Free Miracle Woman by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Page B

there’ll be something nicer to eat later on!’ Beth encouraged her.
    Cass sighed. Food and how it tasted or looked didn’t mean a thing to her any more.
    â€˜Martha, please sit down!’ said Beth, and pulled another chair up beside the narrow hospital bed. Martha was perusing the handmade cards that adorned the windowsill and locker top.
    â€˜They’re neat!’ she said.
    â€˜The kids in my fourth-grade class did them. Mrs Marshall my teacher makes them all do stuff like that every time I’m in the hospital.’
    â€˜But they’re really beautiful,’ smiled Martha, noticing that the drawings and colourings of kids running and jumping and skipping and cycling were the ones that Cass kept closest to her bed, while the ones with pictures of stick-thin figures lying in giant beds looking pretty miserable were banished to the further corners of the small room.
    â€˜Your mom tells me that you are not doing too good.’
    Cass studied a puzzle book abandoned on her bed.
    â€˜Cass, I think that Martha might be able to help you to feel a bit better.’
    Cass looked disbelieving, suspicious even.
    â€˜You a doctor or something?’ she asked.
    Martha laughed. ‘Something, I guess.’
    The child was puzzled and looked towards her mother for reassurance.
    â€˜This lady, my friend, she sometimes helps people who are sick, honest she does!’
    Martha tried to quench her annoyance with theparent, for already Beth had said far too much and compromised her position with the child.
    â€˜I’m just a friend, Cass.’
    â€˜Can you touch her, Martha, lay your hands on her?’
    Martha tried to make a silent plea to the mother to at least give herself and this sick child some time and space to weigh each other up and decide on things. ‘Your mom tells me that you got problems with your heart, Cass,’ she said.
    A scared look filled Cass’s eyes.
    â€˜The doctors said I need to get a new one, they can’t fix this broken one no more,’ she told Martha matter-of-factly, her gaze travelling in the direction of her mother, looking for a response. Martha was trying to appear relaxed in the face of such knowledge. This child already had enough to cope with.
    â€˜Cass, honey, will you let Martha put her hands on you and try and help to make you better?’ suggested Beth, her face contorted with concern.
    â€˜You can do that?’ quizzed the child.
    â€˜She can! She helped a boy on the floor below and lots more people besides.’
    Cass looked doubtful, almost afraid. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.
    Martha shook her head.
    â€˜I don’t think so. My hands may get warm, hot even, but that’s all.’
    â€˜What do you do, how does it work?’
    â€˜I’m not sure,’ she declared honestly, ‘but itseems that sometimes when I touch people and lay my hands on them it helps.’
    The small girl looked sceptical as if Martha was some kind of hospital worker about to play a trick on her. Subconsciously she began to push back against the pillow and retreat from her.
    â€˜I won’t hurt you, Cass, I promise.’
    This was foolish and stupid, Martha thought to herself as Beth leant forward and began to unbutton her daughter’s pretty pastel pyjama top.
    â€˜What do you want her to do?’ she whispered.
    â€˜Just relax, that’s all.’
    Martha rubbed the tips of her fingers and palms together to warm them as the child’s skinny scarred chest was revealed, leads with sticky circular pads attached to it from the monitor hooked up beside the bed. Martha sighed. Cass was staring right at her, her elfin chin pitched forward. Martha held her hand first. She was like a small wounded bird. The energy level was low, even lower than she had expected. Running her hands up along her arm she could sense the battle to move blood and oxygen through her system. She stroked Cass as she would a small baby,