Miracle by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online

mother.
    Tall, redheaded, and gorgeous, Ellen Connery Miracle had been a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall before joining the circus as her brother’s assistant in a trained-dog act. Two years after she married Zack Miracle she died giving birth to Amy. Occasionally he liked to remind Amy of that fact.
    Maisie sat in the living room watching soap operas from her favorite chair, a plaid recliner she’d bought at a flea market for a hundred dollars. She wore overalls over one of Pop’s white T-shirts. Her mostly gray brown hair was pulled back from her placid face by a dime-store headband. On her generous lap was a large grocery bag filled with green beans. She peeled strings from the beans, snapped them into neat pieces, and rocked contentedly, her attention riveted to the action on
The Guiding Light
.
    Maisie was sweet and silent and not particularly smart or pretty, which were all assets as far as Pop was concerned. They were the reasons she and he had remained happy together for the past ten years. Maisie let Pop rule the world. She even made excuses for the marijuana plants he grew in the back rooms. He had a bad back. The dope was for medicinal purposes. Just like the booze. Amy understood all that and felt sorry for him, but it didn’t make life easy.
    She waved at Maisie and started toward the kitchen for a glass of water. As she walked wearily through the livingroom Maisie mumbled and rubbed her forehead as if trying to remember something. “Oh, year. Charley called. He’s got to work tonight. He and his daddy are taking a truckload of pullets to the plant in Jasper. He said he’ll be by at six tomorrow to carry you to church.”
    “Thanks, Mams.” She went to her bedroom and locked the door, then leaned against it, her eyes shut. She put her straw hat on the room’s dresser and dropped her sweaty, dirty clothes to the floor. Her body felt hot and confused inside; she was sad, restless, elated, and afraid.
    On her bed was Pop’s daily list of chores, made out in his sloppy, bold script. The unforgiving length of the list made her angry, and she shoved it onto the floor then stood, naked, and gazed around her room as if seeing it for the first time.
    The furniture was still discount-store castoffs, the twin bed still creaked when she kicked it with one foot, and the walls were still covered with posters of movie and television stars. In one corner her fold-out stereo sat on an old trunk that had belonged to her mother. In a cardboard box beside it were Amy’s comedy albums and the soundtracks from Broadway musicals. On the dresser sat the tiny black-and-white TV Pop had given her for Christmas three years before. That was the best Christmas she’d ever had.
    Moving woodenly, she went into her tiny bathroom and took a shower. When she dried herself she scrubbed the towel over her body for a long time, her hands almost frantic. She threw herself across the bed and rolled onto her back. Shutting her eyes, she draped one arm over them, then put a hand between her legs. Such unadorned need had never surfaced in the daytime before, and it embarrassed her. Then images of Dr. de Savin destroyed her control and she stroked herself until her ache burst into such desperate pleasure that she arched upward and bit her arm to keep from crying out.
    Shivering, she hugged herself and stared at the ceiling. There was so much more to want from the world than she had ever realized.

S ebastien did not pride himself on his bedside manner. But then, he excused himself, there was a strong element of macho reserve in all cardiac surgeons. So many operations meant life or death for the patients, and success was measured, quite literally, in the whisper of a heartbeat.
    He gazed without pity at the fat, florid little woman who was crying. She dug pink fingers and manicured nails into her bedcovers. Her face was screwed into a childlike visage of misery. “I’m going to die,” she wailed. “I just know I’m not going to survive