Free Miracle Woman by Marita Conlon-Mckenna

guess you and I might have to get used to it.’
    He held her so tight she could feel his heart beating through the cotton of his shirt. It was as if he was trying to hold onto her and protect her from something that neither of them could yet imagine.

Chapter Eight
    BETH ARMSTRONG WATCHED anxiously from the corridor of Boston’s Children’s Hospital. Sue Lucas had been most definite that the woman who’d helped at the accident, the healer, was coming to visit her son today. Timmy Lucas had finally been moved, from the intensive care floor to the surgical one, his condition now considered stable. Fortune had smiled on her: she had got talking to his mother in the ladies’ rest room and discovered that the McGill woman was actually coming to see him. It was an opportunity too good to miss – she might actually be able to tell her about Cass. If she could work a miracle for one child maybe she could do it for another!
    Martha was overjoyed to see Timmy again, so relieved that the child she’d almost believed dead was lying there, a metal cage over his bed protecting his leg which was in some kind of weird cast with metal bars and screws protruding fromit, but otherwise far better than she had imagined. He looked pale and lost in the hospital bed, his black hair standing on end, his cheeks grazed and one eye still covered in a blackberry-coloured bruise. If he had any memory of the accident he made absolutely no mention of it and Martha decided to ignore the subject herself, as it wasn’t fair on the boy.
    â€˜I asked your mom about dropping by, Timmy, and she said it was OK.’
    He just nodded.
    â€˜I wasn’t quite sure what to bring you so I asked Patrick my son, and he was the one picked out this robot game.’
    She could tell he was real pleased with it by the way he let his hand slide over it. ‘Do you like games?’ she asked.
    He nodded again and she knew that as soon as he was able he would be making use of the games console fitted under the hospital TV set.
    â€˜You feeling all right?’ she asked gently.
    â€˜Much better, thank you, Mrs McGill.’
    â€˜That’s good.’
    He still looked tired, she thought as she reached out for his arm, but the feeling was nothing like before. His body was trying to heal itself, renew and recover from deep trauma. It would take time but she sensed he was going to be fine.
    She sat by his bed and made small talk about all the kids in the road, telling him that young Johnny Rynhart had already placed a pumpkinout on his front step, although Hallowe’en was miles away yet.
    â€˜I think the sun will cook that pumpkin it’s so hot outside!’ joked Martha.
    â€˜Rynharts are always first with everything,’ he said solemnly. ‘They always like to get a march on the rest of the neighbours. November 1 his dad starts getting ready for Christmas.’
    Timmy yawned, Martha chatting away as his eyes became heavy and finally closed. His body was still in shock and needed much sleep and rest to recover.
    She rode the elevator down to the ground floor and decided to stop off at the hospital cafeteria for a cup of tea before driving home. It was between meal times and was fairly quiet and Martha picked a spot overlooking the small paved courtyard.
    â€˜Excuse me, Mrs McGill. I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you?’
    Martha paused, cradling the hot tea in its polystyrene cup and wondering why she had bothered to purchase something she knew she would scarcely enjoy as the stranger slid into the seat opposite.
    â€˜I’m Beth Armstrong,’ the other woman introduced herself. The name meant nothing to Martha.
    â€˜I got talking to Sue Lucas the other day. She told me what you did for her son. My daughter is a patient in this hospital too, right up on the third floor.’
    Martha held her breath. She was waiting for it. She could guess what was coming, see it in the other woman’s