The Calling (25 page)

Under her bed, she kept a box of the Mrs. Miracle columns that she cut from the
Stoney Ridge Times
newspaper. It wasn’t easy to collect them because her family didn’t subscribe to the newspaper. But . . . the sisters at the Sisters’ House did. They loved to read, anything and everything. Whenever Mim was over at their house, she would tiptoe around the house, hunting for the latest edition of the newspaper—which was never in the same place twice—tear out Mrs. Miracle’s column, fold it carefully, and tuck it into her dress pocket.

A few days ago, Ella came up behind her and caught her in the act. “Do you need scissors, dear?”

“Uh, no,” Mim said, cheeks burning. “Just something I wanted from the paper. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Ella was looking right at the Mrs. Miracle column in Mim’s hand,
right
at it! Then she gazed at her for a long, long moment with an inscrutable look on her face. “Well,” she said at last, “we are a reading household. Papa always wants us to have good reading material. But I don’t suppose he’ll miss one column.”

How strange, Mim noticed, for Ella to talk as if her papa was nearby. He must have passed decades ago. Then the wave of guilt hit—Mim hadn’t realized the sisters ever actually read the paper, only collected them, and she certainly never meant to lie to anyone, especially Ella.
That
, she decided right then and there, was the last time she would take the column from the sisters. She’d find another way to collect those columns. Maybe she could ask Bethany to get them from the receptionist at the newspaper.

In her bedroom, Mim pulled the manila envelope out from under her mattress and set the typewriter up on her desk. She dumped the letters on her bed.

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

I have been happily married to “Phillip” for ten years. We have a nice-sized farm where we grow beets.

Last spring, a neighbor lady, recently divorced, asked if Phillip would teach her how to use a tractor. At the end of each day, Phillip goes over to give her tractor lessons. It has been three months and he is still teaching her to drive a tractor. Each time I mention that the neighbor lady has had enough time to learn how to drive the tractor without help, he says she is a slow learner. He comes home late and is very tired. I am starting to feel suspicious that more is going on than driving lessons.

Gratefully,
Beet Farmer’s Wife

Dear Beet Farmer’s Wife,

If your neighbor lady hasn’t learned how to drive a tractor by now, she should consider getting a horse. It would be much easier for her.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Miracle

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

Nancy and I have been best friends since we were girls. We’ve never kept secrets from each other. Recently, I found out that Nancy’s husband, who is a dentist, is having an affair with his dental hygienist. Should I tell Nancy? Is it ever wrong to keep a secret?

Signed,
Wringing My Hands

Dear Wringing,

Would you want Nancy to tell you if she knew your husband were having an affair?

Sincerely,
Mrs. Miracle

Mim was particularly proud of that answer. It was inspired! She had no experience with marriage or affairs and didn’t want to mislead anyone. This answer put responsibility for the decision back on Wringing. Yes, that was an ideal answer,
and she felt it would prove beneficial to her many readers. She always tried to choose letters for the newspaper column that many readers could relate to.

She opened another letter to read:

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

I thought I had something special with my girlfriend, but then she broke up with me.

I stayed in bed. I fought with friends who meant well. Once, I got into a fist fight that I knew I would lose just so I could feel a different type of pain, but nothing hurt more than my broken heart. It’s been seven months and I still have not moved on. I think I’m ready. I finally shaved. But my heart still races with anxiety when I think of losing my girlfriend. I mean, I was really in love.

Just Wondering What to Do Next

Mim felt stupefied by the letters about broken hearts. She thought she understood love—after all, she loved Danny Riehl and planned to marry him one day—but she did not understand what brokenheartedness felt like and she hoped she never would. It sounded awful. It sounded like a person’s heart had been ripped open, without anesthesia, and was bleeding inside his chest. Mim couldn’t imagine how dreadful it would be to have a truly broken heart. She set Just Wondering’s letter aside, unsure of how to answer.

She read through the stack of letters from last week’s pouch and placed them into piles on her bed: Answer, Don’t Answer, and I Have No Idea How to Answer.

She almost missed a small envelope at the bottom of the pile. It was from Stuck.

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

Sometimes I feel like leaky dynamite—just waiting for the spark to make it explode.

Yours truly,
Stuck

Mim leaned back against her bedframe, holding the letter in her hand. How in the world should Mrs. Miracle handle
that
?

14

E
arly Tuesday morning, Bethany wiped her feet on the mat before stepping into the guest flat’s bright living room. It was hard to believe this was the same dreary space, filled with old junk, that it was a few months ago. Rose had transformed it and she’d done it on a shoestring budget. Now it was a cheerful space with buttery yellow painted walls, white woodwork, a large window that let in bright light. The window overlooked Rose’s flower garden near the barn. The transformation was amazing. The guest flat was much cooler, too, than the house above it. “Geena?”

“In here!” Geena was in the bedroom, packing up. “You’re just in time to give me a hand. I thought I’d move my things up to the house so I can clean the guest flat when we get back later today.”

“You don’t have to clean anything,” Bethany said. “You’re our guest. Mim and I have it down to a routine.” She plumped a pillow. “Besides, if the heat wave doesn’t break, I’m sure those folks will cancel.”

“Supposed to rain tomorrow.” Geena looked around the
room and grabbed her purse. “Well? Ready to go meet your mother?”

Bethany took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

An hour or so later, they were driving into Hagensburg. “At the next street make a right onto the bridge,” droned the GPS in Geena’s car.

“Almost there,” Geena said.

This might be a huge mistake, Bethany realized. Over the years she had learned to live with her mother’s abandonment. Why did it need to change now?

Bethany felt her stomach lurch. Coming here had been a bad idea. A really bad idea. And she found herself simply wishing she could talk to . . . not to Geena, not to Rose, but to Jimmy Fisher.

Where had that idea come from? Why would she feel a longing for the counsel of Jimmy Fisher, of all people? What might he say to a complicated situation like this, anyway? What could he possibly know?

A ridiculous notion! But she could almost hear his voice:
You’ve gone this far, Bethany.
Don’t lose courage now. You need to get your
answers if you’re ever going to get through this
gray stretch in your life.

The car stopped in front of an old but cared-for house with wooden ramps leading up to the front door. Bethany took in a deep breath. This was it. This was where her mother was. An eerie sense of something lost moved through her chest, cold and hollow.

Geena turned off the ignition. “Let’s go get your answers.”

They pressed a doorbell button and waited until someone came to the door. An older woman, skin like chocolate and
hair like a salt-and-pepper Brillo pad, looked Bethany up and down as if she recognized her.

“We’re here to see Mary Schrock,” Geena said at last. “She might go by the name of Mary Miller.”

The woman was still eyeing Bethany. “Didn’t expect you folks till the end of July.”

Bethany was confused. “I’ve never been here before.”

Now the woman looked confused. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mary’s daughter. I’d like to meet her.”

The woman rolled her eyes and sighed. “Oh Lawd—jez like that boy that come ’round here awhile back.”

“My brother, Tobe.”

“Child, whatever you’re looking for, you ain’t gonna find it in your mama.”

Shootfire!
Everywhere Bethany went, she hit the same brick wall. Everybody thought they knew what was best for her. “I’d like to decide that for myself.”

Geena put a calming hand on her shoulder. “Ma’am, this is Bethany Schrock. She’d just like the chance to meet her mother. That’s all. Seems like a daughter should be able to meet her mother.”

The woman fixed her gaze at Geena, as if she just noticed her. “And who are you?”

“I’m the Reverend Spencer. A friend of the family’s.”

Something changed instantly in the woman as soon as she learned Geena was a minister. It was like a free pass. She opened the door wide. “Mary’s in her room.”

Bethany and Geena followed behind the woman. They went through a room where a few elderly women sat on the couch, watching television. Only one noticed Geena and Bethany and stared at them.

“Mind if I ask,” Geena said, “what kind of home is this?”

The woman stopped and turned toward Geena. “It’s a home for ladies with mental health issues.”

“What kind of mental health issues?”

“Bipolar, manic depressive, clinical depression, psychotic, schizophrenia, paranoia—”

“So my mother runs this home?”

The woman looked at Bethany as if she had a loose bolt. “Say what?”

“I thought you were taking us to her office.”

The woman’s face softened in understanding. “Oh, baby. No, no, no, no, no. She ain’t running the place. She’s a patient. She’s been here for a long, long time. Longer than I’ve been here.”

Everything went upside down. A funny tingling feeling traveled through Bethany, starting with her toes. By the time it reached her head, she felt she might faint. The room started to spin and she dipped lower, as if her knees might give way, but Geena grasped her around the shoulders.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

Bethany nodded. She had to be strong. She just had to. She took a deep breath. In, out.

Geena turned to the woman, still holding Bethany’s shoulders. “Why is Mary here?”

The woman’s back went up. “ ’Cuz it’s better than an institution. We try to make it homelike. Most of the staffers have been here for years and years. They know all these patients. They treat them like family.”

“I meant . . . what’s the diagnosis?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Geena held her gaze.

“It’s them stupid HIPAA laws.” The woman pressed her lips together. “I could lose my job.”

“Please,” Bethany whispered.

The woman looked at Geena. “You really a preacher? You ain’t wearing a collar. You don’t look much like a holy roller.”

“I can assure you . . . I am an ordained minister.”

The woman hesitated, wavering. She turned to Bethany. “Your mother is a chronic schizophrenic.”

“What is that?” Bethany asked, confused. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Her brain is sick, baby.”

“It’s a mental disorder that makes it hard for the patient to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t,” Geena said.

“I don’t understand,” Bethany said, her voice gravelly and dry. “How does someone get schiz . . . schizo . . .”

“Schizophrenia,” Geena finished.

“Was my mother born that way? Had she always been sick?”

The caregiver glanced up and down the hall, then lowered her voice. “From what I heard about your mama, it started with acute schizophrenia when she was in her late teens, then it went on to chronic schizophrenia. She’s on some heavy antipsychotic meds. They help her with her hallucinations, long as she stays on it—and she can be tricky that way—but even on her best days, she can’t take care of herself and she can’t live on her own.” She started walking down the hall again and stopped in front of a door. “Baby, you look awful pale. Why do you want to do this?”

Bethany followed behind her. “I need to.”

“You sure you’re up for this?”

Bethany closed her eyes. Was she? She heard Jimmy’s voice:
You’ve come
this far. And you’re stronger than you think.
“Yes.”

The woman opened the door. “Mary, honey, you got some company.”

Bethany hesitated before she stepped toward the open door. It was a small room with a single bed, a nightstand, and a chair in the corner next to the window. Curled up in the chair was a small woman, staring out the window, her long dark hair pulled back severely into a ponytail.