The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (24 page)

“That’s not true—”

He laughed. “Really? Haven’t you lived in Redbud long enough? When’s the last time you heard anyone talk about his skill with the violin?” He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. He had grown taller in the past year, and his hair was longer. When he leaned forward, it brushed the skin beneath his eyes.

Lily didn’t want to admit that he was right. Cora and Teelia whispered about Seth in church, saying he was too serious for someone his age and that it was his father’s fault. The kids at school snickered when he walked down the hall. It wasn’t as bad as their treatment of her, but it was close.

“You’re the only one who sees
me
. Not my messed-up family. Just me. Do you know what a gift that is? To be able to be myself around someone?”

The air was electric. She felt hot and cold at the same time. If she leaned forward just a bit, their lips would touch. “Being with you is easy,” she said. It was true. She never needed to count when she was with him.

He wrapped his arm around her hip and pulled her close. He leaned his forehead against hers. “We fit together.”

Lily closed her eyes when he tangled his hands in her hair. He smelled like autumn leaves and fresh tobacco. When he kissed her, it felt like coming home, and Lily realized that love grew in familiar places.

Now, as she watched him play, she thought of how much she missed the freedom to be completely herself with someone. She was close to Will, would even say she loved him, but she kept part of herself from him in a way she never had with Seth.

“I know you’re there,” Seth said as he finished the piece he’d been playing.

She walked deeper into the barn. It was fully dark outside now, and the cicadas sang. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said. “I was on the way back to the house when I heard you playing. Haydn. Right?”

“You remembered.” He took a well-worn chamois cloth from the case and wiped down the violin.

“Why didn’t you join us in the night garden?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to interfere with things between you and Will.” He kept his back to her, but his shoulders tightened at Will’s name.

Lily wanted to say there wasn’t anything going on between her and Will, but of course that wasn’t quite true. She watched as he put the violin in the case, then snapped it shut.

“I’ve been thinking,” Seth said. He was standing so close that she felt the heat from his body. “About what you said the other night. You were right. I should have told you about Antoinette—her special abilities.”

This was her chance. Seth loved Antoinette. He’d be a perfect guardian for her. “About Antoinette. I need to ask—”

But he wasn’t paying attention. He kept talking. “You have to know that you did mean something to me. You still do.”

Lily was too surprised to respond. All thoughts of asking him to be Antoinette’s guardian left her.

“I won’t interfere with your life,” Seth said as he picked up his violin, “because I don’t want to hurt you again. But I need you to know that breaking up with you is the biggest mistake I ever made. I
do
care about you, and if I thought that you would’ve believed what Antoinette can do, I’d have told you, no matter what Rose said.” Then he turned and walked out of the barn, leaving Lily staring at the door as it shut behind him.

ROSE’S JOURNAL

August 2009

I HOIST ANTOINETTE
over the fence between our house and Seth’s. Since she healed me, everything is easier. I don’t run out of breath, and it’s been a year since I’ve had any chest pain. But I can’t escape the guilt of knowing that my health comes at a price.

Over the past year, Seth and I have watched Antoinette carefully. We still don’t know
exactly
how she works her miracles, but we do know that for the healing to work she must be touching the person or plant or animal.

I miss holding her hand, and I let my fingers linger against her shoulder for a moment before I slide the painting I’m carrying between the fence rails. I’m her mother; she’s my child. I want to hold her, to pull her against me—but I can’t. The cost is too great.

Once through the fence, I help her up the steps to Seth’s house. My hands shake as I knock on the door. I’m not good at thank-yous.

As soon as he opens the door, I thrust out the painting. “For you,” I say. It’s a rendering of the creek that runs through the back of our properties, the spot where a large flat rock sits in the middle of the water. I haven’t painted since leaving school and doing so felt good, but I’m unsure of myself in a way I never was when I was younger.

“Take it.” I stumble over my words. “Without you, I would have had to sell the farm.”

“The rock,” he says as he accepts the painting. His smile is bittersweet. “I spent a lot of time there.”

“We all did.”

“It’s still there.” He looks sheepish. “I checked. The first night I was back.”

This is a side of Seth I don’t often see: shy, soft.

He stands back to let us in. His house is old, like ours. The wood floors are scratched in places, and the French doors leading into the living room sag slightly in the middle. The gray stone fireplace is flanked by a set of bookcases filled with books and photographs.

“Did you build these?” I ask. The wood is solid. I imagine them standing long after the house has fallen down around them.

Seth nods. “I made them for my mother. She loved this room.”

It’s strange hearing him talk about his parents. I know he spoke to Lily about them, but he rarely did so with me.

Antoinette plops down on the soft beige couch. Her legs stick out from her cutoffs like twin toothpicks. She bounces on the couch, shrieking as she does. I touch her shoulder to calm her, but it doesn’t help.

“She’s happy,” he says. “Let her bounce.”

I love the way Seth takes Antoinette in stride.

He holds the painting over the fireplace. “I think it should go here.”

“It looks nice,” I say. I feel a flush of pride.

“I need a hammer,” Seth says. “Be right back.”

When he leaves, I examine the bookcase. The wood is beautiful. Oak stained a rich mahogany color. The streaks of red set off the wood grain. On the middle shelf, beside a stack of books about music therapy, is a picture of Seth and his mother. She has her arm looped around his waist.

When he returns, carrying a step ladder and tools, I nod at the photo. “Your mom was really pretty, especially when she smiled.”

He pops open the ladder and climbs up. “Hand me the painting.” I hand it to him and he says, “That was the problem. My dad liked to own things. Pretty things. She was just one more possession.”

He nods at the painting. “Is it centered?”

I step back and look. “A little high.”

He lowers it slightly. “Better?”

I nod and glance at Antoinette, who seems happy twisting her head from side to side and flicking her fingers.

Seth presses a nail into the wall to mark the spot where he’ll hang the painting. “He wasn’t all bad, my dad,” he says. It seems important to him that I know this. “After all, he’s the one who taught me to play the violin.”

I pick up the photo of his mother. I wonder how she felt about Seth’s father. “You don’t need to explain,” I say. I set the photo back on the shelf, causing some books to slide down. When they do, another picture falls out.

It’s of Lily. She’s sitting on the creek bank, her arms around her knees. Though the photo is black and white, the sun flashes in her dark hair.

I miss Lily as much as I miss holding Antoinette’s hand.

Seth taps a nail into the wall and motions for me to hand him the painting. He hangs it and then sits down on the top ladder step. “I think we’re programmed to love our families no matter how screwed up they are.”

I look down at the picture of Lily and nod.

Seth follows my gaze. “Have you talked to her?”

I shake my head.

“She’d come home if you asked.” He takes the picture from me, holding it gently, as if it’s something precious.

Unlike me, Lily forgives easily. But I’m afraid. What if by ignoring her, I pushed her away? “She won’t,” I say. “Not after the way I treated her.”

“Of course she will. She’s your sister.”

But I shake my head. “I can’t call her.” I’d rather live with the fantasy that one day Lily and I will reconcile than contact her and discover that I have succeeded in pushing her away forever.

Chapter Seventeen

Antoinette concentrated on following her mother. The market was busy on Saturdays and getting lost would be easy. The people clumped around the booths could shift, engulf her mother, and then poof—it would be like she never existed at all.

The largest crowd surrounded the Eden Farms’ booth; they had the biggest and brightest flowers at the market. People milled about under the green awning, examining black-eyed Susans and purple coneflowers that shouldn’t bloom for another two months.

“There are too many people here,” her mother said, frowning. She walked carefully, shielding Antoinette from the crowd. A knot of old ladies stood outside of their booth. “Excuse me,” her mother said as she and Antoinette eased by them.

Antoinette took two big steps to stay close to her. Normally, she loved crowds—so many people to touch, so many songs to hear. Today was different.

Today it seemed like death sat on her mother’s shoulder. She struggled to catch her breath, and she walked even more slowly than normal. As Antoinette followed her, a marigold pushed from the soil, and unaware, her mother stepped on it, flattening its orange petals and filling the air with a sharp scent. Antoinette stopped, mesmerized by the crumpled flower. She tried to move, but her feet tangled, and she pitched forward.

Right before she hit the ground, her mother caught her. “Are you okay?” she asked. She was breathing hard. The short walk from their van to the booth had worn her out.

Yes.
The word was small and simple. Three letters.
Y-E-S.
Antoinette opened her mouth. A high-pitched squeal came out.

Her mother quickly squeezed Antoinette’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “You don’t want to be late for delivery day.”

Faintly, she heard her mother’s song through their linked hands, but Antoinette needed all of her concentration to keep up. Healing would have to wait.

One of the old women gathered around the booth turned to Antoinette’s mother. “Bless your heart,” she said. “Stuck with that retarded girl. As if you don’t have enough to deal with.”

Retarded.
The word was a slap across Antoinette’s face. It was supposed to mean “slow.” It really meant “worthless.”
Worth. Less.
Antoinette groaned and curled forward.

“Come on, Antoinette.” Her mother tugged her hand.

Antoinette couldn’t straighten. The sun bit through her thin cotton T-shirt.

“Poor thing,” the old woman said.

“Get out of my booth,” her mother said, the words clipped and sharp.

With a sniff the woman shuffled off, and the pressure on Antoinette’s shoulders eased.

“Crazy old woman,” her mother said. She knelt in front of Antoinette and tapped her first two fingers against her nose. “Look at me.”

Antoinette fixed her gaze on a gauzy cloud over her mother’s left shoulder.

Long ago, her mother had brought home a prism. “Look, Antoinette,” she had said before shining a flashlight through the glass triangle. “All these colors were hidden in the white light. The prism broke it open.”

Antoinette’s brain was like that prism. In her mind, faces shattered. It was confusing and disorienting, like looking at a puzzle with the pieces scattered over a table.

“Please, Antoinette. I need to know you’re listening.” Her mother tapped her nose again. The pain in her mother’s voice was worse than looking at her dissembled face. Antoinette flicked her gaze from the cloud to her mother, then back again.

It was enough.

“Don’t listen to that woman,” her mother said. “Everyone’s life is hard in some way. Yours just happens to be easier to see than most. Do you understand?”

Slowly, Antoinette looked into her mother’s eyes, holding her gaze until her own eyes burned.