The Probability of Miracles (29 page)

A piece of white feathery fluff drifted down from the sky, followed by another.

Cam held out her hands to catch some in her palm. It was bitingly cold. “I think it's snowing,” she said, but even she didn't quite believe it.

“It's July, Campbell.”

“Look!”

He looked up and squinted at the sky. Fluffy flakes the size of sand dollars were falling softly and straight down because there was no wind. They formed a sheer curtain in front of the fiery sunset. Already a half an inch covered the surface of the boat.

Cam scooped some up and made a snowball to throw at Asher. He threw back until they ran out of snow. It was surreal. Cam looked to the shore of the cove, where the snow had collected in downy puffs at the ends of the pine branches. A heron took flight to escape the cold.

“The flamingos!” she cried, suddenly remembering.

“What about them?”

“They'll die if their pond freezes over. We need to get them out of here!”

Cam stood behind Asher with her arm around his waist as he sped the boat, pounding violently over the waves, back to Smitty's dock. The snowflakes, like big butterflies now, splashed her in the face as they went.

He quickly tied up and covered the boat and grabbed some big boots. “We'll need these,” he said as they dashed to her car.

Just as Elaine had predicted, the flamingos simply stood there shivering in the snow. Most of them had tucked their heads into their feathers to shield their faces from the wind, like ostriches burying their heads in the sand. The water around their ankles was just beginning to solidify into a thin film of ice.

“Come on!” Asher said, and he started running toward them, flapping his arms and squawking, trying to get them to take flight. Cam was about to follow him, but she couldn't because she was too busy doubling over in laughter.

“Come on!” he yelled. “You're the one who said we should do this.”

“I'm sorry. You just look so funny. Okay.” Cam took a deep breath. “Here I come.” She donned her boots and ran out into the mud, flapping her arms and yelling as well. A few of the birds removed their heads from their feathers, looking at her curiously. They paced nervously, but none of them took off in flight. Cam kept circling the perimeter. “Which way is south?” she yelled to Asher. “We should guide them toward the south.”

“How should I know?” He was walking now, trying to shoo the birds with an underhand sweep of both arms.

“Use your nautical instincts,” Cam said, and she ran again straight at another clump of them. Her boot stuck in the mud, and she fell flat on her face into the brown sticky muck. Now it was Asher's turn to laugh. She was completely brown, as if someone had dipped her front side in chocolate.

When Cam finally peeled herself out of the mud, she was directly eye level with Buddy, who was still sitting on his stump.
This is why they won't go
, she thought. Buddy's mother was standing directly over him, reaching her long neck down to anxiously peck at him. Trying to get him to fly, perhaps? But he didn't yet have wing feathers.

“I've got him,” Cam said to the mother. “Don't worry. I'll take care of him.” She tiptoed closer and tried not to startle the mother bird. She had learned from Animal Planet about the protective instincts of mother birds. She also knew that once she touched the baby, the mother would abandon him forever. What she didn't know was whether Elaine had the wherewithal to take care of a baby flamingo, but she would have to take the chance. It helped that she now smelled entirely like flamingo poop.

She snuck up behind Buddy, trying to walk gawkily like a flamingo with her head jutting forward. Then she scooped him up and cradled him in her right arm, defending herself from the mother's wild attack with her left. The mother flapped and kicked and pecked Cam in the head with her beak.

“Asher, help!” she yelled. But he was laughing again, and all he could do was say, “Run!”

Cam ran toward the fence with Buddy tucked under her arm like a football. The mother chased after her, on foot at first, and then she spread her wings. With two flaps, she took flight. A squawking chatter spread through the entire flock, and then they alighted in orderly rows, following the lead of Buddy's mother, an enormous pink cloud of feathers drifting upward through the snow.

It took ten minutes for the entire flock to float overhead. Cam let herself wonder for a second if they had indeed been a sign. What if they had come there for her? Maybe the big universe unfolder in the sky was folding her life into a neat origami swan instead of crumpling it up into a ball and tossing it unfinished into the wastepaper basket like she was a big cosmic mistake. Maybe she would live for just a little bit longer.

She closed her eyes and tried to envision it. The bricks of Harvard Yard, the color of Boston's beloved baked beans. Asher walking around Cambridge in his flip-flops. Studying with her on her narrow dorm room bed. Drinking pints with new friends in ancient low-ceilinged pubs.

She took a deep breath. “We did it,” she said.

“We did,” Asher agreed. He took her hand in his as the last of the birds faded out in the distance, a pink-and-black undulating quilt of flamingo stitched together by sparkling bits of sky.

“I BROUGHT YOU A PEACE OFFERING,” CAM SAID AS SHE WALKED INTO Elaine's mudroom.

“Cam?” asked Elaine.

“And Asher,” Asher called.

Cam was afraid to face Elaine alone. She hadn't spoken to her since the donkey incident, and she wasn't sure if Elaine had cooled off yet. James Madison had thankfully recovered and was standing in his corral, dressed in a navy blue blanket to shield him from the snow.

“Oh, my goodness, Cam, let me get you some clothes. Stay there.”

Elaine returned with a huge red PROMISE JAMBOREE 1993 sweatshirt that she said Cam could wear as a dress. “What is that smell? God, maybe you should take it outside.”

And just like that, Cam was forced to take another one of those frigid outdoor showers, while Asher broke the news to Elaine about Buddy. At least it had stopped snowing. It felt good to get clean, and Cam let Buddy join her. He took a birdbath, splashing and shaking his little self in the puddle at her feet. “Oh, Buddy,” said Cam. “What are we going to do with you?”

Asher was waiting for her in the mudroom when she came back inside. She wore her sweatshirt dress tied around the middle with his belt.

“You look gorgeous.”

“It's nice. It has an eighties
Flashdance
thing going on,” she said, and she pulled it down over one shoulder.

“I know. I wasn't joking,” he said.

Buddy had already taken to following Cam as if she were his bird mother. She turned to look at him walking down the hallway behind her. He looked really happy, flopping his big webbed feet down one after another like a strange upright duck.

“Elaine, meet Buddy. Buddy, Elaine,” Cam said when she entered the kitchen. Elaine was sitting in the built-in pine breakfast nook, blowing on her cup of hot chocolate. She had set two other mugs on the table for Asher and Cam.

“What am I going to do with a Buddy?” Elaine asked.

“I thought you could keep him here until he can fly south,” Cam said. “We had to shoo the flamingos. Not like you shoe horses, shoe, I mean like we had to shoo them like you shoo flies, shoo.”

“I know what you meant, but unless one of you is willing to eat some shrimp and throw it up for him, I don't know how we're going to feed him.”

Cam and Asher were silent.

“Well, I'm thinking we could call the zoo in Portland and find out what they feed their baby flamingos . . . or something,” she suggested.

“What happened to flowers or a box of chocolates?” asked Elaine. “You steal my donkey and then to apologize you bring me a flamingo?”

“He's irresistible, though,” Asher said, lifting Buddy onto his lap and pretending to squeeze his cheeks. “Look at that face.”

“He is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.”

“I know,” said Asher, “but he's one of God's creatures.”

“Oh, my God, fine,” said Elaine. “I'll figure it out, Campbell, but you need to help me.”

“Is it okay if I start next week?” Cam asked. “This week, I'm taking Asher on a trip.”

“No, you're not,” said Asher, stiffening in his chair.

“I didn't know Asher went on trips,” Elaine said, intrigued.

“We're going to Disney World. You'll like it there,” said Cam. “It's another ‘Magic Kingdom.'” The idea had been seeded, and now it was growing like a plant in her mind. She wanted to prove to him that he could leave. He could leave, and the world would not fall apart. He needed to know that he didn't have to stay here picking up the pieces like Jimmy Stewart in
It's a Wonderful Life
. She was going to shoo him like she had the flamingos.

“That's nice, but how are you going to get him on a plane?” asked Elaine.

“I don't do planes, Cam Chowda,” said Asher.

“We can work on that,” said Cam. “What's with the Cam Chowda?”

“Just testing it out.”

“I don't like it.”

“How 'bout just Clam? Or Clampbell?”

“Absolutely not.”

Alicia was not on board with the Disney idea either.

“Absolutely not,” she said as she banged a kitchen cabinet shut. “Are you kidding me?”

“It's entirely free. From Make-A-Wish. We can't look a gift horse in the mouth. And you could visit Izanagi.”

“Campbell. Look at you. You're living a normal life for once. Your energy is back. Your skin is clearing up. You're eating, working a summer job—dare I say, falling in love? Why would you want to jeopardize that? It's been so nice to see your smile.”

“How am I jeopardizing anything? If Promise has done this, it will still work when we get back.”

“If you leave, you'll have to start all over when you get back. You'll undo everything. What if you break the spell?” Alicia leaned with one arm on the kitchen counter. With the other hand, she pretended to smoke a plastic drinking straw.

Cam was starting to make her own rules about the magic, or whatever it was. She would go to Disney because the Make-A-Wish letter was a sign. It was showing her what to do next. She wasn't going to get addicted to Promise and let the town develop the crazy grip on her that it had on Asher.

She tried to see her mother's point of view. She knew the story. “My only job is to keep you alive, Campbell,” Alicia had said. “That's my primary responsibility as your mother.” So far, she had protected Cam from crib death, choking hazards, drowning in the bathtub, strangling in the cords from the blinds, being scalded by water from teakettles, getting hit by a car, drinking bleach, falling out the window, being kidnapped, and diving into shallow water. She thought she was in the clear. The only thing left on her danger radar was a drunk-driving accident on the way home from the prom. She didn't expect to be blindsided by this illness. And she was powerless against it. It was difficult for Alicia, Cam knew. But somehow she also knew that she was going to do this anyway. She wanted to honor Lily's final request and show Asher where she came from.