Free The Age of Miracles by Ellen Gilchrist

Allensby.
    So she began to take these Seldane tablets twice a day, once every twelve hours, and things picked up. Not only had her doctor recommended them but they were also recommended by a medical book we bought recently. Three days go by and all is going well. She is even able to go out in the yard to oversee the gardener.
    The third afternoon she went down to the video store to get Crystal Anne a video and the girl in the store started talking to her about allergies and how everyone is getting them now and isn’t it strange that it happened right when the pollution is getting worse and don’t tell her it is only plants and trees making people in the United States get sick.
    â€œI’ve got mine under control,” Miss Crystal says. “I’m taking this new drug called Seldane. It’s great. It makes you kind of hyper but I can stand it. It’s better than not breathing.”
    â€œOh, my God,” the girl says. “My brother and I took that last year. It made us have terrible dreams. Very, very lifelike dreams.”
    â€œWhat did you say?” Miss Crystal says. “What did you just say?” It turns out she had been having terrible dreams for three nights but had not put the two things together. In the worst dream she and I are standing in a parking lot watching Mr. Manny drive the Lexus off the top of a cliff with the baby in the backseat. Mr. Manny is Miss Crystal’s baby-faced and excessively brilliant husband. They have a mixed marriage which is doing better after many trials and tribulations. They met at a party in Pass Christian during the third day of the Six-Day War, when Miss Crystal was in her pro-Israeli syndrome and while Mr. Manny was obsessed with blonde Christian women, due to his having been sent to New England to school when he was thirteen years old. All of this came out in therapy. So they forged this troubled marriage out of these materials and they have this precious little girl, Crystal Anne, who is one of the two mainstays of my life. The other is my niece, Andria, who is at LSU leading the anti-establishment crusade. I have never been able to have a child of my own and for many years now I have seen that as a blessing in disguise. You get your heart tied up in children and you lose all sense of how to care for them and teach them to be strong. But back to Miss Crystal’s dream.
    The Lexus falls on its nose as we watch in terror and disbelief. Then a voice comes from the car. It is Mr. Manny’s voice and he says everything is all right. He gets out of the car and then he reaches in the backseat and brings out the baby. They are both all right although they were not wearing seat belts. I think this dream is only a justification for Miss Crystal and Miss Lydia refusing to wear seat belts when they are together. Miss Lydia is Miss Crystal’s best friend. She is a famous painter out in California who gets up to seventeen thousand dollars for every painting that she paints. Still, she and Miss Crystal are bad to act like adolescents when they get together. Many of their worst habits are on the wane now but they still like to ride around New Orleans with no seat belts. They say it is to prove there is no security, but I think it is more about not messing up their dresses when they are going out.
    But back to the medical problems. You cannot win at this allergy game. Once your body goes autoimmune on you it is just one long trip to the doctor or the drugstore. Meanwhile, every tree and plant in New Orleans was bursting with blooms. Putting out pollen morning, noon, and night. “I am no longer part of the beauty of the world,” Miss Crystal cried out at least once a day. “Now I have to hate the things I used to love so dearly.”
    â€œYou never did pay much attention to flowers,” I consoled her. “You’d rather be on the tennis court any day.”
    â€œI can’t even play tennis with this going on,” she