He rubbed his face. “I can’t explain it.”
“I believe it,” Ethan said firmly. “Katie talked about a ‘Great Physician.’ I think He helped me see.”
“Katie…” Alex repeated, a pang of guilt hitting him. “That girl…”
He suddenly pulled a U-turn and headed back toward the town square. It was dark now, the streetlamps illuminating the nearly empty plaza. Only a few people were walking toward the bus stop, and the vendors were packing up.
Alex got out of the car and started asking anyone he could find. “Have you seen a girl? Eleven or twelve, barefoot, messy dark hair?”
An old man selling fruit shook his head. “Haven’t seen her. It’s late, everyone’s gone home.”
A woman locking up a flower shop stopped. “The barefoot girl? Yeah, I saw her this afternoon. She’s always around here, sitting on that bench,” she pointed. “Strange kid. Always looks like she’s waiting for someone.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Alex asked.
“No idea. She just comes and goes. Sometimes she talks to herself, sometimes she just sits. But I haven’t seen her since about four o’clock.”
Alex walked the perimeter of the square, asking everyone. Some had seen her in the morning, some at noon, but no one knew where she came from.
A homeless man sitting near the church fence spoke up. “That girl… she’s been coming here for three years. Told me once she was waiting for a special person she had to help. I thought she was just confused.”
“Three years?” Alex asked. “She came here every day for three years?”
“Pretty much. Sat on that bench and waited. But this evening, I saw her walking toward the old ridge outside of town. She didn’t come back.”
Alex returned to the car. Ethan was curled up in the back seat, watching the world through the window.
“Didn’t find her?” Ethan asked softly.
“No.” Alex sat behind the wheel and rested his head on his hands. “No one knows where she is.”
“She was real, right Dad?” Ethan’s voice was worried. “I didn’t imagine her?”
“No, son. She was real. I saw her too. Everyone saw her.”
Alex didn’t sleep that night. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, the same thought looping in his mind: he had been terrible to her. He had yelled at her, called her a fraud, and hadn’t even said thank you. And she had saved his son, giving him back the one thing money couldn’t buy.
His wife, Sarah, was asleep beside him, but he couldn’t share this with her yet. She was a pragmatic woman, a corporate accountant who lived by facts. When he’d told her the news over the phone, she’d been shocked but skeptical.
“The doctors must have misdiagnosed him, or it was a spontaneous remission. I’ve read about those,” she’d said.
“Sarah, you don’t understand,” Alex had tried to explain. “It wasn’t a mistake. It was…”
“What? A miracle?” she’d scoffed. “Alex, we’re adults. Miracles don’t happen in the real world.”
But he knew better. And the guilt was eating him alive.
The next morning, he woke up with a plan. Leaving Sarah at home, he took Ethan back to the square. The boy insisted they sit on the exact same bench where it all started.
“It smells like oak and rain,” Ethan said, breathing in the morning air. “I never knew what the morning smelled like.”
Alex sat beside him, his hand on his son’s shoulder, watching the square come to life. Vendors were setting up, and people were rushing to work.
“Dad,” Ethan said quietly, “if we find her, will you apologize?”
Alex swallowed hard. “Yes, son. I’ll tell her I was wrong. I was scared of what I didn’t understand, and I acted like a jerk.”
“You weren’t a jerk,” Ethan countered. “You just like to be in charge. And there was nothing to be in charge of there.”
Coming from an eleven-year-old, the wisdom stung. Alex felt his eyes sting. Suddenly, a gust of wind kicked up some dust and leaves. Something glinted in the air. A thin, translucent thread drifted down and landed right at Ethan’s feet.
They both froze. Ethan reached down and picked it up. It lay in his palm, shimmering in the sun exactly like the films Katie had removed from his eyes.
“Dad,” the boy whispered, “it’s her. She’s nearby.”
Alex looked around frantically, but he didn’t see anyone who looked like Katie. People just walked by, oblivious.
“She wants us to know she’s here,” Ethan added, “even if we can’t see her.”
Just then, an older woman with gray hair pulled into a neat bun approached them. It was the florist Alex had spoken to the night before.
“Excuse me,” she said gently. “I heard you looking for that girl yesterday. My name is Mrs. Gable.”
Alex stood up quickly. “Do you know something?”
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