The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (13 page)

When they were younger, their mother made lavender bread each spring. The delicate bread was Rose’s favorite. Before it finished cooling on the wire rack next to the oven, Rose would cut two large slices, one for her and one for Lily.

Each year, Rose said the same thing as she bit into the bread. “It tastes like love.”

That’s what they needed now, Lily thought. Something to remind them what they meant to each other. Something that hadn’t changed over the years. She went to the jars in which her mother had stored dried lavender. She opened the lid, praying Rose had continued the tradition.

She had. The sweet scent of lavender wafted out. The flowers were fresh, which was strange because it was early in the season, but Lily didn’t question her luck. She grabbed two white bowls and shook petals into one. Then she searched the refrigerator for a lemon and some milk.

Next she combined flour and sugar in the second bowl, then set it aside as she poured milk into a small saucepan and sprinkled the lavender petals over it. When the milk warmed, the lavender seeped through it, turning the mixture a soft purple. As Lily worked, she thought back to the last time she sat in this kitchen. It had been the morning she and Rose buried their parents.

THE DAY OF
the funeral, snow covered the ground. Lily stood at the graveside, trying not to stare at the two gaping holes, but looking elsewhere was worse. Rose bent forward like a tree snapped by the weight of ice. Antoinette shrieked at the falling snowflakes. Behind them stood a row of mourners.

Snow caught everywhere, on Lily’s hair, her eyelashes, her cheeks. It was obscenely beautiful, like standing inside of a snow globe. A minister she didn’t know stood at the head of the graves reading from the Bible.

Their parents had died in a car accident on their way to a flower growers’ convention in Missouri. Each time Lily closed her eyes, she pictured the accident. Her parents rounding a bend as they merged onto the expressway. Snow everywhere. Their wipers steady against the windshield but not fast enough to keep the snow from piling up.

A black Chevy Suburban sped up behind them. Horn blaring. Lights flashing. Crossing the yellow line to pass them.

Lily pictured her father hunched behind the wheel, murmuring, “Idiot.” The other driver was going too fast and started to spin.

Her father cut the steering wheel hard. Maybe he thought they would make it. But they turned sideways and slid into the SUV.

Her mother screamed. The windshield shattered, showering the interior of the car with tiny glass pebbles. A sharp crack as her father’s head snapped forward, hitting the steering wheel. The car rolled twice, and when it came to rest it was upside down, and her parents were dangling from their seatbelts like rag dolls. This was how Lily saw it in her mind, and she replayed it over and over.

Movement to Lily’s left caught her eye, and she shook her head to clear the image of her parents’ accident. She saw Antoinette flapping her hands and bouncing on her toes. Lily rearranged her face into a calm expression, hoping it masked the dread tiptoeing through her body.

Her last visit home had been in October. She and Rose had sat at the kitchen table while Antoinette stood in the corner, banging her head against the wall.

Rose bowed her head. “You were right. Something’s wrong.”

Lily stared at the little girl, and the urge to count grew until it burst out of her mouth. She counted each thump of Antoinette’s head. Out loud.

It continued until Rose carried Antoinette from the room, and Lily was finally able to stop.

After that, Lily stopped coming home. She had spent her adult life locking her idiosyncrasies inside and was afraid that if she spent more time with Antoinette she would start living her quirks out loud. Someday she might start counting and not be able to stop.

Everything threatened to unravel when Lily was around her niece, not because Antoinette was different—though she was—but because Lily felt she and Antoinette were so much alike it frightened her.

She remembered the conversation she and Rose had the morning of their parents’ funeral.

Rose had been shaking so hard her coffee cup rattled. She was thin, as if her skin were pulled too tight. “Please,” she begged. “Come home. I can’t run the farm and care for Antoinette by myself. I need your help.”

Lily opened her mouth to say yes. Sisters helped each other. She knew that. But when she looked at Antoinette, who sat under the table flapping her hands in front of her eyes, “I can’t” came out instead.

LILY WAS TAKING
the lavender bread from the oven and placing it on a cooling rack next to the sink when Rose padded into the kitchen. The room was stuffy from the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows, but Rose rubbed her arms as if she was cold. “How long did I sleep?” she asked. Against her pale skin, her blue eyes stood out even more.

“Just long enough.” Lily gestured toward the loaf. The sloped brown crust split open along the top to reveal a light purple middle. Perfect. She ran a knife along the edges to loosen the bread from the pan.

“You should’ve woken me. I would have helped.” Rose leaned over the bread, inhaling its aroma. “Reminds me of Mom. It’s almost as if she’s right here.”

“I thought we could have a picnic. Like we used to.” Lily flipped the pan upside down and twisted it to free the bread. For a moment they weren’t women who hadn’t spoken for years but girls holding a shared past.

“Except this time,” Rose said, “I won’t have to steal the bread from Mom.” When she smiled, the fatigue faded from her face.

Lily sliced the bread and packed it in a basket as Rose woke Antoinette. In minutes the three of them walked outside and into the house garden.

Their property was separated into six areas. Thirty acres were reserved for the commercial flower fields that produced most of their income. A small greenhouse and a drying barn sat a short walk from the farmhouse. The house itself was surrounded by an acre of private gardens. There was a kitchen garden that abutted the back porch, the night garden that occupied the west side of their property, and a walled house garden. The back of their land was wooded and a small creek ran through it. Seth’s property bordered theirs on the east, sharing a traditional white Kentucky board fence.

The house garden comprised several square flower beds, edged by clipped boxwoods. The beds were empty now, but in a few weeks lilacs and lilies, roses and lavender, would spring to life. A wisteria-draped gazebo stood in the middle of the garden. Large purple blossoms dripped from the latticework. Lily knew the vine shouldn’t be blooming yet, but somehow it was.

She stopped just inside the stone pillars that marked the entrance.

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked. Antoinette stuttered to a stop beside her.

“I forgot how beautiful everything is,” Lily said.

Rose looked at her daughter. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“I missed being here.” Lily looked down at Antoinette, and her stomach tightened. “She’s grown a lot.”

Antoinette bared her teeth and growled, and Lily stepped back. Then the girl stretched up on her toes, flapped her hands, and walked away. Her steps were slow and careful as she made her way around the garden.

“You’ll love her once you get to know her,” Rose said.

“I already do,” Lily said. It wasn’t a lie. She remembered holding Antoinette when she was only hours old. The little girl had curled into Lily as if she was someone safe.

Love had never been the problem.

Lily spread one of their mother’s quilts over a patch of fresh grass in the middle of the garden and they sat down. Kentucky springs were volatile. Evenings could be cold enough for winter coats. Afternoons could be so hot the flowers wilted. Some years, snow piled up on the ground until May.

This April was hot. The heat made Lily’s shirt stick to her back. She plucked at it and fanned her face with her hand. “Is everything this difficult for her?” she asked.

“A year ago things weren’t so bad. Lately, though . . .” Rose called to Antoinette, but the little girl ignored her. “She’s stubborn.”

“Like every other Martin,” Lily said. Now that they were together, she didn’t know what to say. She tried to sit still, but anxiety made her fidget. A purple thread was loose on the quilt. She wound it around her finger.

Rose gave a small laugh. “I guess so.” Then her voice softened. “Her seizures are getting worse. And she’s so frustrated . . .”

Lily watched Antoinette. Sometimes the girl squatted and pushed her hands into the dirt. Then, just as quickly, she’d remove her hands and continue on her course.

“How much does she understand?” Lily asked. She counted as she watched Antoinette walk. Each time the girl put her foot down, Lily mouthed a number.

“All of it. She might not look or act like other kids, but she understands everything.”

“She knows what’s happening to you?” Lily kept picking at the loose thread. Her mother had made the quilt for her before she left for college. Purple lilies and pink roses twined around the edges. “So you’ll feel at home wherever you are,” her mother had said. Yet here she was, home but not
home
. For the first time in her life, she felt awkward around Rose.

“She does,” Rose said. “I wish she didn’t.”

Lily gathered her courage and asked the question she had wanted to ask since she first arrived. “How much time do you have?” The words sounded cruel, and immediately she wished she could take them back, but she needed to know.

Rose stared at Antoinette. The little girl was at the gazebo. She placed her foot on the bottom step then removed it. She repeated the motion four times. It looked like she wanted to climb the stairs but didn’t know how. “Not nearly long enough,” Rose said. “Six months. Probably less.”

Lily felt like she was falling. She ran the numbers. Six months. One hundred eighty-two days.
Probably less.

Why hadn’t she come home sooner? She and Rose had lost so much time.

“My heart is weakening. It can’t pump enough blood through my body. My lungs are filling up with fluid.” Rose’s tone was so matter of fact that it sounded like she was rattling off a grocery list, not describing the way her heart was shutting down. “The worst part is needing someone to care for Antoinette. She comes with extra . . . complications.”

Lily pulled the thread tighter around her finger. “Has it been hard?” How silly. Of course it had been hard. One look at Antoinette and anyone could see that.

Antoinette heaved herself onto the gazebo’s bottom step. She clamped her fist around the wood railing and hopped up and down.

“When she was younger,” Rose said, “Antoinette climbed those stairs twenty times a day. She’d get to the top, then turn around and start down again. Over and over. It was exhausting. I tried to make her quit, but she screamed each time I picked her up.

“Then one day, she just stopped. We came out here, but instead of climbing the stairs she locked her knees and refused to move.

“I felt overwhelmed. I wanted to talk to you about everything. About nothing. Some days I just wanted to hear your voice.” Rose spread her fingers wide and put her hand down in the grass, moving it back and forth.

“I tried to call you so many times,” Rose said. “I’d have the phone in my hand, ready to punch in your number, but I was afraid. I hung up every time.”

“Why?” Lily asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong—”

“I did. I was a single mom with a bad heart and a special-needs kid. After Mom and Dad died . . .” She leaned back. Her short hair fell in messy spikes around her face. “Being mad at you was easier than dealing with everything else. Plus, I needed help, and I was afraid to ask you again. Now I don’t have a choice.

“Seth is here, and Antoinette loves him. He’s been a father to her, but he’s not
you
.” Rose’s eyes looked tired, as if decades had passed instead of only six years. “I don’t have time to worry about the choices I’ve made in the past. I miss you. You’re the only family Antoinette has left. Will you help me this time?”

Lily didn’t say anything. She was afraid she would open her mouth and the wrong words would fall out again. Instead, she reached into the basket and held up a piece of lavender bread. She handed it to Rose, hoping that one act spoke for her.

Rose took a bite and looked up. “Funny,” she said. “It still tastes like love.”

ROSE’S JOURNAL

December 2006

THE WAITING ROOM
at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics is too small. Children are everywhere. Some shove beads through a wire maze bolted to the floor in the center of the room. Others bounce on their toes, hands curled against their shoulders, as if afraid to touch anything. One boy stands in the corner, banging his head against the wall while a woman—his mother?—tries to hold him still.

I can’t watch.

Antoinette sits on the chair next to me, bouncing. Her small green coat is folded over the armrest. She is three and a half. Her feet don’t reach the floor. To bounce, she pushes against the armrests, lifting herself out of the seat. Then she lets go. Gravity does the rest.