“There now,” he said, taking her hands into his own. “Breathe. Go slow, and start at the beginning.”
Joan was sixteen when she led France out of English rule and was martyred. Agatha, fifteen, rejected the advances of a lower-born and had her breasts sliced off. Maria Goretti got stabbed to death for the same. Lucy lost her eyes. How dare she be so afraid when her sisters had gone before her and showed bravery in the face of true danger? This was nothing. Have courage, Francesca! She said this to herself, but maybe it was someone else who said it. She couldn’t be sure.
“Francesca?”
Francesca shuddered and gazed up through her lashes. “This isn’t about Connie.”
“I got that. Then what is it about?”
She held Mr. Falso’s eyes as she spread open her palms slowly, white flowers blooming with blood. He looked down and gasped. Francesca’s wounds had bled through her bandages.
“Did you do this to yourself?”
Francesca shook her head and smiled gloriously. “It just came.”
He dropped his head again and stared. Francesca studied the swirls in his hair, admired their pattern and gloss. A minute passed. It was wonderful, to be held like this. It felt right. She breathed in soap and scalp and something woodsy. He closed her fists and disappeared, and her heart skipped faster until he returned with cotton, a brown medicinal bottle, a clean rag and fresh bandages, setting them on the table and turning to wash his hands in the sink. The only sound was the tight whine of the still-new faucet and his hands as they rubbed together vigorously, like a doctor, Francesca thought. He dried them with a paper towel and sat in his chair, straight-backed, his thighs flexed aggressively.
He drew her right hand to his chest. “May I?”
Francesca felt a liquid rush. She knew it was love. Not the kind that Connie declared for boy bands. Or the hidden kind that Mira felt for the damaged boy next door. This was real love, the kind grownups felt for one another. Francesca knew the difference now, and at the same time, a desperate pang struck her belly, and she sensed that this love she felt was a one-shot deal.
Francesca whispered yes and tried to still herself. Mr. Falso squared his shoulders before he pinched the edge of the bandage, peeling slowly. Francesca could barely sit still.
He froze. “Am I hurting you?”
The effort to remain still drove her to tears. Smiling, doll-eyed, she shook her head.
He blew pufferfish lips. “Good. Okay, here I go.” One bandage came off, then the other, fast. The exposed wounds felt wet and vulnerable, and she pulled away, but Mr. Falso held her wrists firm, his dark head tipped over the perfectly formed holes. Francesca’s stomach twisted and she closed her eyes, calming herself with his mossy scent.
“Amazing,” Mr. Falso whispered. He turned them over, front to back. “How long ago did you say it started?”
“Three weeks ago. Yesterday. Three weeks ago yesterday.”
“There isn’t the slightest clotting or scabbing over. Is it always fresh like this?”
“Some days it bleeds more than others. It depends on what’s happening.”
“How so?”
“It changes with how I’m feeling. I guess. At least it seems that way.”
He looked up, a wrinkle in his brow. “Does it hurt?”
Francesca broke into a febrile smile. “Not now.”
Mr. Falso scowled at the pile of bandages. “You need to be careful. You’re at constant risk for infection.” Francesca nodded obediently. He set her hands on the counter and poured disinfectant from a brown bottle onto a cotton square, staining it mustard. “You need to see a doctor.”
“My father won’t let me,” she said. “He says they’ll think I did it to myself.”
He dabbed the cotton square on her wounds. It was heavenly, having him hold her hands in his own, treating her as though she were made of glass. She nearly sighed.
“Your father’s instincts are right,” he said, though he didn’t sound sure.
Francesca cleared her throat lightly. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Never,” he rasped. “It’s breathtaking.”
Her eyes flashed and met his.
“What I mean to say is, I know that there are people who have things like this happen. Who things like this happen to. But I’ve never met one.”
“Until now,” she rushed to say.
“Yes.”
“‘Things,’ like a miracle?”
“That’s not entirely clear.” He grimaced, took a long look, then unwrapped a plastic-backed gauze pad and covered the wound. Over that he added Steri-Strips. Francesca changed her own bandages every day, but she simply copied the way her father had dressed them that first morning the wounds had appeared. She liked the purposeful way Mr. Falso was redoing what her father had done. Rectifying something wrong: making it different. Making it right.
A tingle at the base of her throat. She felt the rush of speeding headlong toward some critical point. It was time to make Mr. Falso understand.
“Of all the girls in the world, why did God choose me?”
He looked up. His eyes were warm and sad. Why was he sad?
“All I can guess is that you’ve been—touched—by something very special.”
Francesca looked down at the table, her entire body charged. She wondered if she should tell him about the other talents that had shown themselves over the years: the birds that followed her everywhere. The ancient languages she inexplicably knew. The way she could read other people’s hearts by pressing ear to chest.
Instead, Francesca said, “You think so?” Because she wanted to hear it from him.
Mr. Falso finished taping the second palm and held both hands inside his. “I do.”
His face was inches from hers.
“What happens now?” Her voice was a shredded whisper.
“I guess we wait for the next miracle.”
PART 3
Chest
SEPTEMBER 2016
If Ben didn’t get inside Eddie’s house, he would lose his mind.
Karmic payback, since he only wanted to get in to find Mira’s next note. A true bro would be more concerned with checking on his buddy who nearly lost a digit and had since dropped off the planet. For weeks, Eddie hadn’t responded to Ben’s texts. After Labor Day, the pool would close, and if Eddie kept up his self-imposed exile and blew off school, Ben might not see him at all.
He could just show up on Eddie’s doorstep, of course. But rumor had it the whole Villela family was spiraling—both parents now zombies—and Ben was afraid of what he might find.
Ben left the Closed sign on the snack bar counter and turned his back to the growing noises outside the clubhouse door. He pulled the bag from under his shirt, drew its strings apart, and dumped the notes in a clump onto the stainless steel counter. They seemed heavier every time he looked at them, as though they were contracting and hardening with age, which worried Ben vaguely. A flash of yellow caught his eye. He reached behind a steel canister of sugar and pulled out a shriveled lemon smudged with a brown thumbprint. He set the lemon down as the text arrived with a bright chirp:
Heading out this morning to visit Eddie V.
He seems to be having a hard time. Come with?