Free Miriam's Well by Lois Ruby

buildings in Greece, about the curl of Miriam’s toes.
    â€œYour friend with the cancer? I’m representing her church against the State of Kansas. You know how I chew up these church-state issues. This one’s going to be a humdinger.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Told by Miriam
    Mr. Bergen came to visit me, and I could see what Adam would grow up to look like. He had a very chiseled face, with a sharp nose and cheekbones and a healthy tan, and he still had a full head of dark, unruly hair. I liked him.
    â€œBefore this is done, you will hate me,” he said. “I’ll make your life miserable, because I have to know absolutely everything if I am to win this case for you. I have to know every symptom you experience, no matter how personal, and I have to know every facet of your religious belief, no matter how intimate. Do you understand?”
    I nodded. I was getting used to being invaded.
    â€œFine. We’ll get along.” He slid a yellow pad out of his worn briefcase and pulled the cap off his fountain pen with his teeth. “Any questions?”
    â€œOne.” I wasn’t sure how to ask it. He was patient with my silence. While he waited, he took off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. I did not want to be aware of the dark hair visible beneath his shirt. Uncle Benjamin and Uncle Vernon always wore white T-shirts under their dress shirts; I thought all men did. And then I thought about whether Adam’s shoulders would be as broad as his father’s when he was a full-grown man, or his hair as dark.
    â€œI was wondering,” I began.
    â€œShoot.”
    Should I? The man seemed so tolerant. I wondered if Diana resembled Mr. Bergen’s wife, when she was seventeen, and whether Diana was Jewish. How could Adam and she go together if she wasn’t Jewish? Did Mr. Bergen approve of her? All this flitted through my head as I tried to formulate my question. “What I was wondering was, you tell me that you have to know everything if you’re to win the case for me. What does winning mean, exactly?”
    Mr. Bergen cleared his throat. I knew I’d asked the wrong question. Questions were my downfall. But a lot depended on his reply. He answered, measuring his words very carefully. Uncle Vernon used to say, “Lawyers are famous for saying as little as possible, in the most number of words, kinda like politicians.”
    Mr. Bergen said, “It means we win the right for your mother to determine how your illness is to be treated.”
    It seemed simple enough, but I knew it wasn’t. “And that means I win?”
    He tilted his chair back, rocked for a while. “It means that the church wins, it means that your family wins, it means that freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, wins.”
    â€œAnd me?”
    â€œI’ll tell you, Miriam Pelham, you’re asking the wrong person.”
    â€œBut you’re my lawyer!”
    â€œI’ve got faith in the U.S. Constitution, and I’ve got faith in the American judicial system. But I haven’t got your kind of faith.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t believe God will heal me?”
    â€œI mean I haven’t got your kind of faith, that’s all I mean. Now let me ask the questions for a couple of minutes.”
    As soon as I was over the bone biopsy and all the test results were in and they were sure about their diagnosis, there wasn’t anything else the doctors could legally do. They had to let me go home. Gerri Kensler, my SRS social worker, came to explain the terms.
    â€œOkay, here’s the deal. You’re officially in SRS custody. That’s State and Rehabilitative Services. But the state’s letting you live with your mother if you do a few little things.”
    I snapped my suitcase shut. “Like what?”
    â€œWell—” Gerri flipped through legal-sized pages on her clipboard. We’d