with the call I heard of something else. But he’d put that aside. He’d seemed
to say, “First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.”
I applied to the program.
Emily was pregnant. The pregnancy was not going well. She’d nearly
miscarried in the first trimester, and now that she was approaching twenty
weeks, she was beginning to have contractions. Mother, who was the
midwife, had given her Saint-John’s-wort and other remedies. The
contractions lessened but continued.
When I arrived at Buck’s Peak for Christmas, I expected to find Emily on
bed rest. She wasn’t. She was standing at the kitchen counter straining herbs,
along with half a dozen other women. She rarely spoke and smiled even more
rarely, just moved about the house carrying vats of cramp bark and
motherwort. She was quiet to the point of invisibility, and after a few
minutes, I forgot she was there.
It had been six months since the explosion, and while Dad was back on his
feet, it was clear he would never be the man he was. He could scarcely walk
across a room without gasping for air, so damaged were his lungs. The skin
on his lower face had regrown, but it was thin and waxy, as if someone had
taken sandpaper and rubbed it to the point of transparency. His ears were
thick with scars. He had thin lips and his mouth drooped, giving him the
haggard appearance of a much older man. But it was his right hand, more
than his face, that drew stares: each finger was frozen in its own pose, some
curled, some bowed, twisting together into a gnarled claw. He could hold a
spoon by wedging it between his index finger, which bowed upward, and his
ring finger, which curved downward, but he ate with difficulty. Still, I
wondered whether skin grafts could have achieved what Mother had with her
comfrey and lobelia salve. It was a miracle, everyone said, so that was the
new name they gave Mother’s recipe: after Dad’s burn it was known as
Miracle Salve.
At dinner my first night on the peak, Dad described the explosion as a
tender mercy from the Lord. “It was a blessing,” he said. “A miracle. God
spared my life and extended to me a great calling. To testify of His power. To
show people there’s another way besides the Medical Establishment.”
I watched as he tried and failed to wedge his knife tightly enough to cut his
roast. “I was never in any danger,” he said. “I’ll prove it to you. As soon as I