The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (8 page)

Antoinette tapped MaryBeth’s hand. She wanted to hear the older woman’s song.

“Don’t,” her mother said, concern in her voice.

“She’s okay,” MaryBeth said. “I see you finished your cupcake. Did you like it?”

Antoinette flapped her hands.
Good
, she thought.
It was
good
.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Eli said with a laugh, but MaryBeth’s shoulders sagged. She seemed sad.

The sky started spitting rain. “We’d better go,” her mother said, but Antoinette wanted MaryBeth to smile.

Seth stood and held his hand out to Antoinette’s mother. “You look tired,” he said. “Lean on me. I’ll help you to the car.”

“MaryBeth, the cupcakes are wonderful,” Antoinette’s mother said. “You’ll sell out of them at the show.” She hugged the older woman.

With her mother distracted, Antoinette caught MaryBeth’s hand. Bells filled her mind. Antoinette closed her eyes and followed the threads of the song. In most places, it was light as a hummingbird’s wings, but in one spot the notes were round and flat.

Antoinette hummed along with MaryBeth’s song. She had just reached the part where the notes felt off, when her mother noticed. “Antoinette, stop.” She grabbed Antoinette’s shoulder and pulled. Through her thin cotton shirt, Antoinette felt her mother’s cold fingers, but she didn’t let go of MaryBeth’s hand. She pictured the way the woman’s song should go and hummed, correcting the notes that were off.

“Seth?” her mother said. There was an edge of panic in her voice. “She’s going to seize.”

Antoinette’s hands tingled, and her neck twitched. She squeezed MaryBeth’s hand hard.

The woman groaned. “You’re hurting me, Antoinette.”

“What’s going on?” Eli asked.

“Antoinette, let go!” Her mother was loud, but Antoinette didn’t stop.

“It hurts,” MaryBeth said.

At the same time, Seth grabbed Antoinette under her arms and pulled her away. The connection broke, and the song faded.

The rain fell harder, but no one moved. Antoinette slumped against Seth, fighting to keep her eyes open. MaryBeth twisted her neck from side to side.

Are you happy?
Antoinette thought. She tried to focus on MaryBeth’s face, but it looked fractured, as if her eyes had traded places with her mouth. Antoinette had to look away.

“What happened?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know,” MaryBeth whispered. Her voice was different, stronger.

Fireworks exploded behind Antoinette’s eyes, and her arms started to shake.
Not yet
, she thought, but she couldn’t stop. Her eyes rolled up, and color filled her brain.

“She’s having a seizure,” her mother said. “We need to get her to the van.”

Seth turned, but Eli grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“What just happened?” Eli said. “Look at MaryBeth. She’s not shaking. Antoinette
did
something!”

The colors came faster now, brilliant blues and reds like lightning that colored the sky at night.

Just before darkness overtook Antoinette, she heard her mother’s voice, soft with compassion: “Eli, you’re looking in the wrong place if you’re looking for a miracle. She’s just a little girl.”

ROSE’S JOURNAL

May 2003

I AM A
mother.

A mom.

Mommy.

I chant the word as I ease Antoinette from her car seat. If I say it enough, maybe I’ll believe it. Maybe I won’t shake when I hold her.

It’s early. The sun is just now climbing over the hills, and the chill of the night still hangs in the air. Antoinette is six weeks old and barely weighs five pounds, yet I’ve never held anything heavier in my life.

Until now, she has spent every minute of her life in the NICU. Mom and Dad offered to accompany me to the hospital to bring her home, but in the past month and a half I’ve grown small with fear. How can I be a mother if I’m afraid to be alone with my daughter? I went to the hospital alone to prove to myself that I could.

A shock of blonde hair pokes from beneath Antoinette’s purple plaid cap. Her eyes are closed, and she snuggles into my arms as if there’s no place she’d rather be.

But my heart could stop beating any minute. How can she trust me when I don’t trust myself?

My knees are jelly as I carry her up the back porch steps. I move carefully, monitoring my heartbeat. I go to brush my hair away from my shoulders, forgetting I cut it off four weeks ago. I am not the same person I was before I went into the hospital. I needed my appearance to reflect that. Several heartbeats pass before I can open the door.

A bundle of cinquefoil sits in the center of the kitchen table. The shrubby plant spills out of the old glass someone used as a vase. The flowers are paler than they should be, more butter yellow than lemon. I’m not sure whether something’s wrong with the plant or with me.

Before I became ill, colors were vibrant. I saw pink and blue and yellow housed in a white rose petal. After all, white is a compilation of every color.

Things are faded now. I only see white. Or butter yellow in this case.

“They mean ‘beloved daughter,’ ” Lily says.

I startle. I was so intent on carrying Antoinette without dropping her that I didn’t see Lily beside the table.

My heart shudders. I take several deep breaths, calming only when Antoinette wraps her hand around my little finger. “What are you doing here?” I ask Lily.

“Can I hold her?” When Lily takes Antoinette, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from me instead of a tiny baby.

She removes Antoinette’s cap and tosses it on top of her bag, then presses her nose against Antoinette’s scalp.

“Why aren’t you at school?” I ask. There is a week left in the semester. Lily missed several classes while I was in the hospital, so I know she has to be behind.

“Couldn’t miss my niece’s homecoming. Besides, I took my exams early.”

Of course she did. Jealousy swallows me. I should be graduating next Saturday. Instead, I dropped out in the middle of my last semester.

“Do you think she remembers me?” Lily rocks gently as she talks. Antoinette looks comfortable with her.

“I’m sure she does,” I say, though I don’t know. The nurses at the NICU know my daughter better than I do.

Lily starts singing. Not a real song. She strings numbers together to the tune of the alphabet song.

“You’re home for the summer?” I ask. In spite of the envy I feel as I watch how easily she interacts with my daughter, Lily is my touchstone. I am strong when she is here.

She curls around Antoinette. Her long dark hair swings forward, screening her face. “I’m taking summer courses this year. I’ll be home for the garden show, but then I’m going back to school.” There’s a slight tremor to her voice, and when she looks up, her eyes are red.

I am about to ask her what’s wrong, when Mom and Dad rush into the kitchen. Lily hands me Antoinette and slips away.

“I thought I heard you,” Mom says. “Did you have any problems? Are you okay?” She holds me by the shoulders, examining me as if I might have a heart attack right here in the kitchen. She’s aged in the past two months. Frown lines stretch across her brow.

I want to reach for Lily, but the worry in Mom’s eyes holds me here. “I’m fine,” I say, though my heart tumbles through my chest, and I see black spots before my eyes.

“You’re sure?” Dad hides his concern better than Mom, but I see anxiety in the way he holds his hands perfectly still.

I look around them, trying to see Lily, but she has disappeared. I force a smile and turn back to my parents. “Positive.” I am lying.

LATER THAT NIGHT,
I sit on the edge of my bed, peering into Antoinette’s crib. Is she breathing? I place my hand under her nose. I don’t feel anything. Panic stings my throat. Then I feel a warm puff against my hand, and I relax.

Lily sleeps in the twin bed closest to the door. I have always slept under the window. Her soft snores fill the room. The familiar sound helps me breathe easier.

Our room is still a large square box. The walls are still painted faded rose; the floor is still scarred where Lily and I carved our initials into the soft wood beneath our beds. But Antoinette’s crib changes everything.

I tiptoe across the room and sit on the side of Lily’s bed. I never got to ask her what was bothering her earlier in the day. After Mom and Dad came in, she slipped out to the garden and stayed there until after dinner.

“Lily?” I nudge her shoulder.

She groans. “What’s wrong?” she asks, without opening her eyes.

“Can I get in?” I crawl beneath her covers before she answers. As a child, Lily would slip into my bed at night when she didn’t want to go to school the next day.

Funny how our roles have reversed.

She makes room for me, and I roll onto my side so that I can see her face. Lily is tall and dark. The exact opposite of me.

“Why were you upset earlier?” I ask. Her eyes are still puffy, and I know it’s not from sleep.

She is fully awake now. “It’s nothing,” she says. “Is Antoinette sleeping?”

I don’t want to talk about Antoinette. I want to pretend we’re teenagers again, sharing secrets. “I know you. You don’t cry easily.”

“I cried a lot when you were in the hospital,” she says. She rolls over on her back. Her lips move, and I know she’s counting.

I cried then too, but I don’t say so. I used to be the one who comforted her. Now that I need her comfort, I don’t know how to act.

“Seth broke up with me,” she finally says. “That’s why I’m taking summer courses. I can’t be on the farm, knowing he’s next door.”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. Seth and Lily have been together for so long that I think of them as one person.
SethandLily.
“Why?” She must have misunderstood him.

“He’s decided to go to seminary. Apparently, I’m a distraction.” She puts a hand over her eyes.

That doesn’t sound like Seth. I’m about to say so, when a soft bleat comes from Antoinette’s crib. I don’t want to leave Lily, but she shoos me away. “Go check on her.”

I hesitate. “I’m fine,” Lily says. “Go get her.”

This time I listen. I lean over Antoinette’s crib. Her eyes are open. I freeze, hoping she’ll go back to sleep. When she doesn’t I say the first thing that pops into my mind. “I’m your mom,” I whisper. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course she remembers you,” Lily says. She flings back her sheet and sits on the side of her bed. She sleeps in one of Seth’s old white T-shirts. It’s only May, but her legs are already brown.

Antoinette kicks her feet and waves her hands in front of her face.

“Have you called him?” I ask as I pick up Antoinette. Her hand wraps around my finger. She has a tight grip for a little girl. As usual, her touch calms me.

“He won’t answer my calls.” Lily traces the lines between the wood planks with her toe.

I carry Antoinette to the rocker in the corner of the room and sit down. “I could talk to him.”

Lily shakes her head. “You have enough on your plate.”

Antoinette closes her pale blue eyes and nuzzles against me, causing a few drops of milk to leak from my breast.

Quickly, I lift my shirt. I haven’t been able to breast-feed her yet. My first job as a mother was to carry her for nine months. My second is to feed her. Antoinette is only six weeks old, and already I’ve failed at everything a good mother should do.

“Your body experienced too much trauma,” the nurse said at my last checkup. “If your milk hasn’t come in yet, it’s not going to.”

I whisper a prayer.
Please, let me get this one thing right.

Antoinette latches on and begins to suck, but within seconds she curls her fists into tight balls and screams. I want to cry. I squeeze my eyes shut and push my toes against the cold wood floor to get the rocker going. The motion soothes Antoinette, and she settles into a hiccupy sob. “Is there a flower for disappointment?”

I hadn’t meant to ask the question, so I’m surprised when Lily answers: “Yellow carnations.”

“But they look so happy.”

Lily stands and stretches. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

Antoinette opens her mouth wide, but no sound comes out. She’s hungry. I need to go downstairs and warm up a bottle. I push myself up, but when I stand the room swirls.

I fall back into the rocker. Antoinette wails. “Lily,” I say over Antoinette’s cries. “Can you go downstairs and warm up a bottle?”

She is out the door and down the hall before I stop speaking. How am I going to get through the summer without her?

Antoinette still screams. I start rocking again, but this time, the motion doesn’t soothe her.

“Hush. Hush.” I place my lips next to her ear and whisper, but she doesn’t stop.

“Let me take her.” Mom leans against the doorway, eyes red from lack of sleep.

I shake my head.
I can do this. I can take care of my daughter.

“Rose,” Mom says in a voice so soft I almost miss it, “let me take her.”

“But I’m her mother.” I don’t want to let go. I want to get one thing right.

“Part of being a good mother is learning when to ask for help.” Mom smiles to soften her words. “Not your best quality.”