bullet was, I am told, miraculous. Aside from nicking my lung, it bounced off a rib, breaking it in the process, and embedded itself in muscle. It didn’t strike any other organs or any other bone. The doctors can’t figure out how a shot from a rifle didn’t cause much more severe damage at such close range. I’m told I must have a guardian angel on my shoulder.
The doctors leave, telling me I’ll need plenty of rest, though I have quite a few people waiting to speak to me.
The room is covered in balloons and flowers, stuffed animals and cards. My mother tells me it seems like everyone in Roseland has sent me something, and that there’s been quite the stream of visitors to the hospital here, though they’ve all had to stay out in the waiting room. There were always at least five or six of them, and they seemed to take turns. It’s a funny thing, she says, how close our town really seems to be. She grips my hand tightly as she says this.
“Mom?” I ask her tiredly. “What’s going on? Where’s Cal?”
A tear rolls down her cheek.
Dread fills me. “Where is he?”
A shuddering sigh. Then, “He’s dying, Benji.”
The storm hit faster than they thought it would, back in Roseland. One minute it was just cloudy and overcast and they were all enjoying the festival, and the next it was like Heaven itself had opened up and poured down. The rain, my mother says, was a frightening thing, cast almost sideways by the roaring wind. The gusting wind itself blew down Poplar Street, knocking over signs and breaking windows. The booths and displays for the festival were toppled almost immediately. Most of the town was at the festival, and the majority took refuge in the church, the rest in the Grange. It was strange, some whispered, how the wind had seemed to blow them directly into these places. Some tried to leave but turned back when it became impossible.
There were concerns that the river would rise too high and flood the streets. Sandbags were placed out along the church and the Grange as a precaution, just in case floodwaters began to chase after them.
My mother was in the church, with Mary and Nina.
The power flickered on and off before finally just staying off. Candles were lit as people huddled together, listening to the storm rising outside. My mother was panicking, not knowing where I was. She tried calling me many times, but eventually the signal cut out and her phone was useless. Mary and Nina tried to calm her, to let her know I was obviously with Cal and Abe and that we’d be okay. Christie, they said, would also be okay because she was at Big House.
There had been nothing to do but wait.
And pray.
My mother says she prayed that day. She prayed for the first time in a very long time. Pastor Landeros was leading a quiet service for those who wanted it, but my mother wasn’t listening. She was sitting toward the back, looking at the beautiful stained glass window set high on the other side of the church. It was a circle of so many whites and greens and reds and yellows, with St. Jude Novena in the center, a red beard, long flowing robes of green and brown. And blue. So much blue.
Her grandmother had taken her to this very church on many occasions when my mother was a child. She remembered a prayer she’d been taught when she asked who that man in the glass was. That’s St. Jude Novena, her grandmother had told her. And he has a special prayer, one made for your darkest hour. But prayers are not like wishes, my child. They won’t always come true. But if you pray hard enough, surely someone will listen, and that, my darling, is what prayer is all about.
So my mother prayed, and recited the prayer of St. Jude Novena.
Most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly that my son