A Valentine’s Day Miracle Read online

  Lady Humbug

  It’s cold. Too cold for anyone to be out on the street. Yet there are people huddled around trash barrels, rubbing their hands together over small flames. I look around and avoid the eyes of the people I see because I know that if I ever make eye contact, they’ll ask me for something. I’ll have to see the desperation in their eyes. I’ll have to see their utter lack of hope. I’ll have to see the rot of helplessness that oozes from their pores.

  No one speaks to me as I walk down the sidewalk. I took the shortcut from the good side of town, went down a few alleyways, and am almost at the police station.

  The call came in around ten o’clock. The police think they may have found her. They think they may have found my daughter. She has been lost to me for many, many years. Yet they found her.

  I could have had a driver bring me to the police station, but I don’t like for the hired help to talk. People do so love to talk about others, and my penthouse above the clouds doesn’t make me an exception. If a driver brought me, then the doorman, the housekeepers, and the elevator attendants would all know by tomorrow that my daughter was back.

  They would be delighted. Everyone loved Joy and her boundless enthusiasm. She was given the name Joy because that’s what she was. She embodied everything that was happiness in my life. She had been a bright-eyed, inquisitive child, and she turned into a compassionate, precocious adult.

  But when she went off to college, she fell in with the wrong sort of people. She developed some bad habits and eventually ended up addicted to hard-core drugs. She was kicked out of college and she came home, but neither extensive therapy nor rehabilitation could save her. What saved her, way back then, was when she gave birth to a daughter. She showed up at my penthouse with a bright-eyed little girl tucked inside her jacket. For the first time in a long time, she met my eyes when she looked at me, and I let her inside my home, and I let her bring her daughter along.

  I got her an apartment and I tried to get a job for her. But she refused my help. She grew frustrated with my meddling, and then she disappeared from my life again. I assumed that she was using again. I tried to help, but she never stayed in one place long enough to let me do anything for her. She jumped from tenement to trash pile and back and forth, and she pulled that daughter of hers with her. I lost touch with them a few years later, when Joy was the least receptive to my help. I gave her ultimatums. She refused to comply. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me, and she dropped off my radar.

  I feel fairly confident of what I’ll find when I arrive at the police station. I’ll find Joy. She’ll refuse to look at my face. She’ll have scratched bloody welts on her arms, and her face will be pock-marked. Her dark hair will hang limp and dirty in front of her eyes. And then I will take her home with me and I will try to fix all the wrongs. I’ll fix it all. I’ll fix her.

  I hobble up the steps of the police station and rap my knuckles on the nearest desk.

  “Lady Humbug is here,” I hear someone say.

  I know about the nickname. It has never bothered me. In fact, I feel a certain sense of pride at their choice of moniker.

  A door opens behind me and a detective wearing a suit and tie greets me. “If you’ll follow me,” he says quietly. He looks everywhere but at me, and something that I don’t understand pulls heavily at his features.

  He leads me into a room and motions for me to sit. I look around. “Where is she?” I ask. I don’t sit. I can sit when I’m dead.

  “Mrs. Baumgartner,” he says quietly, “we think we have located your daughter Joy.”

  I wave my hand through the air. “Then bring her in. What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Baumgartner,” he says. “But we have a Jane Doe in the morgue that fits Joy’s description.”

  “That’s preposterous,” I squeak out, suddenly feeling like I cannot breathe. I power through it. “Show me this Jane Doe.” Show me now so I can tell you it’s not my Joy.

  He opens the door and motions for me to follow him down the hallway. We enter a stark metal elevator. I lean against the wall, because my legs are refusing to hold my weight.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Baumgartner?”

  No, I’m not all right. “I’m fine.”

  He leads me to a room that smells like a freshly cleaned hospital room mixed with mildew. He opens a metal drawer in the wall, and a table slides out. The table holds the body of someone. It’s someone who is not my daughter, so I am not worried. I do feel compassion for the family of this woman, however. But I am not worried. This is not my Joy.

  “Can you tell me when you’re ready?” he asks, his hands poised near the upper edge of the stark white sheet.

  “Ready for what?” I ask.

  His voice becomes gentle and soft, so soft I can barely hear it. He clears his throat. “Ready for me to expose her face. So you can identify her.”

  This is not my daughter. “I’m ready.”

  He lowers the sheet.

  I wasn’t ready.

  My knees buckle.

  Suddenly, a chair is shoved behind me, and I fall heavily into it.

  Her face is deathly pale, her lips so blue they’re almost purple. Her eyes are held closed by tape. Her long hair is pushed back from her face in a style she never wore.

  “Where…where did you find her?” I ask.

  “She was found a few weeks ago. Apparently, she was helping a woman escape an abusive situation and she went with her a few counties away to deliver her to a safe house. She took the bus on the way back, and that’s where she died. On the bus. The medical examiner in that town was unable to identify the body, so he held it. After Christmas, they sent notices of the Jane Doe, asking for identification, but no one knew who she was. Then someone came in and noticed the tattoo.”

  My eyes jerk up to his face. “What tattoo?”

  He rolls the sheet down a little farther, so that I can see her collarbone.

  “We might have identified Joy sooner, but you said she didn’t have any tattoos or markings. This woman has several.”

  “What are the others?”

  “She has Miracle written on her collarbone. And the word humbug is etched inside a heart on her chest. On her ankle, she has a column of butterflies. Each one has a date on it.”

  “What are the dates?” I manage to ask.

  He looks down at his clipboard. “The dates coincide with the dates she was released from rehab, according to the hospital records. There are three in all. We looked it all up once we had a tentative identification.”

  “Rehab never worked for her,” I say quietly. I still can’t stand up. All my strength is gone.

  “I beg to differ,” he says. “She was clean, and she had been clean ever since her daughter was born.”

  “That long? That’s impossible.”

  “It’s not. We checked with the hospital.” He draws in a breath. “Can you confirm that this is Joy Baumgartner?”

  I nod. It’s her. I desperately want for it not to be her. But it is. Tears sting my eyes and I blink them back. I will not let him see me cry. I stopped crying over my daughter many years ago. I don’t know why I’d start again now. I blink hard and swallow past the lump in my throat. “It’s her.” Using my cane as a fulcrum, I get to my feet. “I’ll have the funeral home collect her.”

  “Whenever you’re ready.” He moves to cover Joy’s face.

  “May I have a moment?” I ask impulsively.

  “Of course,” he says as he tucks the sheet around her bare shoulders. He walks out of the room.

  “What have you done, Joy?” I whisper to no one. “What have you done this time?”

  She doesn’t answer, of course.

  I kiss my fingertips and press them to her cheek, just like I did when she was small. Her skin is cold and feels oily under my fingertips. I wipe them on the sheet and pull it up to cover her face.

  “How did she die?” I call out loudly.

  He ambles back into the room.
“Her heart, actually. She had an undiagnosed heart condition.”

  I swallow. Hard. “Did she suffer?”

  He tips his head and gnaws on his lower lip for a second. “I don’t think so. I think she just went to sleep.” He flips through the clipboard again. “Or at least that’s what the report says.”

  “No one hurt her?”

  “No. She was well-loved in her community, from what I’ve discovered.”

  “You mean the community of vagrants?”

  “Well, yes. They were her friends. She took care of people who couldn’t take care of themselves. She helped run the local soup kitchen. She delivered books to people who couldn’t get library cards because they have no address. She helped people find housing. She was a hero, Mrs. Baumgartner. You should be very proud of her.”

  That was one thing I could never be.

  “Where is her daughter?” I finally ask.

  “We’re still looking for her.” He smiles. “She’s slippery as a fish, but we’ll find her. We have an address, and we’re working on bringing her in. She’s not eighteen yet.”

  “She’ll be fifteen on Valentine’s Day,” I say.

  “We’ve located her several times, and we even got her into a group home, but she always runs away.”

  “Just like her mother. She was always running from something.” I walk toward the door. “I’ll have my daughter collected by the funeral home.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Baumgartner,” he says.

  “You can call me Lady Humbug,” I toss back over my shoulder. “Everyone else does.”

  I walk out of the police station with the knowledge that my Joy is dead. She’s dead and she’s never coming back. I’ll never, ever see her again.

  I collapse on the street outside, my knees sinking into the snow as I catch myself on my hands, my cane lying next to me on the sidewalk. It’s about as useless as I am.

  A pair of boots step into my line of sight. A man leans down in front of me. “Are you all right?” a voice asks. I lift my head and stare into the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

  He hooks his arm under my elbow and helps me stand.

  “Logan,” a woman says, tapping him on the shoulder. “That’s Lady Humbug.” Her hands fly as she talks to him in sign language.

  The words burst out of me, like they’re being shoved through a sieve. “My daughter has died.”

  The man lifts one of my arms around his shoulders, and his other sweeps my legs up high. “Let’s get you home,” he says. His words are stilted, but I can understand them.

  The woman with him calls for a cab, and he sets me inside.

  “That will be all,” I say. I try to close the door, but they both get in with me. She gets in the front seat, and he gets in next to me. I don’t protest, because I couldn’t if I tried, not right now.

  I lean my forehead against the cold car window.

  “My daughter has died,” I say again, but this time it comes out as a sob.

  He takes my hand in his and says nothing all the way back to my apartment building. Then he holds my elbow as we enter the elevator to go up to the penthouse. The woman with him follows, holding my cane that she has retrieved and fretting as she pushes buttons and calls for the doorman to go up with us to open the door.

  They come inside with me, and the blond man gently lowers me to sit at the table in the kitchen.

  “I’ll put on some tea,” the woman says, and she begins to make herself at home in my kitchen.

  Emily

  I’ve seen a lot of unhappy people, but I’ve never seen a woman look quite so devastated. Lady Humbug sits at her kitchen table, her hands folded demurely in her lap as she stares out the window toward the city. Logan sits quietly next to her, saying nothing. Logan can say more than anyone I ever met without saying a word. His silences have more meaning than ten thousand words that say nothing.

  “Is there anyone we can call for you?” I ask as I set a cup of tea in front of her.

  She shakes her head.

  “No family? A friend?”

  She shakes her head again.

  Suddenly, she fixes her gaze on Logan. “What’s your name?”

  He smiles ever so slightly. “Logan Reed.” He gestures toward me. “And this is my wife, Emily.”

  “So lovely to meet you both,” she mutters. Suddenly she stops, her brow furrowing. “Reed?” she asks. “You’re one of the Reed boys.”

  He smiles again. “Yes. I’m the middle one.”

  “You’re the one who used to be deaf.”

  I wince inwardly.

  Logan points toward his ears. “Still deaf.”

  Logan got bilateral cochlear implants a few years ago, and a lot of people think that cured his deafness, but that’s not the case. Logan will always be deaf. He will always claim deaf culture as his own, above all else aside from his family.

  “The surgery didn’t work?” she asks.

  Logan laughs. “It worked. I’m just still deaf. Always will be.”

  “It’s wonderful that you accept your disability.” I can tell that she’s not trying to be condescending. I truly believe she’s not.

  “Did you hurt yourself when you collapsed on the sidewalk?” I ask. “Should I call 9-1-1?”

  “I just took a little tumble, that’s all.” She sighs. “My daughter died. The police needed me to identify the body. I really thought that it wouldn’t be her, but it was. It was her.” Her voice catches.

  “What was her name?” Logan asks.

  “Joy. Her name was Joy.”

  I drop the tea spoon I was holding and it clatters loudly to the floor. “Joy Baumgartner is your daughter?”

  Logan looks at me, his brow furrowing.

  “Was my daughter,” she clarifies. “She’s dead now.”

  “Did you know her?” Logan asks me.

  I nod. “She helped me a few times.” Suddenly, my knees grow weak too and I sink down at the table to sit next to Logan.

  “Did she buy drugs for you?”

  My eyes jerk up to meet hers. “Drugs? No. Joy kept girls off drugs. She saved lives. She kept women off the streets. She helped men find jobs. She helped people find apartments and assistance. She was amazing. She helped the homeless in our city more than anyone else ever has.” And I can’t believe she’s dead.

  “She was an addict.”

  “I heard that she was. She talked about it a lot, and she used her experiences to help other people find their way to sobriety. I can’t tell you how many people she helped detox. How many people she helped get clean. She was a beacon of light on a dark night for a lot of people, Ms. Baumgartner.”

  “How would you know?” she snaps. “You’re not homeless.”

  I snort. “Not now, but I was several years ago.”

  She shoots to her feet and walks over to her purse. She reaches inside, rummages around, and pulls out a wad of cash. She holds it out toward me and reflexively I take it without thinking. “Thank you for your assistance tonight,” she says. Then she turns and walks down the hallway.

  “Holy shit,” Logan says as soon as her bedroom door closes. “That was odd.”

  “She’s grieving,” I say. “She gets a pass for her shitty behavior and generalizations.”

  I clean up the tea things and load the cups into the dishwasher, then place the cash on the table before we leave.

  On our way down the elevator, Logan looks at me. “Do you remember the night we met?”

  I nod, a smile tipping the corners of my lips although I try not to let it show.

  “I wanted to give you my coat.”

  I grin at him. “I wouldn’t take it.”

  “I know. That’s why I took you home with me.” He steps closer, cups my chin in his palm, and kisses me.

  “You tossed me over your shoulder and showed the whole world my Betty Boop panties.”

  “While you beat on my back, trying to get me to put you down. You were holding on to your guitar with all your might.�
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  “You couldn’t hear me screaming.”

  “Not a word,” he says with a grin.

  “Then I met your brothers.”

  “And Matt fell for you, and it was all over. You were stuck with me.”

  We exit into the lobby and the doorman stops us to inquire about Lady Humbug. “Is she all right?” he asks.

  “She just got some bad news,” I say.

  He nods. “I heard. Word travels fast.” He glances toward the elevator. “Her heart might be frozen, but she’s still deserving of our compassion.” He clears his throat. “Besides, Joy would have wanted us to check up on her mama. I’ll pop up there in the morning just to check on her, be sure she’s all right.”

  Logan shakes hands with him.

  “Joy will be missed,” he says, and his throat clogs with emotion. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “Has anyone told Miracle?” Logan asks.

  He shakes his head. “But won’t be long and she’ll know. The word is already spreading around.”

  “Does she have someone to help her through it?” I ask.

  “She has everyone to help her through it. Don’t you worry about Miracle. She’s well loved.”

  We walk out of the building and go home. Our kids, a son and a daughter, are with Pete and Reagan, so we drop by there to pick them up—and walk into chaos.

  Logan

  “What the hell is going on?” I mutter as we walk into Pete and Reagan’s apartment. A small child wearing a robe streaks past me, brandishing a stick in her hand. Then another one streaks past, and I realize the second one is mine.

  I bend down and scoop Kit up into my arms. She aims what I now realize is a magic wand toward my chest.

  “Don’t you dare cast a magic spell on me!” I cry loudly, signing at her in ASL as I talk to her using my voice.

  She wiggles out of my arms and takes off, trailing behind her cousins, who are all dressed similarly, all carrying wands, and all screaming nonsensical words at one another like “have-an-avocado” and “a-smellyopolis.” They make no sense at all, but they’re having fun. They all dash down a hallway toward the bedroom, and suddenly it’s peaceful in Pete’s apartment.