The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (4 page)

Everything was crowded here. The sidewalks were cracked and not quite wide enough. When passing someone, she had to twist sideways to avoid touching them. Birds fought to be heard over the constant rumble of cars and buses. Plants jumbled together, vying for the little pockets of soil that served as yards around the houses.

Lily carried the plates outside to the bistro table on the deck. Will brought their coffee. He placed her cup next to her plate, but he didn’t sit. He paced, sipping his coffee and shading his eyes. There was a slight breeze, but the sun warmed the last of the winter air. Aside from the squeak of a rotating sculpture in the artist’s yard and the street traffic, the day was quiet.

“How can you stand it out here? It’s so bright,” he said as he shoved a piece of cheese into his mouth.

She shrugged and held her face to the wind, feeling the coolness on her cheeks, drawing memories of her younger self to mind.

“That’s right, you were a farm girl.” Will laughed. “I wish I had seen that. Bet you were cute with your brown hair in braids and pig slop on your feet.”

“It was a flower farm. There weren’t any pigs.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the red glow of the sun behind her eyelids.

“I can see you now. Barefoot in the dirt. A chicken in each hand.”

With her eyes still closed, she said, “I told you, it was a flower farm. No chickens. No pigs.” Her mind, though, was on the numbers of Eden Farms: the percentage she once owned (half), the percentage she now owned after signing her share over to Rose when their parents died (zero), the number of years that had passed since she had been home (over six), and the number of years since she’d last spoken to her sister (also over six).

Being apart from home, and from Rose, was like missing a limb, but going back would be like trying to sew an arm back on.

“Why won’t you tell me about it? And when was the last time you went back?” Will asked, pushing her deeper into memories. “It’s home. You know, that place where if you show up, they have to take you in?”

No
, Lily thought.
They don’t. And most likely, they wouldn’t.

Will was still talking. “It’s half yours isn’t it? Just because your sister’s crazy doesn’t mean you have to stay away.”

“She’s not crazy. She’s mad at me.” It wasn’t half hers anymore either. Lily pushed her plate back and stood. She and Rose once had been sisters in every sense of the word, when they were young and naive enough to believe that something like blood could tie you together forever. What they didn’t know then was that it could just as easily push you apart.

“Which in my book makes her crazy. How could anyone be mad at you? Come on. It’s not far. Let’s hop in the car and surprise her.”

There was a pile of terra-cotta pots and concrete urns under the deck Lily had been meaning to go through. Most were cracked or broken in some way, but she hoped some could be salvaged. As Will prattled on about the farm, she stood and walked down the stairs to the patio.

After a moment, Will followed. The deck boards creaked under his feet. “You know I don’t mean anything.” He ducked under the deck. “I bet you were cute then. Barefoot in the dirt.”

She reached into the jumble of pots and picked up a blue ceramic container. A thin crack slashed across its surface. She turned the pot over: the crack went all the way through. She put it aside. The next pot she removed from the pile had a thin coat of green mold on the outside but no cracks. Definitely salvageable. Inside the house, the phone rang, but she made no move to answer it.

Will took the pot from her and set it aside. He captured her hands and said, “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be good this time. Now come on back up and sit with me.” In the sunlight she could see how dilated his pupils were. They squeezed out most of the blue in his eyes.

“Come on, Lils. It’s a beautiful day. We’ll sit on the deck, and I won’t mention your crazy sister at all.” Lily struggled not to smile, but he saw it anyway. “That’s the Lily I know.” This time when he tugged her hand, she let him lead her back up the stairs.

He guided her to the far edge of the deck and leaned against the rail. “See,” he said, “I can be good.”

“There’s a first for everything,” Lily said with a smile.

Will bumped his shoulder against hers. The gesture was friendly and intimate at the same time. “I just want you to be happy.”

Lily looked out across her small backyard. The roses had started to leaf out, but it would be a month or more before they bloomed. “I am happy,” she said.

“I know you better than that. I see it every spring—you miss home.”

He was right, but Lily didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she said, “Why does it matter so much to you?”

He twined his fingers through hers. “You should know the answer to that. You matter to me. What’s important to you is important to me.”

Her hand grew hot under his.

“Plus,” he said, “I’ve got a thing for farm girls. You in a pair of cutoffs with your hair in braids.” He grinned. “I’d die a happy man.”

Lily’s heart quickened. She was leaning into him when the phone rang again. Startled, she disentangled her hand from his and ran inside to answer the phone. She needed to get away before she did something she’d regret.

“Hello?” she said, out of breath.

Silence. Then, in a voice so soft it didn’t sound real, “Lily?”

At first she thought she was imagining things.

“Hello, Lily? Are you there?” Rose’s voice was the same, but beneath her soft Kentucky accent was an undercurrent of fatigue.

The surprise of hearing her sister’s voice was so great, Lily’s knees wobbled. Her response came out like a question. “I’m here?”

AFTER THE CONVERSATION
ended, Lily remained seated on the cold tile floor, holding the phone, until a robotic operator voice said that if she would like to make a call, she should hang up and dial again.

Will was still on the deck when she went outside, but he seemed far away somehow. She felt odd, like she stood in a bubble. Everything was distorted.

“You okay?” he asked, surprising her with his concern. “What is it?” He closed the space between them and put his hands on her shoulders.

She closed her eyes, wishing she could hide from what she had to say. “That was Rose, my sister?” Again, it came out like a question. “She has congestive heart failure. She developed peripartum cardiomyopathy when she was pregnant. Most women recover from it. She didn’t. I had assumed she’d be okay. She’s not.”

Rose had already outlived the statistics Lily knew.

Will brushed his hand across her cheek. “A transplant—”

Lily shook her head. “She has pulmonary hypertension. She doesn’t qualify.”

Blinking hard against the tears that stung her eyes, Lily said, “My sister is dying.” The words suddenly made it real, and she began to cry. Will reached out to hug her; this time, she didn’t pull away. She buried her face in his shoulder, her tears darkening his rough shirt. She could still hear Rose’s voice: “I need you to come home.”

ROSE’S JOURNAL

March 2003

FEAR HAS A
taste.

I’m sitting at our scarred kitchen table, tulip and daffodil bulbs lined up in front of me. I should be working on my senior portfolio. It’s spring break, and I graduate in seven weeks. Instead, I’m writing in my journal and gulping lemonade, trying to wash the taste of copper pennies from my mouth.

My baby is due in late May.

My. Baby. I picture myself sailing across the stage at graduation, my black gown billowing like a circus tent around my belly.

Yesterday, when we arrived home, Lily dropped our bags by the kitchen door, then ran outside and clambered down the porch steps.

“Not going to give your mom a hug?” our mom asked. She stood in the kitchen waiting for us. It was March, but already her skin was dark from working in the fields. Her nails were bright red. Years of pushing seeds into the ground and ripping out weeds left them permanently stained. She always wore nail polish.

Lily glanced over her shoulder. The wind lifted her long brown hair. She looked like something that sprang from the ground. “In a minute. I’ve got to check something in the greenhouse first.”

She returned holding a bouquet of herbs. One plant had airy, fernlike leaves, the other, small scalloped leaves. “Fennel and coriander,” she said as she presented them to me. “Strength and hidden worth.” She smiled as if I were someone worth looking up to, instead of a pregnant college girl abandoned by her baby’s father.

Now I pick up a daffodil bulb and run my fingers over its smooth white flesh. The kitchen is the best place to work. In early morning, light fills the room. I can pretend I’m in an art studio on campus, my stomach still flat, my plans to travel to Italy after graduation intact. In those moments, I’m not returning home to work on the farm to support my daughter—I am an artist.

Briefly, my stomach muscles contract, and I can’t breathe. “False contractions. They’re called Braxton Hicks,” my obstetrician had said at my last visit. He claimed they didn’t hurt. He was wrong.

When my muscles unclench, the taste of copper pennies returns. I take a drink of lemonade, but it doesn’t help.

I try to focus on the daffodil bulb I’m supposed to be sketching for my portfolio. Earlier, I slipped one of Dad’s garden knives through the bulb’s brown papery outer layer. I undressed it, removing the paper scales. Then I cut it in half, exposing the flower bud.

Most people don’t realize that a tiny plant lies inside of the bulb, already germinating. I plan to create a series of drawings that capture flowers in various stages of germination.

The flower bud is folded over on itself. I set down the bulb and hold my arm out with my thumb up. I squint, aligning the tip of my thumb with the top of the first leaf. I measure the stem against the base of my thumb. The plant is a green so pale it’s almost white.

I start drawing. I make my strokes thin and sparse. I concentrate on my arm moving in great swoops over the paper, on the feel of the bumpy cloth canvas under my charcoal.

I’m not afraid when I draw.

The charcoal makes a soft
phft, phft
across the page. I study the bulb and trace the bend of the stem, the pleat in the first leaf. As I work, I try to be the person Lily thinks I am, full of strength and hidden worth. I sit straighter, ignoring the slight pressure in my chest that developed when I hit the six-month mark and never left.

Lost in thought, I jump when Mom puts her hands on my shoulders. She’s silent for a moment. Then she bends down and kisses the top of my head. The end of her long blonde braid tickles my cheek. “You’re still an artist. Coming home doesn’t change that.”

When I don’t answer, she turns to the kitchen counter. “Do you like the crib?” she asks. Her back is to me as she pours a cup of coffee, but I catch the slight stiffening of her shoulders that says my answer matters. She was disappointed when I told her I was pregnant, but after the shock wore off she and Dad began a campaign to get me to move home after graduation.

“It’s beautiful,” I say because it’s true. My father, Wade, made the white crib that now sits at the foot of my twin bed. I see his hand in the precise curve of the spindles and the solid feel of the wood.

The thought comes before I can stop it.
If Lily made furniture, it would look like this. Solid. Beautiful. Something that will last.

“I’m glad,” Mom says. She looks younger when she smiles, and I wish she would do it more often.

Another pain grabs me. I groan and hunch forward. “Braxton Hicks,” I say between clenched teeth. I clutch the stick of willow charcoal so hard it snaps in two.

I hear Mom’s coffee cup clatter into the sink. “That’s not Braxton Hicks,” she says. “We need to go to the hospital.”

MY ARMS ARE
heavy, and I can’t open my eyes.

“Rose?” My mother’s voice. “Can you hear me?”

I try to turn toward her voice, but I can’t move. I can only flutter my eyes. Wherever I am, everything is dim. I don’t know whether the light is off or if I slept all day and it’s night now.

“Is she awake?” My father’s voice. He sounds tired.

“Almost,” Mom says. “Rose? Can you hear me?”

Yes
, I want to say,
I can hear you
. Something is blocking my throat. I try to lift my hand to my face, but my arm is weighed down by sleep.

“Rose?” Mom says. She sounds far away.

I can’t speak, and I am so, so tired.

I try to move again, but I’m trapped. I struggle, shaking my head. The pillow crinkles.

“Rose?” Mom touches my cheek.

When she does, I force my eyes open and try to take a deep breath, but something is clogging my throat.
I can’t breathe!
I panic and slap my face. A plastic tube fills my mouth.

“Don’t,” Mom says. She grabs my hands. “Stop. You’re in the ICU on a ventilator.” Fear is etched across her face and deep lines furrow her brow. Her nail polish is chipped and hair pokes out of her messy braid.

“You gave us a scare,” Dad says. Dark circles ring his eyes.

My brain is fuzzy. Ventilator? ICU?