Miriam's Well by Lois Ruby

room, it was only a border skirmish compared to the holy war that was about to begin.
    I no longer belonged to my mother. I was imprisoned in a hospital bed with a needle in my arm connected to a bottle that dripped some kind of liquid into my veins. I had a police guard outside my door, a guardian ad litem (which is a court-appointed lawyer), a state social worker, a primary care physician, and an oncologist, for by 4:00 the next afternoon, they decided I had bone cancer.
    I’d had a bone scan, which meant having some kind of dye pumped through my system, waiting around for hours, then sliding on a table through a monstrous machine that took picture upon picture of the insides of me. I tried not to watch, tried to concentrate on a stain in the ceiling, tried to name all the books of the Book in Gold Leaf , all the disciples, all the saints, all the martyrs, but too often my mind would wander and my eyes would stray to the screen where my body was being drawn, quarter by quarter. They explained that the dye would accumulate in those areas where a tumor was suspected. I saw the darkening ball, the size of a walnut, growing in my pelvic bone. So small, I thought. A little thing like that couldn’t cause much harm, and certainly not the pain that had been waking me up four, five times a night for weeks.
    â€œLocalized,” I heard the technician say. “Bet the doc’ll confirm it. She’s a lucky chick.”
    But what the doctor said was that I was to have a bone biopsy. They would put me to sleep, stick a long needle into my back and suck out something from inside that bone. The laboratory would look it over, and that would be the final word on the subject. I did not like the sound of being put to sleep. That’s what veterinarians did to old dogs. I never actually thought they were planning to kill me, but neither did the dog who was lovingly led into the execution chamber. “Poetry is a bitch.” I remembered Mrs. Loomis saying that and my shock at hearing it. It seemed so long ago, maybe months, since Adam Bergen and I had discussed fire and ice. But it was only a few unbearably long days.
    There was nothing Mama or the men could do about the biopsy without risking arrest, but they could holler at the doctors and nurses and social workers. Only when Brother James came to my bedside were they hushed.
    Brother James sent the men on to work and walked Mama down the hall to a sitting room. It was the first time I’d been alone for twenty-four hours, and I breathed the silence gratefully. A nurse had set a bunch of sunflowers in a glass by my bed, and I caught their scent like wilted summer grass. Brother James was back to fill my room with abiding comfort, and I quickly dismissed the pleasure of being alone.
    â€œMiriam,” he said, gathering me to him. I flopped onto his chest like a rag doll. His huge hands smoothed the gown over my back. “Put your life in the hands of the Lord,” he said softly. “Isaiah 40: ‘They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.’ Remember.”
    â€œBrother James, please don’t be cross with me, but I don’t feel like I will ever run and not be weary.”
    â€œRemember Matthew 13. The people of Nazareth suffered for their doubt and disbelief, for we are told, ‘And He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.’ Let the Lord do mighty works within your body and spirit, Miriam.”
    â€œIt hurts, Brother James, and I’m so scared.”
    â€œShh, child.” He smoothed my hair off my forehead and wiped a tear across my cheek with a rough finger. He laid me back down on my pillow, with the bed cranked up to a near-sitting position. He slid his chair closer to the bed and took both my hands. His voice changed, became both more personal and more distant, as if he were