The Fiction Class by Susan Breen

Author:Susan Breen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

FORTUNE (CONTINUED)

BY VERA HICKS

“Is it something bad?”

The words still echo in Joan’s head. There was the fear, the absolute certainty that the fortune-teller was going to tell her something bad. Something that would change her life.

“Is it something bad?” Joan asked.

“Listen, and I will tell you. I see a miracle here on your husband’s sixtieth birthday.”

“But a miracle is something unforeseen, something unplanned.”

“Unforeseen by you perhaps.”

Before she could say anything else, Danny stood up.That is the hardest part of the whole episode for Joan to remember. Danny standing. He has not stood in so long. He was tall, is tall, although stretched out on a bed is not the same thing.

“Friend,” he said, “I don’t like your attitude. It’s time for you to go.”

Joan had thought the fortune-teller might argue, but he did not. He did not seem to want to stay and did not seem overawed by what he had forecast. That made sense. He was a charlatan. He told all Americans about their miracles to drive them crazy.

It was his own way of protesting the hegemony of God’s country. And yet something about his words fit inside Joan like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle sliding into place. She could no more explain why any more than she could explain falling in love. She believed.

The very idea of it appealed to her. The suddenness of it, the violence of it. She read once about people who followed tornadoes, driving across the vastness of the Midwest waiting for the violence to erupt. She imagined the excitement and fear of spotting the twister. In the same way she expected the miracle to come with the sound of cracking and the smell of sulfur.

Danny’s illness, when it came years later, only confirmed her belief. She did not talk to him about it. She felt that would jinx it. But as she watched the paralysis creep over him as steadily as a plant absorbing water, his strong hands curl up, and his alert gaze turn to one of befuddlement, it seemed to her that the prospect of the miracle was the only thing that kept her sane.

There is a steady rhythm to her daughter’s eating that reminds Joan of a machine. Click, swish, click, swish. Joan has grown unused to such hard-edged sounds. It occurs to her that even the sounds of illness are different from those of real life. The sounds of illness are softer. They gurgle and suck and sink. Danny is sitting quietly, patiently, a polite smile on his face. A filet of sole lies in front of him bathed in a smooth white sauce.

Joan cuts a piece of the fish and puts it in Danny’s mouth. He chews it neatly. She is glad he does not drool or spit. She knows others can’t help it, but she finds it disgusting. She likes to think that Danny knows that and is making a real effort for her. She imagines he is trying to show her how much he still loves her, that every bit of spit he swallows is a sign of love.

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