READ PART 2

Silence ... thirst, heat, silence ...

I tilt my head back to the sky — a beautiful cobalt, tinged with salmon clouds. The heat remains in the brick, but the pounding fierce sun is gone. Blissfully unconscious ... how long? What day is it?

I should stay awake more. I should fight when I can, fight the dreams and visions, the sweet relief ... 3 to 5 days without water, less in arid conditions ...

But why bother? Broken thoughts, impotent life, twisted limbs —

God, I'm thirsty ...

I strain the ears I can't trust: Stillness. Asleep, maybe — Maura and Caleb and Anna. What time is it?

I hear feet: Caleb's. He runs with choppy gait into the room, pauses for a moment. Maura's heavier footsteps behind him.

"Bubby, we have to go." She sounds weak, weary — holding tears —

"I'm leaving a note."

"For who?"

"Well, it's a picture. Grandma and Grandpa's house. If Daddy comes back, he'll know where to go."

"Bubby, Daddy ... isn't coming back. We talked about this, remember? Yesterday?"

Yesterday? How long have I been ... Will these be my last moments conscious? I'm so tired ... tired now, God help me —

"It could be like me being born, Mommy. Remember how you and Daddy told me? A miracle."

"God doesn't do miracles very often, Bubby."

"But he could. He could make Daddy come back."

I can picture Maura shaking her head, that sad smile when she doesn't want to say no. "We told Grandma we were coming half an hour ago. Come on, Bubby."

Feet leave the room: Maura, then Caleb. Anna coos softly, whispering to herself. Steps fade into the living room, into the kitchen, faintly I hear the door open ...

No ... don't leave. God, I need them; something until the end — please, don't make me be alone —

The door closes behind them.

Silence. Crying without tears; choking on sobs for a long time. Empty ... silent, thirsty ... oh, God, let me die ...

I cry until I can't. I've never felt so alone.

* * *

Finally, I am spent. I look to the sky again. Night: Darkness.

Strangely, I'm still conscious. A lone cricket that somehow survives in the city sings faintly. God, please ... my family's gone, you can take me —

And then Caleb is there. He floats somewhere between brick and oblivion, next to my face — How did he get to my prison?

I'm hallucinating. This is the end.

"Daddy, I miss you," he says.

The voice is real — so clear, like when he left with Maura —

"I miss you too, Bubby," I say. My voice sounds normal, not rasping barely-whispers from a torn throat ...

Am I dead? God, is this what coming to you is like?

"I'm sorry I didn't play Legos with you ... I didn't listen, Bubby. But you, winning that contest ... I'm so proud of you."

Caleb nods. "I know, Daddy." He looks down, fidgets with his hands — it's how you can tell he's searching for what to say —

"I thought maybe, you would come ... but God doesn't really do miracles, huh?"

"What? Bubby, of course he does ... you're a miracle. You came out of Mommy's belly too soon, and God made you better — "

" — But you won't come back."

I want to touch him, pull him into a hug — how can I tell him —

It doesn't matter, it's just a hallucination — And still I can hardly choke out the words —

"No ... I'm not coming back."

Caleb nods his head sadly.

"But that doesn't mean ... sometimes God doesn't do miracles, Bubby. Like Anna ... not your sister ... the other Anna." I've never told him about Baby Heyman —

"You're ... gonna go see her, huh, Daddy?"

"Yeah. Her, and Grandpa Barker ... my daddy, who died when you were a baby." I'm choking up. Caleb isn't real, but I still have to go on —

"Bubby, listen to me. You have to tell Mommy ... this is very important, OK? You have to tell Mommy I love her. I didn't mean to leave. Tell Mommy, please?"

Caleb nods solemnly: He won't forget. He never does, not the important things —

"You'll have to be a man now. Help Mommy. She's gonna be sad for a long time, and you have to be brave. And Mommy will have to go to work and take you to Grandma's, because she's going to need money now — "

A scene from The Simpsons runs through my head. Homer thinks he's dying, the most important thing on his mind is teaching Bart to shave —

I laugh. From nowhere, a sudden burst of incongruous happiness — It doesn't hurt, I must be almost gone —

Now I rush my words. There's so much to say; I have to get everything in before it's too late: "There's a lot of things you'll have to learn by yourself. But you know about God and Jesus, and you know to love Mommy and Sissy, and someday you'll be big like Daddy ... Tell them ... Bubby, I love you ..."

"I love you too, Daddy."

Caleb steps closer, or floats closer, and suddenly his arms are around me, and it feels so real, and I close my eyes, and his arms seem to grow larger and wrap all my pain ... and I know there's more to say, but I can't think what it is anymore, and I just want to feel these arms until the end ... The End ...

Then my eyes flutter open. I twist my head as far as the tortured muscles can go, as far as I can move in my cramped prison — my coffin, now —

Caleb is gone.

I'm alone.

And tired ... so tired ...

* * *

The pain is gone — everything is numb. The thirst isn't as bad, I can barely feel my throat.

3 to five days without water, less in arid conditions ...

So much for a miracle.

Maura's always been the questioner in our marriage. A week before the wedding, she admitted — in funereal tones, fearing it would chase me away — that she sometimes questioned Jesus and heaven, the whole package. I told her I loved her, and anyway, faith was a gift from God, and He could give her more ... I haven't heard so many questions since our miracle came. Watching Caleb be healed, I decided, was God's way of answering her questions.

I've always had simple faith — or maybe simplistic, maybe I never ask hard questions. But God healed my boy Caleb; God's always put food on our table; God's given ... everything we need, hasn't He? He's faithful, He's faithful, I keep telling myself —

But what about Anna Heyman? Suddenly I'm furious, shouting mentally at the silent heavens. Did her parents have a faith surplus and not need the healing; her newborn soul not matter? It's as though years of silent impotent rage are breaking loose; anger I never knew I had —

Are platitudes about God working everything for good, like I wrote in their sympathy card, the best you can do? I would be screaming, if my torn throat could manage it — They're not enough! It was OK for me, OK when it was somebody else's kid, but when it's your family; when God could've rescued me — Do you like leaving single moms to raise children? Maybe you get kicks off orphaned four-year olds? Maybe orphaned 30-year-olds, too ... like father, like son ...

My father — dead for three years, brain cancer. I remember the last day he made sense, before he degenerated to incoherency and a coma and death at 53: "Son, God doesn't always do miracles," he insisted. "It doesn't mean He's not God."

Funny, that's what I told my son, too. Keep trusting; keep loving a heartless capricious Deity who only answers prayers on Mondays with a full moon —

Did Dad believe what he said?

God, I didn't ask for the miracle for me. I asked for them. Or am I such a reprobate they're better without me, and You chose the cruelest way to show us all? They'll never find my body. Maybe now You're furious with me; maybe when I die hours hence You'll consign me to hell in rage. That's OK, because You've already sent my family there —

Losing Dad: It was hell, no better word for it. How much it hurt Mom, and how Maura made me see a counselor because one Monday I wouldn't get out of bed, and how my sister hasn't set foot in church since Dad's service, and now Caleb and Maura will live the same thing ... oh, God, help them —

All I needed was someone to find me. I didn't ask for five fish to be 5,000, just a way out, something to bring me back to them ... You wouldn't have even needed to break a sweat.

And then I'm spent, and my consciousness is ebbing away, and I know this time I won't wake up, and the miracle has not happened, and my family is alone ...

Maura ... Caleb, Anna — forgive me ... I've always loved you ...

* * *

And then suddenly I'm standing at the top of the waterfall, the one I climbed with Maura, the one I fell over in my dreams. I'm on the precarious rock in the middle of the stream, and I'm looking over the edge to the rocks and the pool below. But at the bottom there's no Maura, it's someone else, and I peer through the trees to see who it is —

"Dad?" I speak in barely a whisper, hardly daring to think ... he looks so young ...

"Eric." He smiles, and I can see him perfectly through the trees: There's no doubt. Dad.

I begin to clamber down the rocks, coming down to meet him, hoping I won't slip in my haste, but his voice speaks urgently behind me —

"No, son. Not that way."

"What?"

"Don't climb, Eric."

I look at him, puzzled — but he says nothing. He's smiling, beaming at me ...

Suddenly, my anger wells up inside me again, and I remember how furious I was — furious that Anna died; furious that Dad didn't make it; furious that I left my family alone; furious that we all worshiped a God who doesn't care. And somehow, it seems that Dad will know: He'll understand. He'll be able to tell me, and he'll be patient like he always was —

"Dad!" I shout down. "What about the miracles? Isn't God listening?"

He only shakes his head — maybe he didn't understand.

"Dad! You and me ... we left our families." Why wasn't there a miracle?

Dad steps into the pool and calls back to me: "Eric, the miracle is here."

Suddenly I understand: He wants me to dive into the waterfall. But the rocks, and the water, and the pain — how is that a miracle?

I look at the path again — I could climb down. After all, I made it up ...

No. No, Dad is waiting.

I brace myself for the rocky descent. I close my eyes, count slowly to five — my old trick, from when I used to swim in high school — then I hold my breath and fall into the air ...

* * *

Soft beeping. Blowing sounds.

I squint open my eyes. It's so bright in here ... is this heaven?

Oh, God, it hurts ...

I look beside me: Monitors and tubes and machines ... the same as when Caleb was born —

I'm alive. Oh, God, I made it —

On a chair next to me sits Caleb — fast asleep.

Something must have startled him. He squirms, rubs his face — suddenly, his eyes open wide —

"Daddy ..."

My boy leaps to his feet and runs into the hallway. "Nurse Tasha! Nurse Tasha! We hafta get Mommy — " He runs down the hall, completely forgetting I might want a hug —

A whirlwind of activity. Nurse Tasha runs into the room; pokes and prods before she definitively pronounces me living. She's already paged my wife, she says — Maura is sleeping in one of the family rooms —

I try to speak; a gurgle comes out. But Caleb now remembers to come in for a hug. He hangs on me forever, and even though my arms barely move to wrap around him, I don't want him to go anywhere.

Nurse Tasha hands me a pen and paper. "What happened?" I write weakly, hand barely tracing the letters —

"The city sent some workers to shore up that chimney — code violation, I guess," she says rapidly. "They looked down, thought they saw something ... Doctor Hardaway says another couple of hours, and they would've been taking you out in a bag. You're a walking miracle, Mr. Barker."

I manage to nod — I can get the rest of the details later. Nurse Tasha leaves the room and says to have Caleb ring if I need anything.

That's OK — right now, all I need is to hug my son.

It takes them a few minutes to track down Maura. Before she gets here and swallows me in an embrace, I need to write one other thing on the pad, so she'll see it right away.

Laboriously, I pen the words: "I'm listening."

For now, that's all I need to say. But I do need to remember.

I close my eyes even as I hug my son, and once more I'm plunging over the waterfall, but the rocks never come, and I gently glide over the rapids. When I get to the pool I'm suddenly standing facing my father, and my eyes are wide open. The rivulets are gently washing me, and I stand under the water that's quenching a thirst I never even knew.

The miracle was never Caleb pulling through against the odds, or me waking up in the hospital. Because it dawns on me, I know what my Dad meant: "Eric, the miracle is here."

As I stand in the pool gazing on my father, the sun overhead bursts right through the trees, and everything is white ... so incredibly, heavenly white ...

Then I realize: This is the miracle.

He who believes in me will never die.

When Maura finally rushes into the room in a flurry of tears and wraps me in her arms, I want to be there; to listen; to rasp whispering "I'm sorrys" ...

But somehow, I'm almost reluctant to open my eyes. Because when I do, I know I'll have to leave the miracle behind.