The Miracle Read Online Free PDF Page A

paper, and the headline hit her. VIRGIN MARY TO RETURN TO LOURDES. The story that followed was bylined by someone named Liz Finch, and it was datelined Paris.
    Amanda hastily read the news story. When she was through, she let the paper drop to the floor, and met Dr. Whitney's eyes. She was aghast as the full import of what was happening struck her. "The Virgin Mary returning to Lourdes to perform a miracle? The hallucinating of an adolescent peasant girl over a century ago? Are you telling me Ken has read and believes in this?"
    "Yes."
    "Ken depending on a miracle to save him instead of surgery? Dr. Whitney, that's not like Ken, you know it isn't. He doesn't believe in miracles. He's hardly a churchgoer. You know him. He's reasonable, logical, intelligent—"
    "Not anymore, he's not," said the physician. "Not when he's so desperate."
    "But I'm telling you it's not like Ken."
    "You know his mother fairly well, don't you? You know Helen Clayton is a fervent believer. Can you imagine how this story affected her? She was all over Ken at once. Since she doesn't like the surgeon's odds, she's decided that Lourdes will offer her son a better chance for complete recovery. She's already sent Ken to see their priest. Father Heam, and it was after seeing Father Heam that Ken phoned me and cancelled the surgery. He told me that he's going to Lourdes. He's been brainwashed into thinking he may have a good chance for a miracle cure. It was no use arguing with him. One can't argue with blind faith. Even when it's out of character."

    Amanda sat there, worrying her purse, deeply shaken. "Dr. Whitney, I try to deal with realities in my work. You know I'm a psychologist."
    "I know."
    "Perhaps this is a momentary aberration of Ken's that will pass. Let me ask you a question. What if we let him go to Lourdes, let him pray for a miracle, let him believe in the fairy tale until he sees for himself that it hasn't cured him? Couldn't he return here then, having come to his senses, and undergo the surgery?"
    "Miss Spenser, I must be absolutely candid with you. I will say again what I said earlier. In this kind of disease, time is of the essence. The loss of a full month may make Ken almost inoperable, at least reduce his chances for a successful surgery from thirty percent to fifteen percent. His chances for survival are low enough. To cut them in half again reduces his chances drastically. Such are the facts. Unless he is saved by a miracle, he won't be saved at all. I'm sorry. But I had to apprise you of the turn of events, and the current situation, and hope you could influence Ken's thinking. I'm hoping somehow you can do something about it."
    Amanda gathered up her purse and resolutely stood up. "I am going to do something about it. Immediately."
    Dr. Whitney was on his feet. "Are you going to speak to Ken or his mother?"
    "To neither. They'd be impossible to talk to in their present state. I'm going to talk to Father Heam. Right now. He's our only hope."
    It was not until late afternoon that Amanda Spenser was able to get an appointment to see Father Heam. Even that had been difficult to arrange on such short notice, but she had invoked her friendship with Bernard and Helen Clayton and explained her relationship with Ken Clayton.
    In a way, however, the delay had been a good thing.
    After making her appointment, Amanda had realized that she was poorly prepared to debate with an educated Catholic priest about Lourdes and miraculous cures. While she knew vaguely about Bernadette and her visions, probably from having once seen the film The Song of Bernadette revived on television when she was in college, she knew nothing about the miracle shrine itself.
    Since Father Heam could not meet her until four-thirty in the afternoon, Amanda had five hours to brief herself for the visit. More than an hour of it she had devoted to calling her secretary and arranging to have all her sessions with her patients cancelled for this after-

    noon, and then having