Ben was fine as long as he didn’t talk, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Say something, Shelby often thinks when he’s blabbing on. But not everything. Ben now asks if it’s true that touching Helene’s hand can cure an illness. That’s what people say. They say you can smell roses in her room, that she speaks to you without talking, that she can send a message to you that will reveal what you need to know about your future or your past. The first miracle happened on the day Helene’s parents brought her home. Helene’s grandmother had been unable to walk due to arthritis for more than ten years, but she got out of her wheelchair and walked straight to Helene. She never used her wheelchair again, until one day she suddenly said she needed to lie down, that she was too tired to walk. She told Helene’s mom to put her in her chair and wheel her into Helene’s room; then the old woman got into bed with Helene and passed right there, in comfort and peace.
After that, roses appeared on the dry stalks of the hedges in February, and in the spring the wisteria beside the driveway, always a faded purple, bloomed a pure white. A toddler with a scar on his face nuzzled his cheek against Helene’s pale hand and by evening his skin was without blemish. Folks come from all over, from the Midwest and Florida and New Jersey and France. Helene is famous, that’s another difference between them. There are magazine articles about the miracle of the girl in the coma. People who have been healed merely by being in her presence often give testimonials. Like Helene’s grandmother, they can walk again. The asthmatics can breathe. Babies who never slept and cried all night become calm. Jittery teenagers buckle down and become A students. The roses always bloom on the day of the accident, huge, blood-red flowers that are impervious to snow and ice. Roses in February are clearly a miracle, and they’ve been photographed and set on the front page of Newsday. Helene’s parents have been interviewed in People magazine, and this year Channel 4 sent out a news team to interview those who’ve been healed.
“Nobody with any brains would blame you for what happened to Helene,” Ben Mink says.
Shelby looks at Ben with horror, amazed he has the nerve to utter Helene’s name in her presence. She thought he was a little smarter than that. She’ll talk to him, but clearly she’s not about to discuss her feelings, not with him or anyone else. Feelings are best left concealed. They can bite you if you’re not careful. They can eat you alive. Shelby has a tremor in her left hand. Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night and finds she’s shaking. As it turns out, people say Helene’s left hand is the source of the miracles. The concept that mere touch can cure you and restore your faith disturbs Shelby. Nothing can restore her. Shelby tosses Ben a desperate look. Not you too.
He immediately picks up on her contempt. “Not that I expect you to believe in that shit. I know I don’t.”
Shelby once had a beautiful smile. That’s long gone. It disappeared on that night, and at this point she doesn’t even think it’s possible for her to smile. She’s frozen into the expression of someone who expects the worst. She taps her foot constantly now, as if she were running and getting nowhere.
“I believe in tragedy,” Shelby responds coldly. “Not miracles.”
“Yeah, right. Faith is for idiots.” Ben seems relieved. “Statistics speak the truth.”
“You have to stop thinking. It’s going to drive us apart.” Shelby keeps her good hand over her tremoring hand. She can feel her brain waves shift when she smokes pot. Pseudo-coma. Drift of snow. What a relief. “Let’s not get too personal. I buy weed from you. Period.”
On the way home, Shelby realizes she’s probably spoken more to Ben Mink in the past two years than she has to anyone else. She counts the people she’s come in contact with, most of them from the psych ward. Shrink. Nurse. Pathetic members of her therapy group. Parents. Clerk at the 7-Eleven. The orderly, twice her age, who told her to keep her mouth shut as he pulled down her pants. Until then her only kisses had taken place in a closet during parties at Helene’s house. The orderly took her into a closet as well, a utility closet where there were mops and buckets and folded sheets and towels. She wasn’t speaking then. She tried to tell him no, but the word sounded like a sob.