”

I don’t know what I want him to say. If he says no, I’m seeing things. If he says yes, well, I don’t know what that means.

“The cardiologist?” he insists.”What did he say?”

I take some napkins from the dispenser on the table and wipe Antoinette’s hands and mouth. She finished her cupcake, but more of it is on her face than in her stomach.

“He did an echocardiogram. My ejection fraction was thirty-five percent.” Somehow I keep the fear from my voice.

An echocardiogram measures the amount of blood the heart pumps out. Anything over fifty percent is good. Thirty-five percent is low. It means I’m at significant risk for a heart attack.

Thinking about it makes my chest constrict. I take deep breaths and tell myself I should be happy. It’s been a little over five years since my heart gave out during Antoinette’s birth. My time should already be up.

“I’m sorry.” Seth squeezes my hand, and I wonder whether I look as sad as he does. He would have made a good minister, I think. I say so, but he shrugs me off.

“Too many sacrifices,” he says.

I wonder if he means Lily.

I pick at the cupcake in front of me. MaryBeth makes them fresh every day, so I know it’s good, but I can’t eat. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. I can’t talk about my health. If I do, I’ll start crying and never stop.

I look at the flowers again. In the year that Seth’s been at the farm, we’ve rarely talked about the things that happen around Antoinette. Flowers blooming out of season. The fact that I’m still here.

Voicing my thoughts seems silly, but I plunge ahead. “You saw them too.” I nod to the petunias. “They were wilted before.”