Miriam's Well (20 page)

I was supposed to have a snappy retort ready, but all I could think about was, If Diana's leaving me, where does that leave me? But she answered the question clearly: “Listen, I've got to run, and your little Miriam's waiting.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Have a great Christmas vacation.” She backed away. “The thing is, I just never thought of you as a martyr, you know?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Told by Miriam

Adam had good news that, typical of Adam Bergen, he tossed off casually. “Oh, by the way, I'm not going out with Diana anymore.”

My heart leapt up, as if I were William Wordsworth! But then I got this panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. If Diana had no claim on him, and he spent just about all his spare time with me, I guess that meant we were going out together. Going out—what a joke. We never went anywhere, of course, since the judge was so paranoid about losing me. A major trip was down to the cafeteria for thirty minutes or down the hall to the lounge where the cigarette smoke was thick enough to kick up Adam's allergies. We could only stay there until his eyes were running so badly that he looked like he'd been peeling onions.

But if Diana wasn't in our way anymore, and we were sort of “going (nowhere) together,” I was in real trouble. It's a fact: we weren't supposed to like each other. I wasn't supposed to feel the soaring elation at 3:00 when I knew the bell would be letting Adam out of school. And I wasn't supposed to be watching the door as the long minutes ticked by until 3:25, when he'd fill my doorway, and I wasn't supposed to feel the joyous sickness in my stomach when he did. And to be sure, I wasn't supposed to have the overwhelming wish that he'd kiss me, that he'd hold me, that he'd push me to the side of that lumpy, egg-crate mattress and climb in beside me. With our clothes on, of course. I wouldn't dream of anything else. I just wanted to have him warm and close.

But I wasn't supposed to feel any of this.

“Yep,” he said. “It's a clean cut with Diana. We decided today.”

The words were light and casual, but I saw the hurt in his eyes, and I knew
she'd
broken up with
him
.

“The funny thing is, I barely felt anything when it happened. I mean, I didn't bleed.”

“I'm sorry, Adam.” I tried to sound sincere.

He grabbed my big toe in a fierce hammerlock. “No, you're not. I'm not releasing your toe until you admit it.”

I tried wrestling it away, but he only grabbed the big toe on my other foot. I yanked and pulled, like a fisherman with a soggy boot on the end of the line. I did manage to upset his balance—a small victory—so that he flopped onto the bed on top of my feet, still holding on to my toes for dear life.

“You're pretty strong today, Schwarzenegger. Admit it, you're not sorry,” he growled, milking both toes.

“Okay, I'm glad.”

Immediately he let go of me and jumped to his feet. “Let's get out of here.” He grabbed my robe from the closet and sent the wire hanger clattering to the floor. He pressed the nurse call button, and this grainy voice came over the speaker: “Nurse's station.”

“Nurse, we're going out for a couple of hours,” Adam shouted. “Hold all calls.” We heard the intercom click off, then the shuffling of rubber-soled shoes. By the time the nurse and the security guard got into the room, we were flattened against the wall behind the door.

“Oh, good grief, she's gone,” the nurse cried.

Officer Baylor, the plump little guard, kept a cooler head. She said, “Whoa, whoa. We'll just have a look around.”

“Surprise!” we yelled and watched them practically leap into the air.

“You like to give me a heart attack.” The nurse clutched her considerable chest.

“We're desperate,” Adam explained. “We've got to get out of here.”

Officer Baylor closed in on us. “You mean go AWOL?”

“No, Baylor, nothing like that. We just want to go to another floor. Any other floor. You can follow us, if you want, just let us
out
for a few minutes,” Adam pleaded.

“Hold on.” Officer Baylor phoned for Dr. Gregory. The one advantage of my being such a celebrity was that any call concerning me was put through immediately. Soon Dr. Gregory was on the line, giving permission for our journey into Worlds Beyond, as Adam said, but Officer Baylor was to trail us closely.

No one wanted to see sick people, so the three of us agreed to go to the nursery on the fourth floor. As soon as we came out of the elevator, we heard muffled crying from behind the thick glass, as some of the babies let the world know they were good and mad. Life seemed pretty easy for them.

Adam said, “They all look the same, like Winston Churchill.”

“They're not all alike. See? Some have pink blankets, and some have blue blankets.”

“This is clearly sexism in the nursery,” Adam said, huffing in indignation. “That bald pink one over there is probably going to sue the hospital.”

“Oh, look at little Sangit Singh. He's the picture of Gandhi, but with a little more hair.” I glanced back to see the guard, holding her distance to give us space, but craning to see the babies, too.

Adam liked the one with black hair hanging over her wrinkly forehead. She lay on her back with her eyes wide open, following every move we made. “Look, she's the Night Watchwoman, keeping the vigil so no one snatches any of the Churchills or Gandhis.”

“Oh, look at that one,” I said, pointing to a round blue bundle with its rump in the air.

The elevator behind us opened, and Officer Baylor snapped to attention. A harmless-looking older man in a gray business suit came over to the window. When the baby nurse spotted him, she rolled maybe the ugliest baby in the nursery right up to the window. He was red-faced and pimply and had not one strand of hair anywhere on his head, but he had a fairly thick patch between his eyes.

“That's my grandson, Roger Comiston III,” the man boasted. “Which one's yours?”

“Oh, we're—”

“That one,” Adam said, pointing to the Night Watchwoman.

“No kidding? Well, they change a lot in just a few days. Young Roger, he'll have hair before long. Well, you two take care of that little princess.” Mr. Comiston pulled a business card out of his breast pocket. “It's not a minute too soon to buy her life insurance. Say, give me a jingle when you get the little squirt home.”

Officer Baylor moved in closer to read the card, and Mr. Comiston backed off a bit and looked me over a little more carefully. “Say, aren't you that girl? Well, I'll be. They sure never told anything in the paper about you having a baby.”

“Oh, no, I'm not that girl,” I said, amazed at how easily I could let a lie roll off my tongue when it was all for pure fun.

“Um-hmm. Well, give me a call when you're ready to make an investment in your kid's life. It's not a minute too soon. The Third's already got a thirty-thou term policy on his life.” Mr. Comiston backed into the open mouth of the elevator and was swallowed up.

Christmas was coming, and everyone around me had turned nervous. I felt like a hot wire, a conductor for their tension. I gave them excuses. Maybe it was because Christmas was close and the nurses were overwrought, trying to shop and bake and decorate along with their work at the hospital. I knew Adam tensed up whenever the subject of Christmas came around. I wasn't exactly sure what Jewish people did for Christmas, but I thought they must at least have a tree and exchange gifts. Even Dr. Chin, the Buddhist, said their family each got a special gift on Christmas morning. But when I asked, “Adam, what does your family do on Christmas?,” he said, “Nothing. Sometimes we go to a movie.” “No tree? No presents?” “No,” he replied, “it's not our holiday.” So, he was really tense, bristling every time he tried to set his schoolbooks under a small tree with red snow-flocked balls on my night table. He'd started dropping his books to the floor, and the echoing slam they made against the tile felt like an insult to me.

Dr. Gregory, too, was as tense as a caged rat. Brother James had been working on him, encouraging him to stop being a sinner. Sometimes, when he came by to see me, the longing in his face made me feel like he was just itching to return to Jesus. I prayed for him every night; I prayed that by Christmas, he'd be reborn.

When Brother James stopped in, I was feeling pretty good. He pulled my pillow to the floor for me to kneel on. We knelt together, our elbows on my bed, our shoulders touching, and he confided, “I feel something about to happen, Miriam, just like you can tell a train's coming by the vibration on the tracks. Do you feel it, child? Bow your head.” Brother James's voice was a smooth, rumbling sound from the depths of his chest.

I laid my forehead on the soft weave of the blanket and felt Brother James's words come through me, shoulder to shoulder, as if I were picking up his vibrations: “Isaiah 58:11,

And the Lord will guide thee continually,

And satisfy thy soul in drought,

And make strong thy bones;

And thou shalt be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. A-men. Say it with me, Miriam.”

“A-men.” Our voices were in perfect symphony, one voice.

In the middle of the deep hospital night, with everything as still as a canyon, it came again.

MEER-EE-AHM, TAKE UP THY TIMBREL …

I lay absolutely motionless, waiting for more. Minutes of silence passed. And then, as if way off in the distance, I heard music. It sounded like drums and cymbals, lyres and lutes, tambourines with their sweet, brassy jangling, and the mournful blast of a ram's horn. The music grew louder, as if a parade were rounding a corner toward me.

PRAISE HIM WITH CYMBALS SOUNDING; PRAISE HIM WITH CYMBALS RESOUNDING …

Then the parade turned another corner and faded away, leaving only a dimming memory of music.

I lay there breathlessly, straining to catch gossamer wisps of notes in the air. Silence. There was only my own rhythmic thumping, as if I were the drummer who had set the pace.

There was perfect harmony in that ancient symphony, and I knew, at last, that God meant this as a sign that I had been healed.

And then it was just a matter of waiting patiently for whatever would happen to get me home for Christmas.

In the morning, I told Brother James, “I've had another sign.”

“My prayers have been answered, child.” I saw the hint of tears in his eyes. “Now, you must be ready, for your time is at hand. Be vigilant, Miriam.”

I was vigilant. Hours crept past. Finally, Brother James brought me some clothes and shoes in a grocery sack and told me to put them on, with the robe as cover on top. “Just move quick as lightning, and do whatever I say.”

Hadn't I always? In my little bathroom, I slipped into the familiar blouse and skirt that smelled of Mama's iron, glorying in the freedom of something as simple as having street clothes to wear. Someone down the hall—Uncle Vernon, as Brother James explained hurriedly—was creating a hullabaloo.

“You can't do that!” a nurse yelled. “Dr. Gregory, this man's going into everyone's room and pumping up these poor unfortunates with Jesus talk. My God, they're going to be pouring out into the halls hollering out hallelujahs and hosannas!”

I heard Dr. Gregory's voice clearly, though he was way off down the hall. “Officer Baylor, give me a hand here. We've got to remove this man before he upsets our patients.” Officer Baylor ran down the hall; I heard her keys jangling. At that moment, Brother James whisked me out the door and down the stairs to the loading dock of the hospital, where Uncle Benjamin was waiting with his car running. We drove off into the blinding snowstorm, the blue norther that the weatherman had warned of. Cars were stalled all over, but Uncle Benjamin had put chains on his tires, and we tore recklessly through the streets. He took the most roundabout route to avoid stoplights, though driving down the side streets, even with our chains clanging, was like gliding across glass.

I didn't believe I'd survive the trip. Brother James murmured prayers for us all. We spun into a driveway, narrow as a panel truck, in front of an unfamiliar little house with cement steps leading up to it. “Can't I go home?” I cried.

“Well, Miriam, I'd sure like to be taking you home to your mama, but that's the first place they'll look for you,” Brother James explained. “I'm hiding you out here, where you'll be safe and where we can have a nice old-time Christmas together.”

“What is this place?” I asked, trying to dispel the feeling that I'd been kidnapped and taken to a hideaway where Adam would never find me.

“Trust, child,” Brother James admonished. I was shivering, for I had nothing but the robe over my thin clothes to keep me warm. With his gloved hand, he clutched my arm, and my shivering stopped for a second. He opened the car door and shepherded me up the cement steps. The front door opened just a crack, then was closed so the chain could be slipped off.

The room was blazing with warmth that I was greedy for, though it smelled faintly of gas. I was afraid to breathe deeply. Two little girls peeked out from behind their mother, and Marylou Wadkins said, “Praise the Lord!”

Marylou was with me every minute. I slept with her in her big double bed, remembering that her husband had died there no more than a year before. His picture was the first thing I noticed when I awoke, or maybe I hadn't slept at all. I lay there with my head on a hard, foam rubber pillow, staring at the yellow spot on the ceiling where there'd been a leak. The little girls were singing in the next room. Thin walls separated us.

Marylou made some babylike sounds as she was waking up, too. “Are you up already?” she asked.

“I couldn't sleep.”

She shot up in bed and felt my forehead. “You're not sick again, are you?”