her lap. “I know the game cripples some guys. But not all. And I’m one of the guys who’s going to come out unscathed.”
“What makes you so sure?” Gently, she tousled his hair.
“I’m going to stay healthy. I’m going to keep working out. I’m going to remain strong.”
“And what happens if somebody hits you the wrong way, right at your knee joint? Your leg wasn’t made to bend that way. Then what?”
As Tony listened to Beth’s depiction of the classic knee injury, he almost could hear the dreaded sound of the muscle tearing away from the bone. Inwardly he winced, but was successful in hiding it.
He shrugged, picked up a book at random, and began flipping pages aimlessly. “What if I’m crossing a street and some nut in a car doesn’t see me?”
“That’s an accident. I’m talking about an injury that goes with the territory.”
“I don’t want to talk about injuries anymore. I’ve got a plan and I’m going to follow it. And that’s that!”
She dropped it for the moment. There was little she could do. By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t mentioned the possibility that despite the plethora of raves, Tony might indeed not play pro ball after all. She read the sports pages, if only because sports was Tony’s primary interest. She had agreed with the pundits, especially the locals, who had written that Tony was a sure thing for the draft, with a glorious pro career to follow. And once he had been passed up, and his chances at that pro career seemed suddenly slimmer and slimmer, she had hoped to be able to stop worrying about his being injured. But she played her part: She realized that if she continued to act concerned that would bolster Tony; it would make him feel that there was still a possibility-that he still had a good chance of signing and playing with the pros. He must have a chance, else why would Beth still be worrying about his being injured?
She was keenly aware of the physical dangers in the growingly violent game. Some nights she would wake suddenly from a nightmare, wincing, as Tony had, unbeknownst to her, just done.
She knew how much he’d been planning on this, banking on this. And, as far as she could see, his plan
It was obvious that study was not in the cards this evening. She decided to change the subject. “Speaking of injury and discomfort, how’s your mother doing?”
He didn’t respond for several moments. “I don’t know what to tell you, Beth. I go home usually once a week, maybe more. There’s nothing I can do, just be there for a while. I can’t relate. Once they decided not to try radiation, I kind of washed my hands of the whole thing. I can’t imagine not fighting. She couldn’t be much sicker than she seems to be most of the time now. We’re just waiting around for death. It gives me the creeps.”
“Actually, isn’t there something? I mean, something instead of her simply dying of the cancer?”
Tony snorted. “Vinnie’s ‘miracle.’ I don’t know what’s wrong with the guy! He’s smart enough … maybe the Church brainwashed him. ‘Miracle!’”
Beth was on shaky ground. But then so was Tony. “Miracles happen, honey. Don’t you believe in them at all?”
“Oh, I suppose … I don’t know; I never saw one. Never had one. Why should the Delvecchios have our own little miracle? Because the priest in the family wants one?”
“You’d better go lightly here, Tony,” she warned. “You’re coming very close to making fun of God.”
“What making fun?! I’m excusing God from suddenly turning nature on its ear because some insignificant family on the east side of Detroit wants a fatal illness to be erased. I ain’t making fun of God. He’s just not going to do it. I’m just telling Him it’s all right with me … that I’m not counting on it.”
“Then what
“Nature. Ma got cancer. I don’t know how or why. There was only one thing that might have turned it around-”
“Tony! You know what the odds are even with therapy.”
“Outside of a miracle that happens every other century there was only one alternative: therapy or death. They chose death.”
“They chose a miracle.”
“They chose death!”
His exclamation was so vehement that Beth thought better than to pursue that line of dialogue further.
In truth, she did not expect any miracle. She didn’t even know if there was such a thing. But she was concerned about Tony’s attitude toward his mother. Particularly at this stage of her life.
Beth firmly believed that Louise was near the end of her days. And that she was suffering. Beth feared that when, inevitably, she would pass, Tony would bitterly regret not giving more of himself to his mother’s needs.
But he seemed to have divorced himself from the drama being played out in his home. Resignation was a word not to be found in Tony’s lexicon. He felt only contempt for them all-for Dr. Schmidt, Father Koesler, Lucy, and, most of all, his brother, whose idea the miracle was.
It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in those ancient movie musicals. Always there was some crisis solvable only with a wad of money. So the kids would borrow a barn and suddenly there’d be a wildly expensive set, dozens-hundreds-of Busby Berkeley precision dancers, and an ecstatically successful ending. And the original problem, was, of course, solved.
And so it was with Vinnie and his brainstorm: Lucy would get all of St. William’s school and parish praying for this miracle. Likewise Father Koesler’s parish. Likewise Western Michigan University. Likewise St. John’s Seminary. The result of all this prayer was a miracle to be delivered by Easter. And a happy ending for all.
In either the movie or Vinnie’s script this made for a pleasant diversion. But in the real world, a pile of crap.
In any case, after a few more futile attempts at studying, Tony and Beth closed the books and went to bed- together. The Catholic Church of that era reminded sexually active people, especially young people, that steady dating was itself an occasion of sin: It had a nasty habit of leading to “sins of the flesh.”
Tony and Beth were horizontal proof of that.
Days turned into weeks.
It was fortunate that Lucy was young. The demands of the situation were extremely stressful.
Under ordinary circumstances, much of the preparation, trappings, and folderol of graduation would have been lovingly handled by her mother.
As it was, not only was Lucy shouldering the demands of final exams and graduation, she was also taking care of her mother.
Nothing was working out the way it had been planned. The help she was to have received was minimal at best. Father Koesler had volunteered what turned out to be a completely unrealistic presence to bail out Lucy. He and Vinnie had been swept up in the exhilaration of the moment when Louise’s choice became therapy or a miracle. Doc Schmidt came very close to his promise by dropping in occasionally and keeping the prescriptions coming.
Actually, the one who came closest to fulfilling his promise-or lack of it-was Tony. He had promised nothing. And that pretty much was what he delivered.
Early on, after that pivotal day, Louise got along rather better than anyone could have hoped.
She tired easily. But that had been a symptom even before her illness was diagnosed. She clung to mobility as though it were a sign of health. If she was up and about, she considered herself well; when she lingered in bed, something was wrong. A simple formula.
She attended daily Mass as often as she could-four or five days a week. Everyone in the church these early mornings knew what troubled her. Nearly everyone in the parish-at least the active parishioners-knew. Father Walsh would not sponsor a crusade for a miracle. But he certainly did not discourage prayer. So word got around.
She tried to believe a miracle was in her future. She really tried. And some days she felt so good, so nearly recovering, that she confused small remissions with a miraculous recovery.
Lucy matured dramatically that spring. She was still of an age when death is not quite real. Surely she would never die; she was far too alive. Of course other people died. But not her mother; her mother was still a young woman.
