The Patron Saint of Butterflies(34)

“It’s okay, Benny!” I shout, trying to make myself heard above his still-piercing shrieks. “We’re going to the hospital! You’re going to be all right!” I start to cry along with him. I’d give anything to take the pain for him. Anything at all.

“We’re almost there,” Nana Pete says grimly, eyeing the three of us in the rearview mirror. “Hang in, guys.” She gives the car another surge of gas. “Hang in.”

The Queen Mary finally screeches to a halt in front of a wide blue building with EMERGENCY glowing above the doors. Nana Pete rushes inside, carrying Benny, who is still wailing. Honey and I are close at her heels. Within seconds, a flurry of white-clad medical personnel appear, as if from the woodwork. The next moment, they vanish into a small room behind a glass door and stretch Benny out on a silver table.

Somehow Honey and I manage to slip into the room behind everyone. We hover at the room’s periphery, trying to stay out of the way as nurses run in and out. Suddenly a tall man dressed all in blue strides into the room, snapping on a pair of thin rubber gloves.

“The injury is to the extremities, is that correct?” He has a deep, rumbling sort of voice and a neatly trimmed white beard. A pin on the front of his shirt identifies him as Dr. Pannetta.

“His right hand, Dr. Pannetta!” The nurse has to shout over Benny to be heard. She has a silver ring in her nose. “Second and third digits!”


Dr. Pannetta slides a gloved hand under Benny’s wrist and then leans in to get a closer view. He grimaces, as if he has just come into contact with a horrible smell. “What the hell is this?” The other nurse, who is shorter than me, leans up on her tiptoes, looks over at Benny’s fingers, and gasps. Dr. Pannetta looks at Nana Pete. “What is this?” he asks again. “What happened here? Did someone try to sew these fingers back on?” Nana Pete drops her eyes, as if searching for the right words somewhere on the floor.

Out of nowhere, I step forward. “It was Emmanuel! He healed him! My father said it was a miracle!”

Dr. Pannetta is staring hard at me. His eyes rove across my robe, as if seeing it for the first time. Honey and Benny do not have their robes on. I feel self-conscious suddenly, as if I am naked. “Who the hell is Emmanuel?”

“He’s the leader of the Believers,” I say without thinking. “At Mount Blessing. Where we—” The look that crosses Dr. Pannetta’s face makes me stop talking.

Nana Pete comes to my rescue, gesturing loosely with her hands. “Actually, he’s … he’s just … someone we know.”

There is a pause as Dr. Pannetta’s eyes sweep back over Benny’s fingers.

“Well, whoever he is, he’s certainly no doctor,” he says. He looks over at me, still holding Benny’s injured hand. “I hate to burst your bubble, sweetheart, but this is no miracle. This is just about the worst hatchet job I’ve ever seen. This Emmanuel, whoever he is, has put this kid at serious risk of losing his fingers for good, not to mention the possibility of contracting a blood infection.” My stomach flip-flops inside of me.

Dr. Pannetta, all business again, addresses the two nurses. “Let’s prep him and take him up to Operating Room 3. And page Dr. Francis and Dr. Stella.” I stand back, dazed, as the nurses wheel Benny out of the room. Dr. Pannetta follows and then pauses at the doorway, as if remembering the three of us still standing there.

“I’m going to have to undo everything that Emmanuel guy did,” he says, talking directly to Nana Pete. “And then I will try to salvage what is left and reattach those fingers the right way.” He grimaces. “It’s going to be a complicated surgery, but you came to the right place. I know what I’m doing. Try to get some rest in the waiting room, and I’ll come down afterward to let you know how he’s progressing.” Nana Pete nods gratefully. Dr. Pannetta gives her shoulder a light tap and strides from the room.

“Wait!” I plead, rushing out into the hall.

Dr. Pannetta turns. He is so tall that when I look up, I see his Adam’s apple first and then his face. “Yes?” he asks.

My nose starts to wiggle, but I need to know.

More than anything, I need to know.

“Emmanuel didn’t heal him? There was no miracle?”

Dr. Pannetta gazes curiously at me for a long moment. His eyes are gray with little specks of blue in them. “No,” he says gently. “There was no miracle.”

And then he is gone. The two words reverberate through my head.

No miracle. No miracle. No miracle.

Behind me, Honey’s hand descends lightly on my shoulder. It feels like a thousand pounds.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, shrugging her off. “I mean it. Don’t touch me.”





HONEY

Nana Pete leads both of us into a small waiting room filled with dark blue chairs. The walls of the room are the same color as the chairs and the rug and it feels as if the heat has been turned on. Very cavelike. Maybe they want people to fall asleep in here. Except for a television mounted on the wall and a green plastic tree in the corner, the room is empty. When Nana Pete and I take a seat, Agnes moves purposefully to the other side of the room and, with her back to us, kneels down on the floor and stretches out her arms. I roll my eyes as she begins to whisper the familiar Latin chants and stand up.