“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein
Kim’s Secret
“Aren’t you tired of ho-ho-ho songs by now?” Dana said, nodding toward the radio on the back counter.
Kim shrugged. Sure “Frosty the Snowman” earned freezer burn by December 23, but Phil’s “Silent Night” could calm a hurricane. She wanted to picture him playing guitar before his first round of chemo. She saw him in his red plaid flannel shirt and khaki pants that didn’t match, his leg muscles strong from jogging, and his dark hair three weeks late for a trim. When Phil plucked a string it answered with a celestial ring, even on his nephew’s student guitar. Phil’s upbeat attitude never fell out of rhythm, no matter how he felt.
What a family he has, Kim thought. And they accepted her the first time she met them, with all her quirks, something Kim never understood. Her mother died when she was two. And the only memory she had of her father came with a belt buckle flung across her back. However, she never saw the belt or her father again after the ambulance came and got her. Just the inside of three foster homes, the last an okay shelter, a good place only because Phil lived two doors away.
Tess, Phil’s mother, always said, “Look for the miracle, Kim.” Even through the worst of Phil’s illnesses.”
“How can you still believe in such things?” Kim would ask.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Tess answered.
The IV room printer made demands that slowed Dana’s whining and took the edge off Kim’s worry about Phil’s cancer surgery, scheduled at ten, after five years of remission. She sighed. The doctor said the tumor was larger than the first or the second recurrences. She had told no one. In fact, she told no one about anything in her private life, even insignificant details. Fortunately, Phil was in another hospital. She regretted insisting that no one call her at work. Ever. She wondered if even hermits needed to take a breath out of their caves now and then. Her heart beat over time.
“Hey, who was that hunk I saw you with in the cafeteria last week?” Dana asked.
Kim gasped. Hunk? Phil weighed less than she did after all his chemo. His baseball cap fit as if he were a child wearing his father’s hat.
“A friend.” My fiancé someday, maybe. Tess may believe in divine intervention, but … She drilled an unblinking stare into Dana’s eyes. “Is there some reason you need to know?’
“Well, I …”
“Well, we’re running low on 5ml syringes. Should I get anything else before I scrub again?”
“No, but you don’t need to get so testy. I only asked.”
Kim kept her head down as she pushed a cart through the pharmacy’s IV supply aisle.
Dana said little the rest of the day, but the sweet Christmas songs lost their flavor.
Kim had known Phil for ten years, since seventh grade when they played basketball in his driveway. She beat him. Before his growth spurt. Tess gave her a basketball for Christmas. Phil wrapped it with leftover Christmas wrap in haphazard, clumsy patches. Then he presented it with a mock flourish as if it were a work of art. Even Phil’s dad, usually serious, couldn’t stifle a laugh.
Kim knew she had found a home, even if it wasn’t official.
As she got into her car at the end of her shift, she called Tess to get Phil’s room number.
“Oh, Kim, I wish you had let me call you at work.” Tess cried. “I almost did anyway.”
But the connection was so poor in the employee parking garage that Kim couldn’t catch her tone.
“What room is he in? I can barely hear you,” Kim shouted until she discovered at least that much. “Tell me the rest when I get there.”
When she arrived, Kim walked behind two men headed for the elevator.
“I know I’m only on first-year rotation, but I was in the OR. I saw everything,” one man said.
“But I saw the tumor on the scan, less than a week ago, not the first one he’s had either. Things don’t happen this way. You checked his labs?”
“Double-checked.”
“And they just closed him back up again?”
“Yes.”
Kim paled. No, it couldn’t be. But the second man said something about the first tumor appearing when the patient turned thirteen. This could not be some peculiar coincidence. They were talking about Phil.
When she got to his closed door, Tess opened it the instant Kim knocked.
“I should have called you anyway, whether you wanted me to or not.”
Kim hurried to Phil’s bed. He opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them again. “Sorry, sweetie, too many drugs, but the miracle lady’s got news for you,” he whispered.
Tess made a mock swing toward Phil, then laughed. “I understand the confusion in the OR was unprecedented. When they cut Phil open, the tumor wasn’t there. As in disappeared. Gone. Ended up sewing him back up again. He may be released tomorrow.”
“But, how?” Kim asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Phil said, his voice weak, but clear.
“I’m confused.”
“What matters is that neither one of us gives up. What do you think? Big bash or small chapel wedding?”
Kim hesitated. Carolers began singing at the other end of the hallway. As they passed Phil’s door their harmony reached a crescendo, then settled into a gentle sweetness that faded into the opposite wing.
“Simple ceremony and celebration, lots of family,” she answered. “All I ask is that you be there.”
She caught Tess’s smile and grinned back. What more could she want than Christmas in a family made of miracles?
by Terry Petersen 12-4-07
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