Miracle Woman by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Page A

Both of them.’
    â€˜You should be going to a doctor, Martha, that’s certainly not my field.’
    â€˜Please, Rianna. The doctor’s going to think I’m crazy if I go ask him and I’d have to get an appointment for the hospital.’
    Rianna considered for a minute, then leaning forward she took Martha’s right hand in hers.
    â€˜The magic hand,’ she murmured, turning it back and forwards, feeling the fingers and knuckles and wrist and palm. ‘Seems totally normal to me, Martha, but I’m not really set up for anatomy. Still, I’m sure we can get a photo of these beauties if we try.’
    â€˜I just feel such a freak, Rianna, and I need to know is there some strange kind of reason why I have this power.’
    â€˜You’re not going to go blowing all my expensive fancy equipment on me now, are you!’
    â€˜I hope not.’
    Rianna and herself had met in the hospital after giving birth to their firstborn sons more than fifteen years ago. Patrick and Alex had been born within hours of each other, which seemed to create some kind of bond between them. The kids and moms always sent cards and presents to each other and kept in touch over the years. Even when she and Mike had moved to California, Rianna would make incredible long-distance calls to tell her the most trivial things. After they had movedback East Martha was only glad that she was there to offer her love and support when Andrew Lingard was involved in a tragic skiing accident in the Blue Hills and broke his neck. Three months later Rianna and young Alex lost the most important person in their life. She was filled with admiration for Rianna, who had gone back to dental school to continue her studies and ended up taking over her husband’s practice.
    Rianna asked her to spread her fingers against the solid base of the instrument table as she manoeuvred the X-ray camera into position.
    â€˜OK, keep still a sec.’
    She repeated the procedure with her left hand.
    â€˜Right, we have to wait a few minutes. Do you want me to give you a nice polish while we wait?’
    â€˜Sure!’
    â€˜Why not!’
    Martha’s teeth were white and sparkling when Rianna told her that her hands were perfectly normal. ‘There is slight evidence of a break years ago on your middle finger, that’s all.’
    â€˜Basketball when I was about sixteen.’
    â€˜Well, there you go then, but otherwise horribly normal and no need to call out the
X Files
brigade.’
    She felt relieved as she thanked Rianna and arranged to invite her and Alex over for Sunday lunch in about a fortnight’s time.
    â€˜Tell Mike and the kids I said hi,’ added Rianna, as she left her office.
    Somewhat reassured Martha went out into the street. She had some time to kill before she went home and the evening rush hour started, and decided to do a bit of shopping in the stores up around Copley Square.
    Rianna Lindgard stretched her aching legs and feet. She had just finished an exhausting root canal job on a very tetchy businessman who was booked to fly to Tokyo first thing in the morning. She was as polite and kind as could be but longed to be home with Alex, eating spaghetti carbonara and drinking a chilled Martini. Lucy her assistant had gone already as there was no point in her missing her train to Braintree.
    She checked everything was unplugged and turned off, and that her equipment was sterilized for tomorrow. Noticing Martha’s X-rays over on her desk, she thought she’d leave them for Lucy to file in the morning. Lifting them up, her eye was drawn to a whitish circle of light that seemed to have developed around the edge of the hands and finger bones. Was it a fault in her machine? It hadn’t been there earlier on, she was sure of that. Curious, she placed them safely away in her own drawer. Maybe Martha really had the power she believed in.

Chapter Twelve
    MIKE MCGILL PULLED on the freshly ironed