The Miracles of Ordinary Men by Amanda Leduc Page A

okay?”
    â€œShe’s all right. Sam.” Father Jim stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. “Sam. It could have gone on for hours like that.”
    â€œStill.”
Thwack.
“A knife — even a gun — would have been somewhat less spectacular,
wouldn’t you say?” The deer could be floating in front of the trees right now. Energy particles floating in the air, just like his mother.
    â€œThey’ll be here soon,” Father Jim said. “We should go back. Be careful where you step.”
    â€œI can see in the dark,” Sam said, mid-swing, and he choked on a bout of hysterical laughter. “Didn’t I tell you?”
    The priest said nothing.
    â€œDo you
ever
crack?” Sam turned sharply to face the other man. “I just killed a deer with one touch of my hand. Don’t you find that strange? Oh, but nothing surprises a man of God — I forgot.”
    â€œPlenty of things surprise me,” Father Jim said. His face was lost in shadow, his voice both long-suffering and stern. “Come on, Sam.”
    Suddenly the anger sluiced from his bones. They trudged back to the road in silence, Father Jim cautiously picking his way through the undergrowth. Sam, less careful, followed the glow of his wings and stared into the surrounding green. The trees loomed overhead and the entire world was dank and dark and smelled of night, of old decay. His hands were filthy — too late, he realized he had no way of cleaning them up. He felt as though he were walking in circles, as though he’d been lost in the forest for days. The trees he’d hit were lost now. He’d never find them again.
    When they reached the road, the ranger and the tow truck were already there. The driver of the tow truck was barely five feet tall and carried a blue-green Slurpee, from which he took noisy sips. He looked as though he couldn’t hold up the drink, never mind take a hitch to the Jetta. An orange pylon sat a few yards ahead, toppled against the road like a lopsided Halloween hat.
    As it turned out, though, the car started fine. A hardy little thing, his Volkswagen. He backed it up slowly and then moved it out of the path of the deer. Father Jim opened the passenger door and climbed in, and Chickenhead jumped forward into his arms. Aside from the rickety sound of the hood, the rumble of the car beneath Sam’s feet was steady and strong.
    â€œIt’s a pretty clean kill,” said the ranger. He was young, and tall beside the tow truck driver — they looked like a sketch team, a wilderness comic duo. “Eat venison?”
    â€œNo.”
    He shrugged. “We’ll handle this, here on in. Odd bit of luck, that,” and he nodded to the car. “It shouldn’t be driveable, what it did to the deer.” Then he laughed — Father Jim had turned to face them and a sudden shaft of light from the sun illuminated his collar. “Or maybe not.”
    All Sam could manage was a watery grin. “No,” he echoed. “Maybe not.” Then they pulled onto the road, and in a scant few seconds they crossed the bend and left the deer behind.
    They didn’t speak again until the ferry terminal came into view. Sam pulled into the wait line and turned to face the priest, who sat serene, his hands buried in Chickenhead’s fur.
    â€œDo you have any idea?” he asked.
    Father Jim shook his head, and Sam had the sudden impression that he’d heard the question before, too many times to count. “Everyone wants to know why,”
the priest admitted. “Even me.”

VIII
    The first time Lilah swore, she was fourteen. This was the year before mascara, that last year when she still thought nothing of wearing sweat pants to school. Roberta was still a year or so away from the Fernwood house, and Carl had left. They had moved, the three of them, into the basement apartment of an old house in Oak Bay. There were spiders. Lilah shared