An Imperfect Miracle (23 page)

Mr. Baker said they might even set up a podcast of Mary around the clock if they could get enough advertisers to sponsor it. He said it would be a great thing for everybody and keep the money pouring in for a long time. Mr. Baker took my idea and started opening gift shops all through North and South America, and in parts of Europe and Asia too. “Pretty soon,” Mr. Baker told me, “we'll be bigger than Exxon.” Father Tom told me one afternoon when I was out on the playground shooting some hoops with these big high school kids that he thought the shrine was getting a little too money hungry lately. But there were so many people coming to visit Mary, not to mention all the healings, that Father Tom said he couldn't gripe too much, although he still didn't like it. I asked him why he thought Mary was laughing now. He said he wasn't sure, but that he thought she might be laughing at us.

“I don't think it's so awful that Mary's shrine is raking in piles of money,” I said. “Mr. Santelli agrees with me too. He says he can't get by just on his social security, and the company he used to work for cheated him out of his pension. I like it a lot better anyway when Mary's laughing than when she's crying.”

Father Tom stared off at the light blue sunny sky for a few seconds and then stretched real tall and took a deep breath, like he was trying to blow something out of his system.

“Maybe you're right, Nate. It might be a good thing after all that Mr. Baker took over the shrine. It could be that that's why Mary's laughing so hard.”

One thing I wasn't so crazy about was that Chewy left me, or at least I couldn't see her anymore. It happened right after Father Tom and Pastor Mike got out of jail, and we were all so busy celebrating that I guess I kind of forgot about Chewy. Then when I started looking around for her, she was gone. I looked all over for her too. It was a real jolt, and I cried off and on for days. I felt almost as bad as when she'd died on me. That Sunday at church I even asked God to bring her back, but He must have turned me down this time because she didn't show. Mom said it meant that I was finally growing up and wasn't living in my own little world anymore, but I figured she was just guessing.

I decided to talk to Carlos about it and found him in back of St. Sebastian's weeding a little vegetable garden he'd planted to keep himself busy on account of all the spare time he had on his hands now that he wasn't working down at the shrine. If the mayor had something on Carlos, Carlos must have had something on the mayor too because he'd built himself a nice house right next to the garden from money that the town had given him. Carlos called it “a little going away present.”

Carlos had a silver cross dangling around his neck instead of the gold one. I was wondering if the cops had given it back to him when all of a sudden I thought of Chewy again and began to sniffle a little. But real quick I wiped my face dry because I didn't want him thinking I was going soft.

“She could have said goodbye at least.”

Carlos said that Chewy might have had other things to do and that was why she left, or maybe I was really just imagining her all along the way that doctor thought. He said it was hard for him to tell exactly.

“Do you think I'll ever see her again?”

Carlos leaned over and started brushing his pudgy fingers through the leaves of a scrawny tomato plant until he found a little yellow blossom. Then real gentle he lifted the petals up to where I could see a tiny pale green tomato. While I was bending over to get a better view, I noticed Carlos's dark eyes sparkling at me.

“You can never tell what might happen. You should know that by now.”

I pressed him a little more, but that was the most he'd say. I figured I'd just have to wait and see.

Mom was happy that I wasn't sneaking down to the shrine near as often. With Carlos not working there anymore and Mr. Santelli tucked away someplace filling out paperwork, I really didn't have anybody to talk to. And to tell you the truth, watching all those sick people wheezing and limping past that big concrete slab was getting kind of old. And while Mr. Baker seemed like a nice enough guy, he mostly stayed in his big corner office peering into his little computer screen and counting up all the money Mary was pulling in.

Now don't get me wrong. I still liked Mary and everything. I just didn't see why I had to hang out with her all the time.

After Pastor Mike and Mom got married, we moved just up the street a little ways to a bigger house where the walls didn't creak and groan as much at night and none of the faucets leaked. One night I was stretched out on my bed after supper thinking about Mary's face being a sign that something big and important was going to happen. Then I got to wondering if it had already come true, or whether it was still out there in the future some place just waiting for me.

The End