The Miracles of Ordinary Men (24 page)

“He's safe,” Lilah says. Strange benefactor, of extra clothes and unseen home. “He found someone who — who can help him, I think.”

“He needs you,” Roberta says. “You need to be there for him.
I
need you to be there for him.” She points to Lilah's neck. “That spot, there. Is that a bruise?”

“I fell.” Her hand comes up automatically. “I fell out of bed and banged it on the nightstand.”

“Are you in trouble?” Roberta says sharply.

“No. I'm fine.”

“Is your brother in trouble?”

“He's all right. He's surviving.”

“He's in
your city
,”
Roberta spits. Suddenly she is incandescent, livid with rage. “You're supposed to take care of him.” She shakes Lilah's hand away. “You're just like your father,” she says. “You just don't care.”

How easy, truly, to hurt the people you love. “I do care,” Lilah says. “But I can't do everything.”

“I'm not asking
you to do everything,” Roberta snaps. “But he's just a boy.”

“What do you want me to do? Lock him up? Beat him senseless and drag him to the psych ward?”

“Don't be dramatic. You're always so
dramatic
.” Her eyes well up. “You were always so good to him — surely you can convince him to stay with you. Surely you,
Delilah, if no one else.”

“I'm trying,” Lilah whispers. “I'm doing everything I can.”

“It's not enough,” says Roberta. She looks like a spider, emaciated and picking at the sheets. “You, me — everything we do. It's like we're being punished just for wanting him to be safe, to be happy. I don't understand it.” Her voice cracks. “Don't we deserve a miracle?”

Doesn't everybody? Lilah clenches her hands in her lap, stares down at her fists. What would Israel tell her, if she asked him? That miracles are for children, just like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy? “I don't know, Mom. I think Timothy deserves a better miracle than me.” Or maybe there are no such things as miracles — only good decisions and bad. Like the decision that brought her here, or the words that sent her brother away. Or the decision that will take her back to Vancouver, where a beautiful man waits to beat her.

—

“The pain is very bad now,” says the doctor. He is young, nervous. “These things she says — it's just the pain.”

“It's not just the pain,” Lilah says. “She's angry.” She presses a hand to her temple. “Can you give her anything? Anything more?”

“We can up her meds,” the doctor says. “She'll probably sleep, a lot.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and she starts. But he is only concerned. “Is that what you want?”

“Will the pain go away?”

“Most of it,” the doctor says. His nametag says
Dr. Sand.
“She won't be able to talk very much. And if she does, you might not understand her.”

Lilah shakes her head. “Do it,” she says. “Just make her feel better.” She goes back into the room and sits. The nurse comes in and adjusts the medication. Roberta continues to sleep. Just before night comes she starts to shiver, so Lilah asks for more blankets and when those do not help she climbs into the bed and places her arm beneath her mother's head. Roberta wakes up.

“Delilah.” Her breath smells of stale air and fear. “Where have you been?”

“Right here,” Lilah says. “I've been right here.”

“You were gone,” Roberta breathes. “I asked for you, and you weren't here. You were lost.”

“Timothy was gone, Mom. But he's okay.” Please let him be okay.

“Timothy?”

“He's okay. He's in Vancouver. He's safe.”

Roberta frowns. “I don't. Understand. Who is Timothy?”

“Timothy, Mom.
Timothy.
He went to Vancouver, months ago. I've been watching over him. Like you wanted.”

“I don't know who you're talking about.”

Is this what the doctor meant? “Mom. He's your own fucking son.”

“Don't swear,” Roberta whispers, and for an instant, Lilah relaxes. “And don't . . . make up stories. That's not. Very nice.”

“Mom.” She pulls away. “
Timothy.
Of course you remember Timothy.”

“I remember you,” says her mother. She is puzzled, once more falling asleep. Yet her eyes are calm and clear now. Medication? Release? “I remember
you
,
Delilah.” She turns her head away, and sleeps.

Lilah stays on the bed until it's dark and listens to Roberta breathe. The nurses come and ago. God dances around the room, around them both. Capricious and clever, dark and wanting. God, whom she has begged to save her brother. Who has given her instead a man with a beautiful voice, a man with a soul so deep she can't tell where it ends. God in a trench coat and smooth leather shoes.

—

In the morning, the doctors tell her that it's likely Roberta won't wake up. That she could sleep like this for days or weeks. No one knows.

“What should I do,” she says. She speaks to the young doctor and stares at the floor.

“Did she leave an advanced directive?”

Lilah blinks. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” the doctor says, blushing. “Did she say anything, or write anything. About what to do if something like this happened.”

“Nothing,” she says. “It happened fast this time.” Cancer in the breast. Cancer in the heart, the lungs, the liver.

“Is there someone else who might be able to help?”

She laughs. “There's no one.”

“You should talk to someone,” he says. “We have a therapist here at the hospital — ”

“Not a therapist,” she says. She breathes deeply and tries not to lose it, not in front of Dr. Sand with the hesitant smile. Then she says it again. “There's no one.”

“Isn't there a son?” The doctor checks his chart. “She's listed here as having two dependants. Your brother?”

“He's gone,” Lilah says dully. She has sent him away. And now Roberta will die and he won't know. “I'll just — I'll need to think about everything.”

“Of course.” Dr. Sand nods. “Let me know if there's anything I can do.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” says the doctor. He blushes again and moves down the hall.

She stares after him, then stumbles to a chair and puts her forehead in her hands. People walk past her — feet slap hurriedly against the tile, others shuffle along, the slide of paper slippers quiet, unmistakable. At the other end of the hall lies the entrance to the hospital cafeteria; if she listens very carefully she can hear the faint clink of utensils, the clatter of plates. Laughter.

She gets up, eventually, and makes her way back to Vancouver.

—

It is raining in her city. The bus shelter is narrow and cramped. The man in front of her coughs something into his hand, then shivers with the damp. Everything around them is grey, dark, cold. The bus is little better. Lilah crawls into a window seat and watches the world rush by. She could get off the bus now and find another one that might take her somewhere entirely different. Seattle. The Interior. Or she could stay here, by this grimy window, until the bus reaches its end, and then start walking. Fade into the landscape, dissolve into the air like water.

But she disembarks at her old stop, and she's in front of her apartment, then in the foyer, then climbing up the stairs. She unlocks her apartment door and opens it.

He's there, in the hall, in front of her.

“Delilah.”

Lilah drops her bag. “Jesus
fuck.”

Israel takes two steps and pushes the door shut. “I told you,” and he's so close, his voice hot in her ear, “not to take the Lord's name in vain.”

She closes her eyes. “How the fuck did you get in?”

“You left the door open.” He stands over her, quiet. His arm is taut against the door.

“I never leave the door open.” She tries for bravado but the words are a whisper. “Did you break in? I wouldn't put it past you. You followed me before.”

Israel chuckles and traces a finger down her cheekbone. “Ah, but I am not going to follow you everywhere,
Delilah. That would hardly befit a gentleman, no? Get your things,” he says, his voice crisp. “Emmanuel is waiting for us.”

“I was going to tell you something,” she says. Forcing the words out before she loses her nerve.

“Oh?” Israel flexes his wrist.

“Take me,” she says.

His eyebrows go up. “Delilah, how very kind of you. But surely you realize that that happened long ago?”

“I mean — you don't need to worry about Timothy. He's gone. He doesn't have a . . . hold . . . on me anymore.” The anguish is so sharp she can't breathe. She turns her palms up and says it again. “You can take me. All of me.”

“An offering!” He smiles. “How quaint.”

“There's nothing
quaint
about it,” she snaps. She holds tight to the fury and doesn't look away. “Do you want me or not?”

“But of course.” He steps forward so that he's directly in front of her. His body blocks the light from the window. “I have wanted you for a long time.”

“Yeah,” she says. She tries to shrug but can't quite pull it off. “I know.”

Israel laughs. “And haven't you waited for me?” he says softly. He steps even closer, traces a finger down her cheek. “Haven't you hungered for something else all these years? You were a child who saw holes in the nighttime sky, Delilah. Don't think I didn't notice, even then.”

How is it that these words can still excite her, even as the kernel of fear in her stomach threatens to explode? She wants him. She wants him more than any man she's ever known. How terrifying, that she can be one thing and another all at once. And as Israel takes her hand and pulls her back into the hall, down the stairs and out into the nighttime air, she wonders if perhaps she was wrong about everything. Maybe salvation and damnation do not lie in Israel's hands after all, but her own.

One

He woke, and the light came off him in waves. Bright light, white light, light that wasn't warm. He looked up at the ceiling and spread his fingers, and rays leapt out from his fingers like sunshine. In his ears, a constant hum.

Chickenhead sat on top of the dresser, across from the bed. She twitched her tail and stared at him — wary, unsure. He stood and held out his hand. She did not jump down, did not come to him.

“Chickenhead,” he said softly. “Chickenhead.” It's me. It's still me. She didn't move.

Sam flexed his fingers, as he had flexed the wings so many times before, and watched the shadows leap and dance along the floor. Then he was walking, through the doorway, down the hall, down into the kitchen. Father Jim stood by the stove and took something out of the oven. Garlic, chicken, lemon juice. Sam stood at the entrance and watched the scene, the light pooling before him.

“Sam,” said the priest, without looking. “Are you all right?”

The light. He was the light. “Timothy?”

“He just came back,” said the priest. He turned, slid the oven mitts off his hands.

“She was afraid,” Timothy said, coming into the room. The same light shone around his head, his hands. “She told me to go.” Then his face relaxed, and the light dimmed. “She doesn't hate me.”

“Why was she afraid?” Sam asked. He stepped closer, so that his light meshed with that of the boy.

“She's in trouble,” Timothy whispered. “I don't know what to do.” Up close, Sam could see fever in his eyes, hysteria only just kept in check. He lifted a hand and touched Timothy's forehead out of habit. Touched skin, touched stone, a void, a great gaping black maw. He pulled his hand away.

“Did you sleep well?” asked the priest, oblivious. “I came in and you were dead to the world. The cat wouldn't leave your side.”

“Yes,” he said. He glanced again at Timothy and then away. “I'm sorry. All I seem to do now is sleep.”

“If you need to sleep, you need to sleep.” Father Jim shrugged. “Who am I to argue?”

“The noise.” Timothy nodded to Sam. “You hear the noise now, don't you.”

A hum. A light that shone beyond and above him, through it all.

“This is the voice of God,” said the boy. “This is what it has to say.”

Father Jim, who had paused in the act of bringing lettuce freshly washed from the sink, put his hands down on the counter and took up a knife. “That may well be,” he said, calm as ever, “but before God says anything, I suggest we eat. Sit down, both of you.”

“I can't,” said Timothy.

“Please,” Sam said. They both sat. Sam watched the priest spoon out food and thought of Bryan, who was across an ocean now. He tasted nothing. He saw Timothy spoon a mouthful, close his eyes.

“I can't taste it,” said the boy. “Every time I saw my sister I had to pretend that I could do it, that I was hungry — but everything I see is full of colour, and everything I touch is grey dust.” He turned to the priest and let his fork fall to the plate. “I can't see beyond them. Everything is about the wings. Everything is about the light.”

“It'll be all right, Timothy,” Sam said. He reached across and squeezed the boy's hand, spoke with a certainty he didn't feel. “You'll see.”

“You don't know.” Timothy wrenched his hand away. “You don't know what happens next. And neither does he.” He laughed. He pulled himself off the chair, still laughing, then stumbled out of the kitchen, down the hall. The guest bedroom door opened, slammed.

“He'll be all right,” said the priest. “He just needs to sleep.”

“Sleep won't help him,” Sam said. “I sleep, and every time I wake up now, things are different.” Light, spilling from his hands. He sighed. Chickenhead meandered over and jumped up into his lap. She went about making a nest, her paws on his legs slow and methodical until she found her spot and nestled in, a soft weight against his thighs. He ran a hand through her fur and felt it, that dark, constant rumble. “Is it better,” he said then, “to believe wholly, or not at all?”

“You can't
believe wholly,” said the priest. “Or
not at all. One makes you an idiot, and the other brings you nothing but despair.”

“Which one?”

Father Jim waved his hand. “It changes. All the time.”

Sam thought about this, and ate as much of the chicken as he could. “So which one do you choose, then?” he asked. “How do you
know
?”

“You don't know.” Father Jim said, his voice sad and sure. “God changes.
And
God is always the same. You and me — we're in God's shadow, Sam. We're always one step behind.”

—

Timothy staggered into the kitchen late the next morning, his wings ragged, streaked with ash. They stank. Sam pushed him into the shower and left new clothes on the guest bed. There were feathers between the sheets. Feathers on the bed and a trail of ash leading back to the door.

He stared at it all for a moment and then went back to his room. Yes, there were feathers between his sheets too, and even as he watched, the feathers crumpled into ash. He heard the guest room door open and close, and the scuffle of Timothy pulling on the pants, the shirt. Then footsteps, and the boy knocked on his door.

“Hello,” he said. The door opened.

“Hello.” Timothy held his hand against the door. His other hand, loose against his hip, held Sam's old, red woollen hat. “My sister,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What do I tell her, Sam? What do I say?”

“Your sister,” he said, remembering. “She's in trouble.”

“Yes,” Timothy whispered. “How do I tell her that God will save her, so that she knows? How do I make her listen?”

“Maybe God isn't going to save her,” Sam said gently. “Maybe God's just waiting. Like us.”

Timothy shook his head. “God will save her,” he said. “I can feel it.”

Sam looked at him and marvelled at how he could know. “It doesn't matter what you say,” he said. “What you do,
when you're with her — that's what matters. That's what she'll remember.”

Timothy nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “I'm going to find her.”

Sam turned back to his room and listened. The front door opened and closed.

The standing mirror showed him a thin man with hollowed cheeks and long, pale hands. He touched a finger to the glass and it was cool, seamless. The mirror over the bed caught this reflection so that there was another Sam, another finger to the glass. Behind that another, and another. An endless line of men, of wings. Infinity. Forever, right there in front of him, his finger marking the spot where it began.

—

Sometime in the night, the boy came home. Sam, lying awake on his bed, heard the front door open and close, and then the shuffle of the boy's feet as he moved down the hall. The footsteps slowed as they approached Sam's door, then stopped.

“Sam?”

He sat up. “Timothy. Come in.”

Timothy pushed the door open a crack and peeked into the room, then opened it further. Light from the hallway, and the boy, slid across the floor and over the bed. His wings cast a quivering shadow into the room.

“Did you find her?” Sam said when Timothy didn't speak.

The boy paused for a moment and nodded. “I did.” He frowned. “She told me to go away.”

He sat up. “What?”

“She's in trouble, and I don't think I can save her.” Timothy stepped closer to the bed, whispering now. “It's all wrong, Sam.”

Sam moved off the bed so that his own light mingled with Timothy's. The light that shone from both of them was so cold as to be almost blue, while the light from the hallway was golden, inviting, warm. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder. “You don't know that.”

“I'm
supposed
to save her,” the boy said. “Isn't that what God wants me to do?”

“I thought we didn't know what God wants either of us to do,” Sam said. He took Timothy's hands and held them fast between his own.

“I hoped.” Timothy's voice broke. “I prayed so hard. There's nothing for me if I can't help her. There's no reason to stay.”

“Don't say that,” Sam said. “Chickenhead would be so hurt.” Even as he joked he felt the words become heavy, useless. Terror throbbed in his abdomen, sudden and dark.

Timothy managed half a smile. “Chickenhead has you,” he said. He pulled his hands away. “And I have nobody. Why would God make me so lonely, Sam?”

“You're not alone.” Sam reached forward and hugged him, careful of the wings, knowing it was not the same thing, being lonely and being alone. He wished for wisdom, for the words of Father Jim. But even words were beginning to desert him now. So instead he held the boy and said nothing.

—

“Sam.
Sam
.”
It wasn't a shout, and yet the word carried through the house. He threw off the covers, stumbled out of the bed. He would have fallen but the wings pushed out and knocked against the bedside table, the bookcase, and calmed him where he stood. The call came again.

“
Sam
.”

He ran down the hall and into Timothy's room. The boy was on the floor, convulsing, his wings crumpled against the wood. Father Jim held his head. He looked up as Sam entered.

“I heard him fall out of bed,” he said. The boy thrashed again, and moaned. “
Sam
.”

He knelt and spread the wings. “I'm here, Timothy.” He moved in front of Father Jim, sat down, took the boy's head into his lap. “It's all right.”

“Is this. What it feels like?” the boy whispered. He shook. “Death?”

“I don't know. Is this death?” Sam looked up at the priest and remembered a miracle by the side of the road, the deep green stillness of the trees. Chickenhead. The deer. Life and death. And something else.

He touched the boy's forehead and this time saw a woman with dark hair, a young boy. He could feel their sadness in his bones.

Timothy looked up at him. “I dreamed about them,” he whispered. “The boy — he's lost. And the mother — she wants to believe in God. But I didn't know what the dreams meant. I didn't want to believe them, Sam. I wanted the dreams to be about my sister.” His hand, blue-veined and strong, clutched Sam's arm. “I think — I think I need to go to them, to where they are.”

“You're not going anywhere.” He cradled Timothy's head in his lap. Remembered, as if from a distant war, the face of the student who had died. “Timothy, we'll call an ambulance. You'll be all right. You will.”

“But this is not death,” said the boy, suddenly convinced. “You only think
that it's death — you forget who you are. Sam.” He stretched out a hand and the cat licked it calmly. Sam spared a moment to wonder: what else had she seen, did she know? Nine lives. The wings, the light, this boy, strewn across his path. Did she understand any of it? Or did she build her life around it, and make sense of what she could? She was wary, yet she hadn't stopped purring.

Then Timothy put his own hand against Sam's forehead. The calm wavered, and for a moment — one scintilla of time — he looked like a boy again. “
Oh
,”
he said. “
Oh
.”

“Timothy?” said Father Jim, his voice sharp. “Tim — what do you see?”

“I was wrong,” the boy whispered. And he smiled — a smile so dazzling it broke the heart. Then he disappeared.

There was no other word for it — he disappeared. He was there and then not there, just as Chickenhead had been dead and then not-dead
those weeks ago. The clothes he'd been wearing crumpled to the ground. Sam held his hands around empty space for one more moment, and then dropped his arms to the floor.

“He's gone,” he said.

“He's
gone
.”
Father Jim was shaken, pale. “He just
disappeared
.”

“Yes.” Sam felt calm. He heard the humming, saw the light stretch out from his fingertips, dance around the face of the priest. Could he see it? “It will be all right, Father.”

“I — I need a drink,” the other man said. He stood, and shook a little on his feet. “Can I get you a drink, Sam?”

“I'll come with you,” Sam said. He followed the priest out into the hall, down to the kitchen. The room was dark — Sam spread his hands and watched the light from his skin touch the ceiling.

Father Jim had a new bottle of Scotch on the counter. He poured two liberal glasses and handed one to Sam.

Sam twisted his hands around the glass. “I wonder what's happening to him.” A boy with dark hair and a broken heart. A mother who wanted to believe in God. And an angel, gone to them both. They drank in unison without meaning to, clinked their glasses against the counter at the same time. Chickenhead jumped on the counter and wound between them. He didn't shoo her off — he didn't have the energy.

“What should I be feeling right now?” asked the priest. “They don't teach you about this in seminary.”

“Maybe they don't know,” said Sam. Timothy, convulsing on the ground. Lying prone on the street, rocking on the other side of the guest room door. Sam reached for the whiskey and topped up his glass, then the priest's. Light filtered through the glass and the liquid. Eternal, bright. “Maybe this is what we all become.”

“
The glory of God
,” said the priest suddenly, “
is a human being fully alive
. St. Irenaeus.”

“This doesn't feel like being alive.” Yet where else could he see colours like this, be brought to his knees by the sound of the wind? This felt — it felt like much more
than being alive. “
All
,
everything that I understand
,
I understand only because I love.”

“That's nice,” said the priest. “It sounds biblical.”