Miracleville (12 page)

“Is that so?” I don't understand why Mom isn't upset by the news that this weirdo has been stalking us.

“That's why I came. I'm worried about you.”

“I thought you didn't want anything to do with me,” I hear Mom say. She sounds hurt, almost as if she's disappointed Marco didn't show up on our doorstep years ago.

“I didn't. But now I do.”

The bacon is draining on a paper towel, and I am slicing a ripe tomato into thin red rounds, but I don't want to miss what happens next. I lay the knife down on the counter and go to stand by the kitchen door. Marco and Mom have wheeled themselves into the living room; I can just see them from here.

Marco's wheelchair faces Mom's. But his eyes are darting around the room—up to the ceiling, over to the bed, then back up to the pair of crucifixes on the wall. It's like he's a bird that flew indoors and can't find his way out. His eyes land back on Mom. Again, I get the feeling that talking is hard for him. “You're not using your wheelchair right,” he says.

When Mom laughs, it comes out sounding harsh, almost like a bark. “So you came over here to give me a lesson?”

“You got it,” Marco says without lifting his eyes off her face. “If there's one thing I know something about— it's using a wheelchair. I've been in this damn thing for seventeen years.” He sighs. I figure that's probably the most Marco has said to anyone in all that time.

“Seventeen years,” Mom says slowly. It's as if she's remembering all the things that happened in between then and now. How she fell in love with Dad and how they had me and Colette. Maybe even how she blew smoke rings behind the Scala Santa with Emil Francoeur. “We were just teenagers. A lot happened that year.”

“To all of us,” Marco says softly.

“Yes, to all of us.” For a minute, they're both quiet. Are they both remembering the night of Marco's accident?

Mom looks up at him. “So when are you going to show me all the things I'm doing wrong?”

Marco uses the back of his glove to wipe the sweat off his forehead. He takes a deep breath before he starts speaking again. It's not hard to see that coming over here wasn't easy for him. Maybe he's got a phobia about leaving his house. “You need to work your arms more,” he tells Mom. “Most people in wheelchairs have the same problem. They use their hands. Or their feet—if their feet work. But it's a waste of energy. It's all in the arms.” He flexes his arms when he says this. They're so bulky, I take a step back.

“How would you know what most people in wheelchairs do?” Mom asks, and again, I can hear that harsh laugh behind her voice. “You never leave your house.”

Marco looks down at his feet, which are dangling out from under the blanket. “It's true. I don't leave the house.” He sounds as if he knows there's something wrong with him. “But I watch people. And in a town like ours, a lot of people happen to be in wheelchairs.”

“And now there's one more,” Mom says.

Something pinches inside my chest when she says that.

“It takes strong arms to use a wheelchair right,” Marco says. “All these years, with all that hiking and bicycling, you've been building up your legs—not your arms.”

This guy is really creeping me out now. What's he been doing—taking notes about our family?

Mom must be thinking the same thing. “I didn't know you knew about my exercise routine.”

“I'm very observant.”

“Apparently,” Mom says.

“Like I said, you need to use your arms more to get that chair moving right. You see this?” he asks, grabbing the round metal rim over the wheel on his wheelchair. “That's what you need to use for control. You keep getting your fingers caught in the wheel.”

Mom's cheeks redden. “Now how would you know something like that?”

Marco just shrugs. “Your fingers are all messed up, aren't they?” I'm thinking the guy's probably got binoculars. How creepy is that?

“You're right,” Mom says, showing Marco the tips of her fingers on her right hand. “They're all scratched up. I keep catching them in the spokes.”

“That's because you're sticking your fingers in too far. You're supposed to grab just the rim.” Marco wheels his wheelchair over so it's even closer to Mom's. He zips around in that thing the way Iza drives her Mini Cooper. “Like this—”

If I were Mom, I wouldn't want Marco getting so close, but she doesn't seem to mind. She doesn't seem creeped out by him the way I am.

“The occupational therapist at the hospital showed me that already,” Mom tells him.

“So how come you're not doing it right?” Marco asks. I think he smiled, but it happened too fast to know for sure.

“I am.”

“You're not, Thérèse.” Marco looks Mom in the eye. “Don't fight me!”

“I'm not figh—” Mom stops herself in midsentence. Maybe she realizes she is fighting him—saying that stuff about how he never leaves his house and refusing to admit that she hasn't been using the wheelchair right— the way she's been fighting all of us the last couple of weeks. “Okay,” Mom says, grabbing just the aluminum rim with her fingertips, “how's this?”

Marco wheels himself so close to Mom their wheelchairs touch. When he presses his hand down on her fingers, I can't help cringing. “This is how it should feel,” he tells her.

“Okay.” Mom closes her eyes, as if that'll help her remember what he's showing her. “I'm getting it now.”

Marco backs his wheelchair up against the bed.

“Well, show me then.”

Mom crosses the room in her wheelchair, then crosses back. Though she isn't half as quick as Marco, she is wheeling herself a little more smoothly and she has better control at the corners.

I know I'd better make those sandwiches before the bacon gets cold. “Would you like a glass of water with your sandwich?” I call out to Marco. He hasn't stopped sweating.

“A glass of water would be great.” He looks over to where I am standing. “When you stay inside all the time, leaving's not so easy.”

I pop four slices of whole-wheat bread into the toaster and take the mayonnaise from the fridge. I can still hear Mom wheeling herself around the living room. “Don't go too fast now,” Marco tells her. “Especially around the corners. That's another mistake a lot of people make.”

Mom's breathing hard. This is the most exercise she's had since she got home from the hospital. I think how much she used to love hiking and bicycling, how pink her cheeks got after she'd been out at the canyon, and suddenly I'm sadder than ever. Mom may never get to do those things again. It's just not right.

But Marco isn't feeling sorry for Mom the way I am. “Have you ever worked with free weights?” I hear him asking her. “I think a little weight training might help build up your biceps, triceps and shoulders. As long as you're not doing too many reps at first.”

Fifteen

B
y the time Dad gets back, Mom is sound asleep in her wheelchair. I'm tidying up in the kitchen. “She had quite a workout this morning,” I tell Dad. He's pulled a tall stool up to the kitchen counter so he can keep me company.

“A workout? What do you mean?”

“Marco came over. He gave Mom a wheelchair lesson. And he wants her to start lifting free weights.”

Dad whistles. “Wow,” he says, “I thought Marco never left his house. And it's been years since he talked to your mom.”

I hang the fry pan on a hook over the stove. Then I turn back to Dad. “Maybe it's a miracle.”

Dad tweaks my nose and we both laugh. It's a sound I haven't heard for a long time.

“I'm going to bike over to Beaupré,” I tell Dad once everything is put away in the kitchen. “You okay with Mom for a bit?”

“Sure. But wear your helmet, okay? And stay on the side of the road. And look out for those eighteen-wheelers.”

The wind's against me as I bike down Avenue Royale, so I have to pedal extra hard. Dad never used to worry about stuff like helmets. I guess Mom's accident is changing all of us.

There's a sporting goods store on the highway in Beaupré. In winter, they sell mostly ski equipment; in summer, bikes. I lean my bike against the metal rack outside the store. Other bikes are parked there too, and since none are locked I don't bother locking mine.

The second I open the door, I get a whiff of the dry rubbery smell of bicycle tires.

I know my way around, so I head straight for the aisle that has miscellaneous sporting equipment. I pass a stack of orange lifejackets and kayak paddles. The free weights are at the back, piled up in a pyramid. I wonder if this is where Marco got his free weights, and if so, how did he get them? Maybe one of the guys Colette and I have spotted going up to his apartment runs errands for him.

The weight-lifting gloves should be here too. I want to get Mom a pair. We've got some old free weights in the basement. This will be my way of encouraging her to use them and to build her upper body strength the way Marco says she has to.

I hear a clicking sound in the next aisle and the end of a beam of silver light flashes on the floor where I am standing. “This one's really cool,” I hear someone say. The voice is familiar. But it's only when he laughs that I know for sure it's Maxim. He's checking out bicycle lights.

“Turn that thing off, will ya? It's killing my eyes.” It's Armand.

I'll grab a pair of gloves for Mom—there are some pale blue ones here that look nice and are about the right size—then I'll go over and say hi to them.

But Maxim won't turn off the light. I can still see the silver beam at my feet.

“When you're out on the road at night, you gotta think about safety, man,” Maxim says to Armand. “This thing's got power.”

“Yeah, I can see it's got power. It's gonna blind me if you don't turn it off.”

“Safety first, man, safety first. Even before your vision,” Maxim says, laughing. Maxim must be pointing the beam right into Armand's eyes because I hear Armand say, “You're giving me a headache with that thing.” Maxim laughs before he finally clicks the light off.

“If you cared so much about safety”—Armand drops his voice a little so I have to lean into the glove display to hear him—“you'd have used a condom with your girlfriend the other night.”

The tops of my ears feel like they're on fire. If Maxim had used a condom the other night! Armand had better be talking about some old girlfriend Maxim's got in Quebec City! Colette's impulsive, but she'd never have unprotected sex. Or would she? Besides, Colette's my little sister. She can't be having sex before me!

No, there's no way she'd have unprotected sex. Not after all the warnings we get in MRE. Even Mom and Dad have talked to us about safe sex. It wasn't easy for Mom because she's so religious—I've never seen her blush like that—but Dad said we needed to be well-informed, that it was a matter of our personal safety.

When Maxim speaks, he doesn't even bother to lower his voice. It's as if he doesn't care if the whole world hears him trashtalking. “Yeah, Colette wanted me to use one, but I talked her out of it. And she was too excited to argue…if you know what I mean.” He practically hoots when he says this. “Man, that girl's wild!”

My first thought is, there's no way Maxim can be talking about my sister. Maybe his old girlfriend's name was Colette too.

The pale blue weight-lifting gloves have fallen out of my hands and are lying on the floor.

“I sure wish Josianne would let me do it without a condom,” Armand says.

Sixteen

I
nearly say something right then and there to Maxim. I nearly go over, tap him on the shoulder and tell him what an irresponsible jerk he is and how, even if he can fool everyone else in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, including his grandmother, he can't fool me! That I can see right through his smarmy act!

But in the end, I decide Maxim isn't the person I need to talk to—Colette is. So I wait for Maxim and Armand to leave the store. Besides, it takes a while for my heart to stop racing.

Maxim doesn't buy the light. I guess he's not as concerned about safety as he says!

My hands shake as I pay for the pale blue weightlifting gloves. I'm a little afraid that every time I see them I'm going to remember the disgusting conversation I just overheard.
Man, that girl's wild!

Biking helps calm me down. As I pedal, I plan what I'll say to Colette. She can't keep having sex without a condom. And who knows? It may already be too late! What if she's pregnant—or Maxim has given her an STD? Judging from the way he talked, he's been with other girls, besides Colette.

The road into town is busier than usual. It's already the beginning of July and Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré is getting more crowded every day. Still, it's nothing compared to how busy it's going to be on July 25, Saint Anne's feast day.