The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (31 page)

Stranger things have happened.

I catch my breath and open my eyes. Lily has stripped the petals from several roses. She scatters them over my head. “I told you. It’s snowing.”

She takes my bundle of flowers and adds them to hers. “Maybe we should go home,” she says.

“No,” I say, “It’ll pass.” I should have brought my oxygen tank. I take a nitro pill from my pocket and slip it under my tongue. “Do you remember that hollow feeling when Mom and Dad died? The impossibility of it?” Some mornings I still wake expecting to find Mom cutting flower stems at the kitchen sink. When I remember she’s dead, I experience that feeling of loss all over again.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Lily whispers. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay. Telling someone makes it less lonely.” I loop my arm through hers, careful of her broken hand. “Help me walk.”

She shifts the flowers to her other arm so she can take my weight.

“Dying feels like that,” I say. “Except you’re losing everyone you’ve ever loved at once. There’s this panic. You try to hold on because you feel yourself slipping away, but you can’t control your body. The weird thing is, you don’t think about dying yourself. You think about the people you’re leaving behind. It feels like they’re the ones dying. Not you.”

Mist twirls around us. It’s normal here, but tonight it feels like the dead rising up to greet me.

“After panic, resignation sets in. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. No one beats death. Not even Antoinette.” I wave my hand in air, dispelling the mist. “It’s not bad. Make sure you tell Antoinette. Tell her it’s not bad.”

This day has been coming since the first time I held Antoinette. So much of mothering is about fear. Fear that your child will be hurt. That she will get lost. That no one will ever love her with the same all-consuming intensity that I do.

But most of all, I fear the day I will have to say good-bye to her, because no matter when that day comes, it will be too soon.

We buried our parents side by side, under a shared headstone. Lily stops shy of the gray stone carved with their names. Then she kneels and I see her lips moving. She’s counting, her version of prayer. She rests the flowers beneath the stone, and when she turns to me, I see my past in her eyes. “I promise. Antoinette will
never
forget you,” she says.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lily had worked harder in the past week than she had in the past six years. Her muscles were knotted in places she couldn’t reach, and no matter how much she coughed she still felt sawdust in the back of her throat.

She needed a drink of water. It was early—not even six in the morning—when she padded into the kitchen and flipped on the light.

A low groan filled the room.

“What in the world?” She turned in a slow circle. The room was empty.

There it was again. A moan, like a tree creaking in the wind.

She knelt and peered under the table. Antoinette sat under the farthest end, her knees folded to her chest.

“I thought I heard someone in here,” Lily said. She held out her hand. “Why don’t you come out here with me? I’ll make you something to eat.”

Antoinette dropped her head to her knees and started rocking. She had been agitated at the drying barn last night. Apparently, she still was.

“Your mom’s asleep, but I don’t think she’d mind if we woke her. I know she wouldn’t want you to sit out here alone.”

Yellow butterflies dotted Antoinette’s pajamas. The print was light and happy; the exact opposite of Antoinette’s demeanor.

“What about Will? We could wake him up.”

Antoinette groaned. If grief had a sound, this was it.

“Well, you can’t sit under there alone.” Lily crawled under the table and sat next to her niece. Their hips touched, and Antoinette leaned into her.

Lily rested her cheek against the top of Antoinette’s head. “I know it’s hard watching your mom get sicker. When my parents died, I felt . . . lost. Everything just stopped. Like the world forgot how to spin. I always felt like I moved to a different tune than everyone else, and that feeling got worse after they died. I was so lonely.”

She wrapped her arm around the little girl and pulled her close. “I won’t let it be like that for you. You’ll never be alone. I’ll be right here with you.”

The planks in the wood floor were old. With time and temperature changes they had shifted slightly, creating tiny cracks between the boards. Lily ran her fingers along the spaces, counting each one.

“Count with me?” She took Antoinette’s hand and placed it on the floor. She guided it along a split in the floor by their feet. “One.”

Where that crack joined another, Lily shifted Antoinette’s fingers. They followed the new line. “Two.”

When Lily reached twelve, Antoinette stopped groaning.

On twenty-two, she stopped rocking.

On thirty, she crawled out from under the table and pointed to the back door.

THE DAFFODILS WERE
starting to brown, only the tips of the leaves so far, but they’d need to harvest the remaining flowers soon. Tomorrow, or the next day, Lily thought.

She and Antoinette sat in the grass at the head of a row. Antoinette was still in her pj’s, and Lily still wore the T-shirt and shorts she slept in. Yellow and white flowers stretched into the distance. If they stored half of them in the commercial freezer, they’d be selling daffodils into May.

Antoinette grabbed a browning flower, but Lily pulled her back. “Leave it alone,” she said.

Antoinette struggled for a moment, then sighed and rested her head in the crook of Lily’s arm.

“I don’t like it when they turn brown either,” Lily said. “It’s messy, but it’s part of the process. They’ll come back next year.”

Lily sensed someone standing behind them, and she turned.

“You’re out early,” Seth said.

Lily was unsettled by his sudden appearance but tried not to let it show. They would be working together. To make that possible, she’d have to ignore the heat in her cheeks and the twinge in her heart she felt every time she saw Seth.

“Trouble sleeping.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded toward Antoinette who shrieked and flapped her hands when she noticed Seth. “This is the first time she’s smiled all morning.”

“Well, we go back a ways, don’t we?” He sat on Antoinette’s other side. She shrieked again and pointed to the daffodils.

Lily and Seth went back even further, but she didn’t say so. She kept the conversation safe: “I hate watching them die.” She indicated the daffodils. Some people braided the leaves or cut them back before they browned. It was cleaner, but those same people were always surprised when their plants didn’t flower the following season. As the leaves browned, they absorbed nutrients the plant needed for the next year.

Seth stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “After the leaves brown, we’ll divide the bulbs. We should more than triple the crop next year.” He looked past Lily to Antoinette. “She’s happy with you.”

He had always known what to say to make her feel better. Lily stroked Antoinette’s shoulder. “I hope so.”

“I’m going to Teelia’s this morning to pick up her stuff for the show. Why don’t you two tag along?”

His invitation surprised her, but she tried not to let it show. Antoinette flapped her hands and kicked her feet. She made a happy shriek.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Lily said, her relief at seeing Antoinette happy outweighing her discomfort at being with Seth. “Let me change and leave a note for Rose.”

TEELIA WAS WAITING
when they parked in front of her old barn. As they got out of the truck, she ran over, carrying a faded red toolbox. “I’d stay and help, but one of the fences in the back field is down.”

Several alpacas stood at the fence by the barn. A brown one nudged Teelia’s elbow. “You already ate,” she said, pushing it away.

Alpacas hummed. It was a strange upturned sound, as if they were asking a question.
Hmm? Hmm?
Several of them clamored for Teelia’s attention.

“Hush up,” she said before turning to Seth. “The wheel’s just inside the barn, and the yarn’s in the blue milk crates. I also need the metal portable pen for Frank.”

Seth disappeared into the barn while Lily helped Antoinette from the truck. The little girl tumbled down and headed over to a circle of dead grass by the front paddock. There she sat and pressed her fingers to the ground.

“He smiles more when he’s with you,” Teelia said, nodding in the direction Seth had gone. She stood at Lily’s shoulder, and they both watched Antoinette.”You’re good for him. And unless I’m wrong, he’s good for you. You’re lighter around him.”

“I thought you had to go fix a fence,” Lily said. She was trying to suppress her feelings for Seth. The last thing she needed was Teelia stirring them up.

“What’s a fence compared to true love?” She grinned.

“Teelia, you’re hopeless,” Lily said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Seth hadn’t overheard. Then she dropped the truck’s tailgate and hopped up.

“I know what I see,” Teelia said. “He’s changed since you came home. He’s smiled more in the past week than he has all year.”

“I’m here for Rose,” she said, pitching her voice low. “And Antoinette. I have to focus on them, not on reviving my love life.”

At the sound of her name, Antoinette cocked her head. She looked like she was listening for something.

“Who says you can’t do both?”

“
I
do,” Lily said. She had never been good at dividing her focus. With her good hand, she opened the long silver toolbox attached to the truck bed and fished out several bungee cords which they’d use to tie down the metal pen.

The alpacas stretched toward Antoinette. One with a particularly long neck leaned down and nibbled her hair. Antoinette hunched her shoulders and giggled.

“Shoo!” Teelia waved her hands, and the alpacas drew back. “Seth needs someone who knows his burdens. I warrant he doesn’t talk much to anyone.”

“Not my business,” Lily said, though she figured Teelia was right. She looped one of the bungee cords through an eye hook in the pickup bed. It was hard doing things one-handed. The cord slipped out of the hook several times before she was able to secure it.

“Maybe it should be,” Teelia said. She smiled as she turned and started to walk away. “I’ll be out to the farm later to set up. Think about what I said.”

Lily watched Teelia until she became a small blue smudge on the horizon. It wasn’t as if Lily hadn’t thought about resuming her relationship with Seth. Of course she had. But there were other people to think about too, like Rose and Antoinette . . . and Will.

“This thing is awkward.” Seth startled her, and Lily dropped her head, hoping her thoughts didn’t show on her face.

He heaved the collapsed pen into the truck, then grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead, revealing his taut brown stomach. Lily quickly looked away.

She threaded the cord through the metal pen, then secured it back to the eye hook so it wouldn’t fall out on their drive back to the farm. Using her good hand, she tugged on the cord until she was sure it wouldn’t tumble out.

“You and Will seem close,” Seth said as he sat down on the tail gate. He lifted one shoulder and let it drop as if he didn’t care. But that was the thing about growing up together: even after being apart for so long, Lily knew what each twitch of his eyes or shrug of his shoulders meant. He feigned indifference when he was afraid of getting hurt, something he had done when they were kids.

“We’re friends,” she said, then hopped down from the truck and walked to the fence. Antoinette flapped her hands as Lily passed, thin strands of hair floating around her head like a halo. Four alpacas nosed at Antoinette over the white-plank fence.

Lily rested her elbows on the top rail and watched the animals. They had giraffelike necks and stocky bodies covered in thick fleece. A brown alpaca stretched its neck across the fence and nuzzled her hand.

“That’s an awfully
good
friend to drive all the way down here to help you out.” Seth plucked a piece of grass and moved to stand beside her. He twisted the grass tight around his finger.

“He is,” she said, all the while thinking,
But he’s not you
.

She shoved the thought aside. It didn’t matter that she felt like she was falling when she stood next to Seth. Or that a deep ache opened up inside of her when she pictured him lying next to another woman. She was here for Rose and Antoinette. Nothing else.

Seth stretched his arm out toward a little white alpaca. It head-butted his hand, then closed its eyes as he scratched behind its ears. “You wouldn’t expect something so strange-looking to be so gentle.”

Lily felt him watching her, and her blood roared in her ears.

“Seminary was a mistake,” he finally said. “I knew that within weeks of arriving.”

“What was the first clue?” Lily asked, eager to keep their conversation
away
from their past relationship.

He sighed and uncurled the piece of grass from his finger. “It wasn’t just one thing. It was several little things . . .” He pressed his lips together and looked up at the sky as if searching for the right words. Finally, he shook his head. “I was there for the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to study the laws in Leviticus or learn how to lead a congregation or counsel newlyweds. I wanted to know why life is so messed up. Why good people get hurt.”