The Healing (37 page)

Karen sat in the last pew, feeling she was, at this precarious point, more like a curious convert than someone who practiced her faith and had gone to church her whole life. But halfway through the Mass, when the prayer petitions were being read, she was shocked to hear Mike's name announced.

“Let us pray for the sick of our parish, especially Michael Donnelly . . .”

Immediately her mind went into overdrive, trying to figure out how her husband, who hadn't stepped foot in a church since the marathon of funerals and memorial services following 9/11, ended up on a communal prayer list. Had one of the paramedics submitted the names of people he'd brought to the hospital? Did Raymond or one of the nurses go to that church?

When Mass was over, Karen kept her eye on the two laypeople who participated in the ritual—the woman who did the readings and the one who helped give out Communion—and she scurried against the tide of people exiting the church in order to talk to them. She approached the lector first. “Excuse me—”

The well-dressed middle-aged woman regarded Karen with a pleasant, open expression. “Yes?”

“My name is Karen Donnelly, and my husband is the Michael Donnelly you mentioned in the Prayer of the Faithful,” she said. “Do you happen to know who gave you his name?”

The woman shook her head. “I'm sorry, I don't. But Nancy, the Eucharistic minister, might know. She's involved with the prayer group.”

“Thank you,” Karen said, and quickly made her way toward the other woman, reaching her just as she was about to go out the door. “Excuse me?”

The woman turned, and Karen repeated her question.

“I think it was Grace,” the woman replied. “Is your husband the man with multiple sclerosis?”

Karen was a little stunned, and she could only nod.

“That was Grace.”

“Grace Mitchell?”

“Yes. She brought your husband's name to prayer group, oh—it had to be a month ago now.”

“Do you happen to know where she's been this week?” Karen asked. “I've been trying to get in touch with her since my husband got out of the hospital.”

“She's in Washington, D.C. That's where they're holding the charismatic conference this year. She's one of the main speakers.”

Karen tried to absorb what she was hearing. “The charismatic conference?”

The woman took her aside. “How well do you know Grace?”

“Pretty well, I guess,” Karen replied. “She came and stayed with my husband a few afternoons while I was visiting my daughter in the hospital.”

“So you know about her charism?”

“Her what?”

“Her gift.”

Karen was totally lost. The woman might as well have been speaking Swahili. “I don't understand—”

“The healing.”

The word hit Karen like a Mack truck. “The
what
?”

The woman looked stricken. “You didn't know? You of all people?”

Karen raced home from church in a state of confusion. She told Mike what she had learned about Grace being a healer, hoping he might shed some light on the whole incredible notion. He had spent quite a bit of one-on-one time with her. Maybe Grace had shared something with him that she hadn't shared with Karen.

But he didn't know anything about it. And he didn't buy it.

“I talked to Grace quite a bit when she was here,” Mike said, his face twisting with healthy skepticism. “She's pretty down-to-earth.”

“Exactly,” Karen agreed. “The fact that tomatoes turn red on the vine is a miracle to her.”

“Maybe you misunderstood,” he said.

Karen knew her husband better than she knew herself. He was a practical man, one whose belief in God had been disproportionately tested yet remained intact despite all the anger, frustration, and despair, and he had come to the conclusion that everyone was on a journey with minimal interference from above. The only difference was that some people were crossing meadows on a spring day and some were trekking through Siberia in the dead of winter. For those closer to Siberia, like Mike, it was hard to believe in the kind of miracles that left wheelchairs empty. Surely his definition of a miracle was getting through the day without wishing himself dead. “So you don't think it's possible?” Karen asked. She needed to be sure.

“If Grace Mitchell is a healer,” Mike replied, “everyone would know it. People would be coming from all over to see her. The church would be busting at the seams, not only with pilgrims but with reporters and curiosity-seekers. Don't you think?”

It made sense, but Karen's brow was etched with uncertainty. “I don't know,” she said.

“Besides,” Mike added, “I'd be a prime candidate for a miraculous healing. I imagine she would've tried to work her magic on me as soon as she met you.”

Karen knew that wasn't Grace's style. “I suppose.”

“Do you know what we talked about when she was here?”

Karen had never asked, even though she had wondered. “What?”

“We talked about enjoying the simple things in life. That pretty much sums it up,” Mike said. “Grace enjoys her garden, her cups of tea, and her view of the bay. She enjoys taking walks, saying her prayers, and reading good books.”

“You learned all that about her?”

“I told you, we had a few long talks.” Mike paused, looking deeply at Karen. “But I'm sorry to say she didn't palm my head like a basketball and cry
Alleluia
. She didn't even hint at the possibility.”

“I don't know what to think,” Karen admitted, remembering the books on spiritual healing that were in Grace's library and the priest leaving her house flanked by two other men.

“Did you find out when Grace is coming home?” Mike asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Then you can ask her yourself.”

chapter forty-six

The house on Terry Lane seemed to be waiting for her. Once again, as Karen walked up the driveway past the old trees and the statuary remains of the old formal garden, she felt like she was walking into another world, or at least into another realm of thought. The stately home still breathed a kind of comfort into her soul, with the rocking chair waiting on the porch and the curtains moving gently through the open windows. When Karen scaled the three steps to the side entrance and knocked on the old oak door off the kitchen, it was still easy to slip into another era, perhaps embracing a sense of timelessness and simplicity too often forgotten by a fast-paced modern society. It was easy to appreciate the curative cup of tea, the companionship of a good neighbor, and the divine kiss of the bay breeze. Where else would Karen find that a vegetable garden and a good book could bring her a little closer to heaven? Where else would she learn so much about her own life and the things she truly valued?

She wasn't anxious or cynical about what she had to ask Grace. She didn't have any expectations or premonitions about coming away from their encounter either angry or relieved. And when Grace opened the door, the enigmatic little smile she wore was reminiscent of the one that had greeted Karen on her very first visit. That day, Karen's eyes had been bloodshot from crying and her nerves had been frazzled. Today, Karen was a different person. But Grace was quintessentially the same.

“I'm so glad you came by,” Grace said, stepping aside to let her guest enter. “I'm still unpacking, and yours was the first name on my list of phone calls.”

“Where did you go?” Karen asked, pretending she didn't already know. “I was starting to get a little worried. You didn't say anything about going away for the week.”

Grace lowered her gaze. It wasn't like her to break eye contact in such an obvious way. “I thought I'd be back sooner,” she replied.

Karen could see that the answers she wanted were not going to come in the course of conversation. So she sat down at Grace's table by the window when she was offered a cup of tea and got right to the point. “Grace, someone told me you're a healer. Is that true?”

There was a slight jolt . . . a pause in her motion as she opened the cabinet to retrieve the teacups. But there was no gasp, no whipping around in surprise, no charge of tension or agitation emanating from Grace to vanquish the serene atmosphere in that kitchen. “Who told you that?” she simply asked.

“I went to church on Sunday, and a lady I spoke to assumed I knew.”

Grace let out a resigned sigh. She put the teacups on the table and the kettle on the stove. Then she sat down opposite Karen and held her gaze for a moment. Her calm eyes blinked slowly and thoughtfully, reflecting a spirit at peace with itself, its Creator, and the world. “I'm sorry, Karen.”

“What for?”

“That you had to hear something like that from a stranger.”

“Is it true?” Karen asked.

“I was never comfortable with that particular label,” Grace said in a hushed voice. “It sounds so far-fetched.”

Karen started to shake. “Oh, my God.”

Grace reached across the table to put a reassuring hand on hers, as she had done so many times, but Karen was tempted to pull away. Would she feel some kind of heat? Or maybe a zap from supernatural fingers?

So her childish image of the mysterious woman in black hadn't been too far off the mark after all.

For a moment Karen didn't breathe, and Grace sensed her discomfort. “I hope you're not offended that I wasn't more straightforward with you, but I never really talk about it,” she said in a muted tone.

“You just spoke at a conference!” Karen said, and by contrast her voice was loud.

“When I address a public audience, I always talk about the miracles in everyday life,” Grace said. “It strengthens people's faith and empowers them to use their own gifts, even the most ordinary ones. I never talk about the actual healings I've witnessed or my part in any of them. But I can tell you a little about how it all started, if you'd like.”

Karen was quieted by her own curiosity, and she watched Grace take a deep, meditative breath before she began to speak.

“I went away to college in Boston with dreams of becoming a teacher. Even in college, my favorite subject was literature, so my plan was to become an English teacher. I thought I could share my love of reading that way. By the time I was in my third year, I knew that I wanted to go all the way with a doctorate. Then I could stay in academics forever and never stop learning about the arts and the humanities.”

“You must've been quite a student.”

Grace nodded, obviously unimpressed with herself. “I was a true bookworm with a goal. Nothing else really mattered. But toward the end of my junior year, I got very sick with a blood infection.” She paused, her gaze falling away from Karen's for the first time since she'd sat down. “I was in the hospital for weeks. I almost died. And it took a long time before I felt better again.”

As if on cue, the kettle started whistling, and Grace got up to pour the steaming water into their cups. The pleasing scent of Earl Grey wafted into their nostrils as she continued in a subdued voice.

“I don't have to tell you what happens when you look death in the face. It changes you. I came out of that experience with a whole new outlook on life and a whole new plan. The people who took care of me made such an impression on me that I came back to New York and went to nursing school.”

“You gave up your dream of becoming a teacher?” Karen asked.

Grace sat back down and set about fixing her tea. “It was like my illness derailed me, but I landed where I was meant to be. After graduating from nursing school, I got a wonderful job at a hospital in the city and even dated a doctor for a while.”

“But what about the—you know?”

Grace nodded with resignation and lowered her gaze humbly. “Right. The healing.”

Karen scrutinized her every move. She noticed that Grace took another long, deep breath.

“I was working evenings at the time. The floor was quiet that night, and I was able to settle all the patients in for the night before the end of my shift. I was also glad to have a little extra time with one patient in particular. Her name was Maria Hernandez. She was a young mother of four who was dying of brain cancer. She'd been on my floor for weeks, and I sat with her as much as I could. Her husband and small children would leave at the end of visiting hours, and she would cry inconsolably. I let her say all the things she couldn't say to them about her fears and her suffering.”

A faraway look transported Grace to another time and place. It all came alive for Karen as she listened to the account.

“I knew I wasn't supposed to get emotionally involved with my patients,” Grace said. “But Maria was an amazing woman. She was a hero to a large church community and a whole neighborhood of fellow Hispanic immigrants who relied on her. She helped out at a local soup kitchen and checked on her elderly neighbors. She even chased drug addicts and pushers away from the nearby schools. I remember questioning why God would allow such a dynamic person to die so young.”

Karen was comforted by Grace's admission. “I question the same thing. It will never make sense.”

Grace took a sip of tea. A hint of a smile expressed the quiet wisdom that Karen cherished. “Maria couldn't understand it, either,” Grace said. “But she had such strong faith. She would cry and cry, but in the end she would always say there had to be a reason.”

“So what happened?” Karen asked, leaning forward on the table.

“That night I went into Maria's room and found her staring at the ceiling,” Grace continued. “She had rosary beads in her hand, but she wasn't holding them or fingering them like someone who was praying. She was clutching them in a fist. Her lips weren't moving. They were as white and still as death. She looked absolutely terrified. I recognized that kind of fear. It's the fear that haunts the sick and dying in the middle of the night.”

Karen couldn't help but wonder if Mike had ever experienced it.

Grace went on. “Maria told me she couldn't even pray. She started crying because it was all she had left, and even that had been taken from her. So I pulled up a chair and offered to pray with her. It was the least I could do. Even though I wasn't particularly religious at the time, my own near-death experience forced me to look beyond the material world.”

“Did you pray with her?” Karen asked, eager to hear the rest of the story.

“Yes,” Grace replied. “I picked up her hand—the one holding the rosary—and held it tightly between my own. The warmth of my touch immediately seemed to soothe her. I remembered the prayers that gave me comfort when I was sick, and that's what I prayed for Maria. I remembered how much it meant to have someone sit beside me when I was afraid. Most importantly, I knew that all the medicine in the world was no substitute for the balm of human touch and the hope that there is a realm without pain or sickness. That's all I intended to bring to that dying woman.”

Karen was mesmerized. “But there was more?” she asked.

Grace folded her hands and paused as though figuring out how to proceed. “I prayed for nearly an hour,” she said. Her voice was subdued and hypnotizing, like a chant. “The rosary beads were pressed between our hands, and they started to feel hot, like stones retaining the heat on a sunny beach. All of a sudden Maria moaned. My first instinct was to jump up and see if I could alleviate her pain. But for some reason, I just kept praying. And the beads got hotter. Maria moaned again and stiffened, like a jolt of electricity went through her body.”

“Oh, my God,” Karen said.

“I thought she might be seizing,” Grace said. “A hundred things went through my mind, including the fact that Maria was expected to die any day, yet I put my other hand on her bandaged head and told her everything was going to be okay. I thought she needed to go in peace. Then she seized again.”

Karen was riveted on every word. Her mouth hung open.

Grace finished the account with the same air of serenity. “I told her again that everything would be okay. Then Maria became so still that I thought she'd died. I checked her vitals, and—”

She fixed her gaze on Karen as if her next words were going to be an apology.

“Her vitals were strong,” she said.

Karen could only surmise one thing. “She was cured?”

Grace nodded. “Maria slept through the night, and when I came to work the next evening, she was sitting up in her bed and laughing with the twenty or so people around her bed. The doctors had no explanation, but the tumor was gone. She still writes me a Christmas card and sends me pictures of her eleven grandchildren.”

“Did she know it was you?” Karen asked.

Grace actually bristled at the question. It was obvious she did not want to take credit for her strange capabilities. “It wasn't me. Let's be clear on that.”

“But you had something to do with it.”

“We didn't know it at the time. But after what happened with Maria, I immersed myself in holistic studies and spiritual healing because of what I had witnessed, and I even joined a charismatic prayer group. One of the women in the group was suffering from ulcerative colitis, and it was getting so bad that the doctors were talking about performing a colostomy on her. So the night before she was going for further tests, we prayed over her. It was something the people in the prayer group did all the time—gather around people who need prayers and lay hands on them. But when I put my hand on the woman's shoulder, there was extraordinary heat. And when we started praying, she doubled over in pain. But it wasn't the normal cramping from her illness. It was a steady burning pain that she could trace all the way up to my hand on her shoulder. The next day she went for her diagnostic tests, and there was no sign of her colitis.”

Karen's mouth fell open again. “These are actual miracles you're talking about.”

Once again, Grace seemed uncomfortable labeling it or acknowledging her role. “The woman kept saying she felt the energy coming from my hand, but I kept insisting it was the whole group. I didn't want to be singled out, even though I suspected she was right. I felt it myself—the current of heat and energy.”

“But Grace,” Karen said, scooting to the edge of her chair, “how is it that people don't know about you? How is it that even your own neighbors and people in this small town don't know about these miracles?”

“I became an advocate for holistic medicine and began to travel around a lot. People around here just thought I was eccentric. I'm sure they still do.”

“I mean, it's one thing to be involved with alternative medicine, but
healing
people?”

“It was easy to stay anonymous for a while,” Grace said. “I took part in healing Masses and charismatic conferences, where people line up to be prayed over in a very general way. On occasion, I would have clear knowledge of what was wrong with the person, without a word being spoken between us, and I would feel the heat coming out of my hands. Later on I might hear that a healing took place. It took about ten years for them to catch up with me, but I still insisted on anonymity. It's only in recent years that people involved in the charismatic movement have talked me into speaking at their gatherings or allowing them to put my name on their flyers.”