Looking for Miracles
“We’ll find out. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Carrie held his hand and craned her neck over the crowd. “You see anything?”
Mike’s vantage point was better, but he still had no indication of where Kenny and Rosa might have taken their precious cargo. “Nothing yet. Let’s ask at the desk.”
“Yeah, she just made it.” The triage nurse came around the counter and went down to Tyler’s height. “You have a very pretty baby sister. Of course she might look all red and squashy to you, but she looks pretty good to Mom right now. If you wait about twenty minutes more, we’ll get you back there to see her, once we clean them both up.”
Tyler’s brow wrinkled. “How’d they get dirty?”
The nurse laughed. “Well, they didn’t, exactly. But being born is pretty messy.” She looked at Carrie and Mike. “Maybe one of your friends can take you to look at the vending machines while we let your mom know you’re here.”
“Cool. Do they have candy bars?” Tyler looked around for the machines.
“They sure do. And really good chips.” Carrie led him to the small room off the hallway where the machines were. Naturally she’d take the easy part. Mike straightened up.
“Guess that means I’m going back with Mrs. Harper. You say she had a girl?”
The nurse nodded. “At least eight pounds. And she really is pretty. I wasn’t lying to her brother. Rough way to start out life, though.”
Lori looked beautiful but frail propped up in her hospital bed holding a very new baby. They were an oasis of calm in the emergency room. Only a curtain separated the bay that held mother and child from organized chaos on either side of them. Mike hadn’t looked in the other cubicles, but one seemed to be occupied by someone elderly and quite deaf, while the other seemed to hold a brace of wildcats, or maybe just an unhappy toddler and mother.
Lori looked up from the bundle in her arms. “Hi. You made it. Isn’t she something?” Her smile was touched with exhaustion. “I’m still figuring out what to call her. Gary was so sure this was going to be a boy. He said it would be Gary, Jr., this time. I can’t think of any way to make Gary into a girl’s name though.”
Mike shook his head. He had no idea what to say to this lady. “Nothing comes to mind right away. Carrie’s out getting Tyler a candy bar. The nurses wanted us to hold off bringing him back for a few minutes, give you some more rest time.”
Lori smiled again wanly. “Good. I have a feeling rest is going to be in very short supply in a little while. Once they figure out we’re both okay, we’ll probably go home. With no insurance, they won’t keep us long.”
“No insurance? Didn’t your husband leave you anything? What about Medicaid? Something?”
Lori’s eyes clouded. “He hadn’t been at his job that long. Gary’s boss said we wouldn’t be qualified for health insurance until he’d been there for a year anyway and even then not for a baby that was already on the way. Said it was one of those ‘preexisting conditions’ all the insurance companies talk about.”
Mike suspected that whatever Harper was doing in Friedens, Missouri, it hadn’t been the kind of job that came with a medical plan. Meth labs were a little short on benefits. Still, now wasn’t the time to bring any of that up. Lori Harper didn’t seem to know much about what her husband had really done for a living. There would be plenty of time to break the bad news to her later.
Right now it was time to admire the baby. That was easy to do. She was fairly red and squashy, but she looked a whole lot better than most newborns Mike had seen. At least this one had open eyes of that fuzzy indeterminate blue most newborns sported. And she had hair. Squiffs of blond fuzz poked up all over her head.
She was quiet, too. Mike expected her to be squalling, but the baby was making little noises, most of which sounded fairly content. As if to jinx him once he thought that, her small face screwed up, flushing and ready for a howl. “What’s the matter?”
Her mother smiled. “Nothing. She’s probably just tired and hungry. So if you don’t mind…” She looked at him pointedly. Mike could feel himself turning all kinds of colors once he realized what she was asking.
“I’ll be outside here if you need me for anything.” It was all he could choke out as he retreated.
The baby’s howling stopped almost as soon as he was on the other side of the curtain. Mike fought not to entertain any picture whatsoever of the scene that created the quiet. As he struggled with his thoughts he saw two young men dressed in scrubs rolling a gurney off the elevator and into the E.R.
They rolled it up to the nurses’ station, which was empty. Looking around, one of them spotted a very young woman rushing by. “We’re here to transfer Harper up to the maternity floor.”
He wasn’t very quiet, and his partner was even louder. “Yeah, I heard this one was related to that drug dealer we had in August. The one that took the methedrine plunge…”
The young nurse’s aide, or whatever she was, finally got the jerk quieted down. Mike steeled himself for what he would find behind the curtain. Maybe they’d been granted a little miracle and Lori would be so wound up in her beautiful new daughter that she hadn’t heard what went on.
He couldn’t imagine that was true. “Mike?” Her voice was choked and faint.
The baby was still nursing under a white cotton blanket. Lori’s shaking arms could barely hold her. “I wasn’t supposed to hear that, was I?”
“Hear what?” He could try to brazen it out for a little while.
“That bit about another Harper. A drug dealer. Again? But he told me he was going straight this time. That he was doing a real job for honest money.” Her lips tightened into a thin, white line. Her eyes were huge. “Is that why his boss was so strange? And there was nobody at the funeral?”
Mike came over to her side. He couldn’t watch her tremble alone anymore. He put one arm around her shaking one, supporting the baby. “I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.”
“Even out at the trailer, I could tell that. You and Carrie knew something you weren’t saying in front of Tyler. Does everybody else in Friedens know this for a fact?”
Mike told her softly, and as gently as possible, what he knew. “Talk around the department was that he was dealing. Maybe even manufacturing.”
Lori’s expression hardened. “So that drug-informant part of what he told me about being relocated… It wasn’t true, was it?”
“It might have been.” Mike didn’t want to lie to her, but keeping hope in a dead man didn’t feel much like a lie. The baby made a little sighing, gulping noise. “Do you want help shifting her around?”
“No, I can manage. I think you can let go now.” Lori looked down at his arm, stretched the length of hers. Mike was aware of how soft she was, how fine boned. Her elbow fit in his cupped hand with so much room left over. He let go and looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry that he died, or sorry you had to be the one to tell me the truth about him?” Lori’s voice was sharp. Mike looked back into her face. “That wasn’t real nice, I know. But I also know that Gary wasn’t a real model citizen in the county. We didn’t exactly have a welcoming committee beating a path to our door when we moved in.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still sorry he’s gone. No matter what he did for a living. I mean, he was probably a good daddy, and now—”
“Don’t go there.” Lori’s voice was still sharp. “If I’m truthful with myself, he was an awful father. He never knew what to do with Tyler, and a new baby wouldn’t have made any difference. Finding out about her was probably what made him turn to the drug thing again. It seemed to be the only way he knew how to make money.”
Lori’s tough facade couldn’t last. Mike told himself that, and as he did, he watched her crumble. Her arms beneath the baby shook, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?”
Suddenly everything caught up with her and she lost what little color she had as silent tears coursed down her cheeks. Mike had no idea what to do besides sit there and pat her arm. He hoped that was okay, because it was the only thing he could do. So for a while they all sat quietly.
The baby nursed. Lori wept. Mike patted her arm. Both of the adults were conscious of the presence of the two young men with the gurney, just beyond the cloth divider. Even this little oasis of calm they had created wouldn’t last long. As the last of the calm there trickled away, Mike heard the echoes of Lori’s wail in his mind. What were they going to do? The thought of leaving this young woman alone to deal with whatever fate handed her was unthinkable.
Now the pittance the department had scraped together for Christmas wasn’t enough. For a brave young widow with a five-year-old, it might have been. But not now. Not with this baby, and Lori’s new knowledge of her desperate situation. The moment Tyler Harper had opened the door and let Mike into his home, he was hooked. And even for a problem this size, he intended to be part of the solution.
Chapter Three
It took Lori about an hour to get settled in her room on the maternity floor. Brisk nurses whisked her daughter away to be washed, weighed, measured and looked after. Once the baby was out of her arms, Lori sank back into the bed pillows. She was too exhausted and confused to think. Her body ached for a hot shower, but she knew what the nurses would say to that.
She should be making phone calls. But to who? How long would it be until someone told her she had to leave the hospital? “I asked for a miracle,” she reminded God out loud. Maybe this looked like a miracle on the other side of heaven, but it sure didn’t look like one from under a white cotton blanket in a hospital bed.
Lori let the crisp sheets and firm pillows envelop her. Okay, time to take stock. There were miracles here. She’d had the baby in the hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, instead of alone in the trailer or in the ambulance on the road. And her daughter was beautiful and healthy, as far as Lori could see.
So the immediate past was full of miracles. As for the near future, Lori wasn’t so sure. She felt very fragile just now. Where was her hope right now?
She let out a little laugh. Hope? That was all she could have right now, wasn’t it? There certainly wasn’t any money around. Or much solid that she could put her hands on. There was a rickety trailer whose rent was paid for maybe two more months. And a rattletrap heap of a car Gary’s former employer had been bullied into signing over the title on. Maybe that was her ticket out of this mess, at least for the time being.
Lori dreaded going back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere. It was bad enough when Gary had come home almost every night bringing groceries and bits of the outside world. The last few months had been awful. Now with a new baby, it would be horrible with no other adults, no phone…
A shudder ran through her body. Lori covered her face with her hands, fighting sobs. Was there any hope for the future? As if to answer, a woman walked through the door of the room, pushing a cart. In a plastic bassinet on the cart was the most beautiful baby Lori had ever seen. It was her baby. “Isn’t she gorgeous? What’s her name?”
“Mikayla Hope.” The words popped out before Lori could stop them. The little girl looked pleased with her name somehow. She knew that babies less than a day old didn’t smile. But this one seemed to if you looked just right. And nestled back in Lori’s arms with the help of the woman, who brought her into the room, she was a warm, welcome weight.
She smelled of mild soap, fresh cotton and some magical scent all her own. “Mikayla Hope,” Lori whispered in her ear. The velvet warmth of the baby’s face was overpowering. Here was her little miracle.
As if on cue Tyler burst into the room, followed by Carrie. “Hey, there’s our baby. And she’s not dirty at all,” he said, crowding up to the bed. “What’s her name, Mama?”
“This is Mikayla Hope. Come up and see her. Gently.” Tyler scrambled onto the bed. He reached out one hand and stroked the baby’s cheek.
“Hi, Mikayla. I’m Tyler. I’m your big brother.” His voice was soft. “She feels good.”
“I’ll bet she does.” Carrie pulled up the bedside chair. “Mikayla Hope, huh? Does a certain someone know about the Mikayla part?”
“Not yet. I just found out myself.” Carrie’s look was one of pure confusion, and Lori hastened to explain. “The nurse asked what her name was, and the words just came out. But it’s perfect. I can’t see her being anybody else, can you?”
Carrie peered over at the swaddled baby. “I don’t know. I think she looks like Mr. Peanut in that wrapping. Or I guess Ms. Peanut. What do you think, Tyler?”
“Ms. Peanut!” How could Carrie say that about her beautiful baby?
“Sure.” Carrie stifled a giggle, although the stifling wasn’t very successful. “Look at her, all wrapped in that blanket. She looks just like a little peanut. No arms, no legs, just a cute little face for one half and…”
“All right, have it your way.” Lori couldn’t help laughing with Carrie. Tyler got into the act, too, chortling while he put a finger into his sister’s fist.
“Look, Mama. She’s holding on already. Isn’t she smart?”
“Smarter than the rest of us. She’s going to sleep while she has the chance.” Lori looked over at Carrie. “You want to take her and put her in her bassinet?”
Sheer panic flashed across Carrie’s face. “Me? Take her all the way across the room?”
“I think you’re up to it.” Lori lifted her right elbow, lifting Mikayla’s head as well with her gesture. “She won’t break.”
Carrie swallowed hard. “If you say so. How do I settle her in that thing?”
“On her back. Just ease your arm out from under there when you get ready to put her down.”
Carrie spoke through gritted teeth. “Easy for you to say. I know she’s going to wake up when I put her down. Oh, see…” The baby startled a little, then went straight back to sleep. “Okay, maybe not. Maybe I can do this.” There was a note of incredulity in Carrie’s voice.
“Sure you can. Now come back here and tell me some stuff about what I do next. How much does Tyler know?”
The little boy looked up from where he was driving an imaginary car through the hills and valleys created by Lori’s legs under the blanket. “I know lots. What do you want me to know?”
Carrie shook her head. “About his sister, plenty. About the other situation, nothing. And nobody’s going to tell him anything, either. Do you have any idea why Mike and I went out there?”
“Not a clue.” Lori took a deep breath, trying to sort things out in her mind. “There wasn’t more trouble somehow, was there?”
“Just the opposite. The guys do something for Christmas every year, and well, your name came up. I guess Mike and me were the ones who got to…”
“Play Santa Claus.” So that was why the silly dog was wearing antlers, poor thing. “But I can’t take anything else. That would be worse than ever. Or will it be more paperwork for you if I turn this down?”
Carrie looked skyward. “Don’t even remind me. Sitting in this hospital room is far more pleasant and entertaining than starting my reports.”
“Well, don’t get too comfortable. I don’t expect to be here too long.” Lori told her about her situation—the lack of insurance and money needed to stay in the hospital. As she talked, Carrie looked more and more grim.
“That isn’t right. I bet there’s somebody I can talk to and get that straightened out. Maybe even Mike. I think his mom’s on the hospital board.”
Carrie was out of her chair quickly. She might not be confident of her baby-holding skills, but she showed great self-confidence in other areas. Lori wished she could think that fast on her feet.
“No, really, don’t do that.” Didn’t she owe Mike enough already? No sense in being beholden to him for one more thing she couldn’t pay back.
Carrie wasn’t listening. She was already out the door. Tyler pulled on Lori’s sleeve. “Mama? Do we have movies? I’m sleepy. Can we watch movies in bed together and take a nap?”
“I’ll find out.” Lori pushed the call button, preparing herself for the storm that would envelop her when the nurse found out she had a five-year-old for company in her hospital room with no one to take care of him. Maybe nearly giving birth in an ambulance would be the easiest part of her day after all.
“Okay, it’s all fixed…” Mike came into the room talking. He stopped once he crossed the threshold and noticed that nobody was listening to him. Lori and Tyler were both on the bed, cuddled together and asleep. A video played on the TV, sending bright, cheerful cartoon music into the room. A few feet from the bed the top of a swaddled bundle rose and fell in a hospital bassinet.
Mike walked over to look at the baby. She was so beautiful. He saw the card for her name had been filled out at the bottom of the bassinet. Mikayla Hope. Ouch. Why did Lori have to saddle such a beautiful baby with that first name? He wasn’t even sure he liked Michael after all these years. It still felt funny much of the time, as if it ought to be something else that was just beyond the tip of his tongue.
He’d talked about changing his name as a teenager, but his mom had protested. Every teenager hated their name. And everyone that changed it legally had regrets, according to her. Maybe she was right. When he thought about his high school classmates, almost all of them had reverted to their given names by their recent ten-year reunion. All but Sunshine Feathers. And he couldn’t blame her a bit.
There was noise behind him. Mike turned around to see Tyler slip off the bed. “Hey, Mike. That’s my baby sister. That’s Mikayla Hope.”
“I see.” Mike motioned to the name tag on the end of the bed. “Her name’s written right here.”
“Yeah? That says Mikayla Hope? Cool. Does it say anything about me?” Tyler looked at the card. “I don’t think so, ’cause I don’t see a big T anyplace.”
“You know your name starts with that big T. Pretty smart guy.” Mike ruffled the kid’s blond hair. It felt good under his hand, almost as good as Lori’s would feel. He pulled back his hand. Now why was he making that comparison? He had no right to put a hand in Lori Harper’s hair. He would never have that right. No sense in even thinking about it.
“Hey, you guys, don’t wake her up,” came a sleepy voice from the bed.
“Don’t worry. I know that much.” Mike crossed the room and sat in the bedside chair. Tyler launched himself onto Mike’s lap. “So how’s the patient?”
“Good, I think. I needed the sleep. What time is it?”
“A little after one. You hungry?”
Lori nodded. “Starved. I don’t know if I could really eat if there was food in front of me, but I’m starved. Does that make any sense?”
“It does, actually. I can remember times after a fire when I was so hungry, I couldn’t think straight. I also didn’t have the energy to lift a burger to my mouth once I stopped for one. And I imagine giving birth is a lot harder than putting out a fire.”
Lori laughed. “I don’t know about that. It is plenty of work. Is that what you do? Work for fire-and-rescue?”
“Only volunteer. Dogg and I are part of the search team when they need us. Mostly he chases goats and I help manage the family property rental business.”
“Oh.”
“I know. It doesn’t have nearly the excitement level as putting out fires. But that’s okay most of the time.”
Lori colored. “I didn’t mean to put down the family business…”
“Good, because I think it’s about to come in handy. I don’t think you’re going to have to go back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m not? Why?” She sat up straighter. Great. She was going to argue with him.
“Because I’ve got a better idea, and I’m sure it will be okay with my mother. She’s the other half of the property business. When I tell her I found the right client for the property she’s most finicky about, she’ll thank me.”
“Not when you tell her the client can’t pay any rent.” Lori’s chin stuck out defiantly. “I can’t let you do this.”
“And I can’t let you go back to that place alone with no phone, a five-year-old and a day-old baby.” Mike tried to keep from shouting. Surely she would listen to reason.
“You can, and will, let me do anything I want. It’s not like you’re responsible for me or anything.”
“I feel like I am.” Why did she have to be so defensive? Why couldn’t she just thank him and be grateful? “Besides, this is property that adjoins our home. A lot of times we’ve rented it out to somebody who either farms a chunk of ground behind both places where my mom doesn’t run her goofy herd of Nubian goats, or who can come in and do some of the heavy cleaning and stuff.”
Lori brightened. “Well, I don’t know a thing about farming, but I sure can clean.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Not for a month or two anyway.”
Lori laughed at him. “A month or two! Do you really think giving birth is that strenuous?”
Mike felt himself blushing. “I don’t know. On TV and in the movies, the women always look so fragile, and lie in bed…”
“Not me, my friend. I’m too young to do that.”
“And too alone.”
Lori shook her head. “No, not alone. The Lord is always with me.”
Mike just barely controlled a snort of derision. “Some help He is. If it was up to the Lord you would have given birth in that trailer with Tyler for company.”
“Nah…” Tyler’s answer surprised him. Mike had forgotten the boy on his lap was probably paying attention to the conversation. “Remember what I told you? Mom said you were her miracle. That means God sent you, silly. He doesn’t leave us alone, right, Mom?”
Lori smiled. Mike kept the rest of his opinions to himself on the subject. All he knew is that if God had sent Lori Harper a miracle, He would have done a lot better than him. “Whatever. Can I really not convince you to move in to the house next door to ours?”
Lori’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “It’s tempting. I don’t really want to go back out to the middle of nowhere, especially now. And I could do that heavy cleaning you talked about, probably by next week.”
“Oh, no. We’re not going to go there for a while. Just having somebody in the house will make Mom feel better. She is sure somebody’s going to break in over there when it’s empty. Kids partying or something.”
“And a widow with two babies is so much better than kids partying.”
Tyler looked up. “I’m not a baby. An’ what’s a widow?”
Lori got paler and swallowed hard. “Oh, boy. Here comes the hard part. Ty, come up here on my bed, okay?”
“Okay.” He slid off Mike’s lap, taking his warmth with him. Mike didn’t know what to do next. Did he stay, to give Lori support? Or would it be better if he slipped out of the room to let her do this alone? He tried to convey his confusion without saying anything. Lori wasn’t watching. She was reaching out a hand to stroke her son’s blond hair.
“He looks so grown up after the baby. But not grown up enough for this.” There was a pain in the depth of her eyes that Mike could only imagine.
Is this what his mother’s face had looked like when she broke similar news to him? He hadn’t been much older than Tyler when his dad died.
“Mind if I stick around?” It took him a moment to force out the words. “I kind of have some experience here. From Tyler’s perspective.”
“How old were you?”
“Six.” It all came rushing back. At least Tyler wouldn’t have the guilt Mike had borne for years. At six he was sure he’d killed his own father. It had taken years more maturity than a first grader possessed to know that his father’s fatal heart attack hadn’t been Mike’s fault.
Tyler cocked his head. He was an astute little kid, and he knew something was going on. “Where’s Daddy? When we looked at that place where some of the new babies were, when Carrie was bringing me up here, there were some other kids looking. They were all looking with their dads.”
“That’s what we need to talk about.” Lori stroked his hair again. “Remember when Carrie came this summer? With the truck and the other guy?”