Free Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories by Various Page A

Yikes. What if it were true. I could have toasted Mrs. M. right then and there. (Opportunity knocks, and if you don’t—)
    “Excuse me.” The RCMP officer was standing at the back of the sanctuary, hat in hand. “Can I talk to you?”
    “Yeah, sure,” I said.
    He came forward, extracting a notebook and pen after tucking his hat under his bulging arm. I notice biceps. Mine are kind of weenie. Too many years of books, not enough football. I regret that sometimes, the—
    “Can you tell me what you saw, Father.”
    “Just call me Dave, Officer,” I said. I told him about the lamb.
    He nodded, but he didn’t take any notes.
     
     
    I called Mrs. Miller on the phone the next day, even though it was my day off.
    “I had to use beer,” she said, “real beer to get that goo out of my hair. I actually had to go into the liquor store. My word, if anyone saw me. And stink, I’ll probably smell like a barnyard for the rest of my days.”
    And through the phone line I could taste her indignant acrimony. There was a distinctly Mrs. M. taste to the energy, a bitter, aspirin-like flavour. I could tell as clearly as if I were reading her mind that she believed quite sincerely that I had created that lamb to attack her.
     
     
    On Tuesday afternoons, I do my hospital visiting. One of my least favourite duties. That smell in hospitals—maybe it’s the cleaner they use, or maybe there’s anaesthetic floating around in the air. Bleah. Makes me nauseous. Even after twenty-nine years of ministry.
    I found Lisa Michaels sitting up in bed, flipping through an issue of Sports Illustrated . The one with the bathing suits.
    Lisa has been depressed ever since her breast cancer diagnosis. The surgeon removed a lump six months ago and gave her a clean bill, but then last week she found another lump. She and her surgeon began discussing the M word. And now here she was, contemplating surgery.
    “Hey, Lisa,” I said.
    “Hi, Dave.” She whipped the magazine across the room. It smacked against the wall and dropped into the garbage can. A perfect shot.
    I went and got a chair, but before I could get my butt into it, Lisa said, “Dave, will you say a prayer for me? I know this is all supposed to be God’s will, and such, but I just don’t want to go through with this. Will you say a prayer? For healing?”
    Jeepers. These are the put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of prayers: let’s see what this God of yours can actually do , choirboy.
    Lisa is a very sincere Christian and a committed churchwoman. But it’s been my experience that God doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with cancer—neither giving it nor taking it away. Although a person’s good faith does seem to help keep their immune system strong. It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles. I do. Honest. I’ve just never been party to one. God never seems to want to use me to pull them off.
    “And do a laying on of hands,” she added.
    I smiled (although it felt more like a grimace), placed my hand on her shoulder and closed my eyes to hunt around for some appropriate words. I felt her fingers curl around mine and she slid my hand down onto the side of her breast, and squeezed. I pretended not to notice. But there was the lump, irregular and hard, about half the size of a golf ball.
    Her terror wailed loud inside my head. I tasted dry wood ash—my mouth seemed filled with it and my body overflowed with a scorching mix of Lisa’s fear and grief and ember-hot rage.
    “Dear God,” I said, stunned. And then the lump was in my hand, a slippery mass of hard tissue.
    She gasped. I gasped. I jerked my hand away. The cancerous lump smacked on the floor and rolled under the next bed.
    Lisa ripped open her gown, groping at her heavy breast.
    She shrieked and leaped from the hospital bed. “It’s gone!” she shouted. “It’s gone!”
    I dropped to my hands and knees and grappled for the lump. I needed the evidence. Lisa was pulling at my clergy shirt.
    There. I had