Miracle Woman (28 page)

There was mumbled agreement from the back and she shot a look of gratitude towards Mike, which he pointedly ignored. Looking out the window as trees raced by Martha steeled herself for the visit to the Armstrongs and seeing Cass.

MARTHA TRIED NOT
to think of the frantic tone of Beth's call as she drove immediately over to the Armstrongs' once they got back to Easton. Pulling up outside Cass's home, she took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together before going inside.

Tom's broad face was puffed and strained, like a punch drunk boxer clinging to the ropes, as he opened the door to her.

‘The doctor says the end is near, that she can't go on much longer.' He swallowed hard, trying to mask his dismay as she followed him up the stairs. Billy and Jay stood at the bedroom door looking scared and miserable. On the landing Beth was arguing with Linda O'Hara, a tall blond young woman in nurse's pants and a white sweatshirt.

‘God damn you! Phone for an ambulance and get my daughter to hospital immediately! They've got equipment there, they can revive her, stabilize her! They've done it before! It's her only chance!'

Martha could read the pity in the nurse's face as
she tried to talk to the distraught mother, reason with her. Out of the corner of her eye Martha could see Cass lying in the bed looking for all the world as if she was really tired and was falling asleep. Only as she stepped nearer did she notice the rapid movements of her narrow chest, like a small bird fighting for its life, the lungs sounding like they were heavy with two bags of water.

‘Hi, Cass,' she said softly, hoping the young girl could hear her. She reached for the small pale hand and squeezed it, noticing that the bruising from all the intravenous drips she'd been on had only now begun to fade. The child moaned two or three times as if in pain. Martha softly stroked her skin.

‘Cass, I think you can hear me. It's Martha. I'm here beside you. If you are in pain I will try to help you.'

She leant over, barely touching the child's skinny frame, letting her hands absorb the dulled pain and sending gentle healing waves through her fingers. She was conscious of waves of tightness, fear, confusion: these were the emotions the child was feeling in her last moments.

‘Don't be scared, Cass,' she hushed. ‘I'm right here beside you and the pain is going, going, going. Can you feel it leaving you?'

Cass seemed to try and murmur something.

‘Don't be scared, Cass honey.'

Tears ran down Tom Armstrong's face as he reached for his daughter's other hand.

‘Remember what I told you about my daddy . . . well, Cass, I think soon you are going to leave the shell of the old Cass behind. You are not going to need this body much longer.'

A tear slid down the beautiful face.

‘It's all right, Cass, don't be afraid.'

Beth Armstrong had stopped arguing. Sensing the change in her daughter's condition, she rushed back into the room.

‘Please, please, Tom, I'll get the ambulance!' she sobbed, trying to punch the number into the phone.

Tom Armstrong never budged. He sat where he was, staring at his only daughter. The crowded bedroom was stuffy, a sickroom smell, so Martha got up and walked across and opened the white window. Fresh air wafted in, the sound of birdsong and distant traffic filling the silence. Beth, now silent, came over and lay on the bed beside her child, pulling her gently into her arms. Martha beckoned for the boys hiding at the doorway to join them. Billy's eyes were raw and red with grief.

‘Jay, sit up beside your sister,' she suggested.

He looked doubtful but Tom patted the spot up beside the pillow, Billy climbing in near him, careful not to disturb his sister or hurt her.

Beth was fighting to control her grief, her body shaking with the effort. Martha stood behind her and placed her hands on her pain-filled shoulders.

‘Cass, everyone who loves you is here, pet, your mommy and daddy and Billy and Jay and Nurse
O'Hara. You don't need to be afraid. It's a lovely clear blue bright day outside with a hint of breeze, can you feel it, the air, the wind? I have never seen a sky like it!

‘Your daddy and mommy and brothers are all going to talk to you now, Cass, they know you can hear them.'

Martha stepped back from the bed, stepped back from the family. Cass's breathing was even more irregular now as she struggled for air. In her heart, Martha wished her God speed.

She went downstairs. In the small cluttered kitchen she watched the plants out back in Beth Armstrong's neglected yard dance as the wind tossed them, hearing the cry of grief almost twenty minutes later that racked the house as Beth realized her daughter was gone. Martha was glad in her own mind that Cass was finally free of all that she had suffered during her short life.

Tom Armstrong came downstairs, his face swollen and tortured with grief.

‘It's over, finally over,' he said, breaking down. Martha wrapped him in her arms, wishing she could remove even a tiny portion of the pain and anger he was feeling. He sobbed and cried, Martha doing her best to comfort him.

‘Tom, will I go upstairs to Beth?' she offered.

‘No, Martha, no.' He shook his head vehemently. ‘Beth just wants to be left alone with Cass.'

‘Of course.'

Martha was concerned for the child's mother, knowing how absolutely tragic and awful it must be for her. Perhaps it was time for her to go. The doctor was on his way to certify Cass's death and the nurse had told her she was going to ask him to write up some kind of sedative for Beth.

Linda answered the door when the doctor came and showed him up to the child's room. Beth came downstairs a few minutes later. Martha moved forward to console her, offer her sympathy, but was totally rebuffed.

‘Tom, what is that woman still doing in our house? Ask her to leave immediately!' she shouted hysterically.

‘Please, Beth, I'm so sorry about Cass, truly I am.'

‘Bitch, get out of my home. You are not wanted here. My daughter thought you were her friend. Some friend!'

‘Beth,' pleaded Tom, trying to reason with her. ‘Don't go blaming Martha.'

‘I
am
blaming her! If that bitch had not come into our lives with her promises of healing and miracles Cass might still be alive.'

‘Cass was sick, dying,' her husband reminded her. ‘She was a very sick little girl.'

‘If Cass was still in hospital she would still be alive, Tom!'

‘She was dying, Beth,' he insisted.

‘We might have had another month, a week or two – a few more days with her. Another hour
with her, even.' Beth's voice broke down and Tom reached forward and grasped his wife, both of them locked in that inconsolable grief of a parent who has lost a child.

Heartbroken for them, Martha gathered her jacket and purse and slipped outside to her car. She turned the key in the ignition, glad of the instant response as the engine started. Who was she to interfere and tell parents what was the right thing to do? Perhaps Beth had been right: if Cass had stayed in the hospital, surrounded by machines and monitors she might still be alive. Tears slid down Martha's face as she drove and she was forced to pull off the road and stop in a lay-by as she gave way to the torrent of emotions she could no longer control.

THE HOUSE WAS
still and quiet when she finally got back; the family, in their beds, already fast asleep. Bone weary, she climbed the stairs, too exhausted to eat or drink, only wanting to crawl into bed and sleep.

She couldn't get Cass out of her mind and a deep feeling of anger raged inside her at the loss of such a life, and that good people like the Armstrongs had been denied the joy of watching their daughter grow to be a young woman. What was the reason for it? Why had the Lord chosen Cass? There was no answer!

She – the healer! the chosen one! – had been asked to help and heal the child and get her well again. There had been no cure. No miracle. For in truth all she had been able to do was to relieve some of the child's pain and distress, perhaps provide some little support for her as she lay dying, but not nearly enough. Putting her head in her hands she gave in to the waves of despair she
felt, self-doubt clouding her mind. She was stupid to have imagined that she could change anything!

Patrick was snoring softly when she looked in on him. His long frame almost off the bed, he'd managed to kick off his quilt. Martha pulled it back gently over him as she didn't want him to get cold. Mary Rose lay hunched up in her room, curled in the foetal position as she always was, as if she was trying to protect herself from someone or something that could wound her. Why her daughter was so argumentative and set in her ways was beyond her. She seemed to make everything difficult no matter how much reassurance Mike and she tried to give her. Alice, in the other room, slept soundly, her long wavy hair spread out along the pillow. Martha couldn't resist bending down to kiss her, and as she did so Alice stirred ever so slightly, a smile passing across her pretty face.

‘It's all right, honey,' Martha reassured her. ‘Mom's home.'

Mike had the bedroom door closed; she always left it open so she could hear the kids, whether they came in late or just called out in their sleep or needed her. He was fast asleep, his reading glasses perched on his nose, his side lamp still on. Wordlessly she removed the glasses, putting them safely back on the bedside locker, then lowered the latest John Grisham novel to the floor before slipping into their bathroom.

Switching off the bedside lamp, she climbed in beside him. Mike felt warm, and she did her best not to disturb him. Lying silent on the edge of their bed she gave thanks for her husband and children, and thought of Tom and Beth and the agony they must be enduring during these long, lonely hours.

Tears burned in her eyes and she did her best to control them, reaching in the dark for the tissues on the shelf near the bed. Gradually the warmth of the bed and the comfort of her husband's breathing lulled her into a sort of sleep.

Mike was gruff and annoyed with her in the morning as he shaved, showered and dressed.

‘What in God's name time did you get home last night, Martha?'

‘Late.'

‘They don't like you spending so much time with other kids, they resent it.'

‘Mike! She died.'

‘Died!' Mike McGill swung around, half dressed, his cotton boxers and shirt on. ‘Died?'

‘Yeah,' she added wearily. ‘Cass died. Did you know she was only two years and one month older than our Alice?'

‘Jesus, I'm sorry. I didn't realize.'

‘I sat in the car for a while after, I don't know how long.'

‘You should have called me and I would have come and got you.'

His sympathy nearly destroyed her. Martha longed for him to climb back into bed and enfold her in his arms and make everything seem all right again. She watched as he turned his back to her and continued dressing.

‘There's a department heads meeting this morning over this new encryption strategy we're testing and I have to be there. I'm late,' he explained, the scent of his splash cologne lingering in the bedroom even after he'd gone.

Slowly Martha got herself out of bed and into the white-tiled shower, the hot water sluicing down her as she lathered chestnut gel into her skin and tension-filled muscles, trying to revive and wake herself up.

Patrick and Mary Rose gave her the freeze treatment the minute she stepped in the kitchen, not even bothering to look up as she passed them fresh-squeezed orange juice and made toast. Deliberately she put the peanut butter jar out of reach to see if Mary Rose would ask her for it. Instead her daughter got up and walked around the table.

‘Listen, I'm sorry about yesterday, about having to get home early and not being back for dinner, it couldn't be helped.'

Alice tried to keep her eyes concentrating on the bowl of Rice Krispies. Ignoring the traitorous glances of her siblings, she asked, ‘How's that girl, Mom?'

For an instant Martha debated the merit of
keeping it from them but then decided it was better they knew the truth.

‘Cass died yesterday evening, Alice. She was very sick and weak.'

‘Jesus!' Patrick let the word slip out. ‘Jesus! She died?'

Mary Rose's eyes met hers.

‘You were there with her, Mom?'

Martha nodded.

‘And still you couldn't save her?'

Martha didn't know what to say.

‘No, Mary Rose, I couldn't. The healing doesn't work like that, not always.' She could see a look of disbelief flicker across her daughter's eyes but chose to ignore it.

Her children were standing beside her awkwardly, not knowing what to say when confronted by raw grief and pain.

‘Come on you three, hurry up or you'll be late!' she urged, swallowing hard.

Patrick grabbed his bag and jacket and hugging her briefly pushed out the back door, Mary Rose following on behind him in a helter-skelter of scarves and bags and long untidy hair as they ran for the school bus.

Fifteen minutes later she and Alice set off. Looking in the mirror she could see the sombre expression on her youngest child's face.

‘You OK, Alice?'

‘Yes, Mom.'

‘Sure?'

There was no usual ‘for sure' back.

‘What is it, honey? Is it about yesterday?'

Alice pushed her chin down. ‘I'm just sad about that girl.'

‘Cass, that was her name, Alice. It's all right to say it and it's all right to be sad about it cos I'm real sad too.'

When she stopped the car outside Bishop Delaney's, she pulled Alice onto her lap. ‘Did I tell you that you are the best girl in the whole big wide world, Alice Kathleen McGill?'

Alice looked up, understanding in her eyes.