The Wonder of All Things (20 page)

Toward the end of the aisle, just as they reached the main stage, Ava heard someone call her. She turned and saw Wash standing there. He was dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. He looked taller than he ever had before, and his hair was combed and smoothed down. He waved timidly.

She waved back.

Beside Wash was Brenda. She was dressed in her Sunday gown with her hair hanging down to her shoulders. She looked regal and proper, but still with a hint of iron about her, like royalty in its twilight. Next to Brenda was Carmen, draped in a loose-fitting dress. She held her hands on her round belly and waved as Ava saw her. She mouthed the words
You’ll be okay.

Ava looked for Tom, but didn’t see him, which didn’t completely surprise her. In the end, it was only Wash who she had wanted to be there, anyway. Seeing him gave her courage and strength, even knowing what she knew about him, knowing that he was sick and that he did not know it.

“It’ll be okay,” Macon whispered, and there was a hint of fear in his voice. He gently tugged Ava forward. She didn’t realize that she had stopped walking and was fixated on Wash.

“There she is, brothers and sisters,” Reverend Brown said. His voice boomed through the speakers. It shook with the words and his face was, all at once, an expression of pain and sadness and wonder and hope. “Come forth, child,” he said to Ava.

It could not be stopped now, she knew that. Everything that had been building had come to this. Macon led her to the center of the stage where Reverend Brown and the Williams family were waiting. All the eyes of the crowd and the cameras and the television screens and computer screens, and cell phones—all of them trained on her.

Reverend Brown, still holding the sick boy in his arms, nodded at the choir and they sang. The words of their song were nothing more than guttural moans and wailing to Ava. Her heart beat in her ears and her legs were weak, but her father was there with her, holding her hand, almost holding her up. “It’ll be okay,” he repeated.

“Hello, child,” Reverend Brown said.

“Hello,” she replied.

And someone in the audience said, “Amen.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Ava looked at Macon.

“Yes,” Ava replied.

“This child needs your help,” Reverend Brown said. Another round of “Amens” came from the crowd. The young boy looked at Ava. He reminded her of Wash. “He has a terrible condition called ATRT,” Reverend Brown said. “It’s a kind of brain cancer.”

Macon released Ava’s hand, like releasing a paper boat into a fast-moving river. She walked over to the boy. His parents looked at her with a strange mixture of skepticism and yearning. As if she were everything they feared and hoped for all at once.

“You’ll be wonderful,” Reverend Brown said, placing his hands on Ava’s shoulders. She reached forward and took Ronald’s hand. It was cold, clammy. He trembled slightly, as if he expected to be stung.

“How does this work?” the boy asked.

“I don’t really know,” Ava said slowly. There was a thought in her mind, something that she knew she needed to say. Something she knew she needed to do. But she was afraid. And looking into Ronald’s eyes just now, having the entire church, the entire world, watching, it did nothing to make what she would do any easier.

She glanced up at Macon, as if she could convey to him what she was about to do. He stared back at her, not moving from where he stood and, slowly, understanding spread across his face. He opened his mouth to speak.

“It’s okay,” Reverend Brown said. He kneeled beside Ava and Ronald. He took both of their hands and wrapped his around theirs, as if binding them together. He squeezed their hands. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Just do what you did before.”

And then all the breaths of the church were held. Everyone watched and waited. Some people wept silently. Others fidgeted as they stood before their seats. No one spoke, no one moved, no one committed any action that might break the solemnness and the magic of what they knew would happen next. They waited; they listened as the speakers piped in the dull, electric hiss of microphones awaiting voices. Everyone wanted to hear what Ava might say when she performed the healing, what the boy might say once he was healed, what his parents might say when, finally, their son was saved, what Reverend Brown might say when it was all over.

The silence was a bell jar, smothering them all. Until, finally, Ava broke the silence.

“No,” Ava said. She looked up into Ronald’s eyes as she said it. “I’m sorry,” she said, crying a little. “But no, I’m not going to do this.” And the microphone caught her words, amplified them and the mountains echoed.

* * *

“She wouldn’t do it,” Reverend Brown said. He paced back and forth in Macon’s office, clenching his jaw. “She utterly and flatly refused to do it. That’s all this comes down to.”

“Settle down,” Macon said. He peeked out through the window blinds and was immediately met with the flashing of cameras. If things were bad before, when Ava had done her healings, they were worse now that she’d gone before Reverend Brown’s church and refused their pleas.

“Why?” Reverend Brown growled. “Then again, I don’t really care why. I don’t really care how.” He stopped pacing, but still his jaw tightened and released, as though chewing through his anger, piece by piece.

“Does that help?” Macon asked, stepping away from the window and closing the blinds.

“Does what help?”

“The jaw thing,” Macon said. He made a motion with his hand to indicate Reverend Brown’s jaw. “Does that help you keep a handle on things when you get angry?”

“It helps with all manner of things,” Reverend Brown replied coldly. He took a deep breath, considering Macon as he held the air in his lungs. Then he sighed, long and slow, and when he was done, his jaw did not clench anymore. “Okay,” he said. “Where is she?”

“They’re safe. While the reporters were all chasing our car toward the house, Carmen, Ava and Wash were able to sneak into another one and slip out. Carmen has been having more problems with the baby and all of us would feel better if she stayed at Dr. Arnold’s house for a little while. All of us are going to stay at the Doc’s. They should be there by now.”

Reverend Brown nodded approvingly. He took a seat in the chair in front of Macon’s desk. “Let’s talk this out. All is not lost here.”

“Personally,” Macon said, “I don’t think anything is lost.”

“Nonsense.”

“I feel like I dodged a bullet tonight,” Macon said. “And I don’t think I’m going to step in front of it again. Maybe she just can’t do it anymore. Maybe whatever it is, whatever it was, it’s over.”

Reverend Brown laughed. “Like a planetary alignment? Like a summer cold that stuffs up the sinuses for a few weeks in the most prime and vibrant time of the year? Like a coincidence, you mean?” He crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap. “She chose,” Reverend Brown said. “That’s the crux of it. You saw it, the whole damned world saw it. They heard her. She said no. She refused to help that boy.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Macon said. He continued to stand, even though the reverend was now sitting.

“Whatever happened, whatever her reason,” Macon said, “I’m sure she had a good one. Why else would she choose not to help?” He tucked his thumbs into the belt of the suit Reverend Brown had bought for him for the night’s event.

“A powerful question,” Reverend Brown replied. “I wonder if she wasn’t told not to help that boy. I wonder if maybe her father sat her down just before coming into the church tonight—or even before that. Maybe this has been something you’ve had up your sleeve all along. Maybe you told her that, if she failed this time—‘threw the fight,’ if you will—then you all could create enough to make a little more money from someone else.” He looked down at the floor and released a hard chuckle. “Honestly, I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”

“You’re more paranoid than I thought,” Macon said. He stepped away from the window and walked behind his desk. Still he did not sit. Reverend Brown was a different man now and it made him uneasy. He took off his suit jacket and readied his muscles.

“Paranoia takes a man far in this world,” Reverend Brown said, lifting his eyes from the floor and back to Macon.

“Nobody planned anything,” Macon said. “She said she wanted to do it. She wanted to help.”

“If only I could believe that,” Reverend Brown said.

“Why is it impossible to believe that whatever this is, whatever it was that let her do those things, has ended?”

“Because nothing ever ends,” the reverend said. He straightened his back slightly. “Everything we do in this life is as permanent and eternal as God’s very grace. You want things to go back to the way they were, don’t you?” he asked. “You want your town, your life, to return to that invisible, sleeping state that it once was.” He shook his head. “That’ll never happen. The best thing you, your daughter and your family can do is embrace it, control it, before it gets too far out of hand. No one will ever believe that your daughter can’t do those things, not really. There are too many tapes, too many videos. They’ll always come around, always show up in your lives, asking for help. Asking for guidance. There’s no stopping this,” he said.

Then the reverend stood and adjusted his suit and flashed a smile that could have stopped the progression of a hurricane. “Now,” he said, “I’m going out to talk to those reporters. We’ll get another chance at this. And it’ll all work out just fine. Go and talk with your daughter.”

“About what?” Macon asked.

“About whatever it is you need to talk with her about,” Reverend Brown said. “There’s a schedule we need to keep. I’ll handle the reporters, Sheriff. And let’s not forget that, regardless of what you think of me and my church, we’re both trying to achieve something.”

“I don’t have anything against you or your church,” Macon said. “I’ve got a family to think about, simple as that.”

“Then do your part,” Reverend Brown said, his voice hard and even. “Your daughter, she has a responsibility. No matter the cost.” He clenched his jaw one final time. “She has a responsibility,” he said once more. “We all do. Every single day.” Then he exited the office toward the waiting reporters. On his way out, he waved at the other police officers as though his conversation with Macon had never happened.

It was then that the weight was lifted from Macon’s shoulders. He relaxed into the chair behind his desk and rubbed the sides of his head. Try as he might, he could not escape the image of Ronald’s parents when their boy was taken to the back of the church and the examination that followed revealed that nothing had changed.

Nor could he drown out the sound of the weeping. The way Ronald’s father moaned like a wounded animal. The way his mother whimpered, over and over again. And the thought that would not leave him:
What if it were my child?

Though he did not want to, he heard Reverend Brown’s words: “She has a responsibility. We all do.”

It was then that he heard the explosion.

* * *

He had been in the audience that evening, like so many others. Watching and waiting, trembling with anticipation as the girl that had come to them, to the whole world, would perform the miracle they had all been waiting for. And, this time, it would happen before a congregation, where it was always destined to happen. Wasn’t that what his brother believed?

Sam watched and he was as patient as he could manage as his brother performed an extended sermon on willingness to believe and Sam felt that he understood everything his brother was trying to say—which was not always the case. When Isaiah spoke before the church or in front of cameras, he was a different person than Sam knew. He was harder to understand. His words were like fast-moving rivers, and they cut a path through the air that Sam could not follow, no matter how hard he tried.

Sometimes he wondered if, when he was younger, he would have been able to follow his brother’s words. But those memories of who he once was were more dream than recollections. They were simply feelings that came to him sometimes, like small birds that fluttered into view inside his mind, but darted away before he could ever really take sight of them.

But the news of Ava and her ability had brought a new hope to him. It was a hope that he could not define, and it welled up inside of him.

She could fix things, Sam knew.

She could fix people.

She could even fix him.

There needed to be another air show, Sam decided. Another chance for the girl to do what she had done. Another chance for her to become what she was meant to be. And, maybe then, she would help him. Maybe then she would fix him and he would not be such a burden to his brother. He had been a hardship in his brother’s life for too long, he felt.

Sam was rarely alone anymore after his second incident with Ava. He now had a caregiver named Gary, a tall, white-haired older man who Sam liked because he was kind and understanding and liked to talk about football and took stock in Sam’s opinions as few others did. He never seemed frustrated or irritated when Sam wanted to talk. So when Sam came out of his bedroom in the Andrews House and found Gary sitting alone at a small desk at the end of the hallway reading a newspaper, it was not out of the ordinary when Sam sparked up a conversation.

“Redskins again?” Sam said.

“Always,” Gary replied without looking up from his newspaper. “Though I still don’t get all of the fuss people are making about their name. Maybe I’m just old,” he said, and he seemed to be pleased with himself.

“I don’t want to do this,” Sam said when he was standing close enough to Gary.

“Do what?” Gary replied. “What’s the matter, Sammy? You sound vexed.”

“I just want to help,” Sam said.

“Don’t we all?” Gary replied. He turned to the next page of his newspaper, still not looking up. “Now who do you like for the playoffs?”

Sam did not answer. He tightened his grip on the object in his hand, and he wondered if he would have the courage to do what he believed he needed to do. He liked Gary, and did not want to hurt him, but something had to be done.