The Question of Miracles (2 page)

They
could
have been talking about her. All day it had seemed like everyone was looking at Iris.

At the next stop, more than half of the remaining kids disembarked, including the boy she'd sat next to at lunch . . . Boris, was it? Those two silly girls got off too, and one of them bumped into Boris, knocking the paperback he held to the ground. He picked it up, sopping wet. He shook his head and shot the girls an annoyed glance, but neither of them even noticed.

They all walked toward a large, circular housing tract. All the houses looked pretty new. They had identical roofs and front doors, and exteriors painted various shades of pink and beige.

It wasn't all that different from the neighborhood Iris and Sarah had shared back home. Except that here all the walls were streaked dark with rain, the tiles spotted with moss.

The rain came down harder and harder, pounding against the roof of the bus, as they made their next few stops. Then it was just Iris and the bus driver, and it felt weird to be sitting all alone in the back, so Iris grabbed her backpack and weaved up to the front, sitting down behind the driver.

The bus driver looked into the rearview mirror and caught Iris's gaze. Iris had assumed the bus driver was wearing a hooded jacket or something—she hadn't really paid attention when she'd boarded the bus—but now she saw that the driver was a dark-skinned woman, and that she was wearing one of those head coverings that Muslims wear.

“You're new,” said the driver.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you like it so far?”

Iris wished she had just stayed at the back of the bus. Why did people always want to
talk
to her? She shrugged, then realized that the driver wouldn't be able to see that, so she said, “It's okay,” which was a lie.

The driver laughed. “It was hard for me to get used to, when I moved here,” she said. “Where I come from, it is hot and dry. No rain like this, all the time.” She gestured with her left hand, the right clutching the gigantic steering wheel. Iris saw that she had pretty hands, and that she wore a gold band on her ring finger.

“Your folks didn't want to live closer to town,” the driver said, but it wasn't a question, so Iris didn't answer.

Then the bus driver seemed to get that Iris didn't much feel like talking. She didn't seem insulted or anything.

Finally they pulled up to the beginning of Iris's long driveway.

The driver stopped the bus and pushed the lever that swung open the doors. “I'm sorry, but I can't take the bus up to the house. School rules.”

The rain fell in constant sheets. Iris sighed, then stood and lifted her backpack onto her back, over both shoulders. She fished her collapsible umbrella out of her jacket pocket.

“It's okay,” she said again. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Not a problem,” said the driver.

Then there was nothing else to say, no reason to delay heading into the rain, and anyway, it only seemed to be coming down heavier the longer she waited, so Iris gave a halfhearted wave behind her and descended the four steps, her rain boots crunching the gravel as she thrust open the umbrella, latched it into place, and ran up the driveway.

She held the umbrella half in front of her like a shield, which made it hard to see where she was going, but the rain seemed to be coming from all directions rather than straight down, so that was the only way the umbrella was even a help at all.

She wasn't far from the front porch when the wind suddenly shifted. A gust stronger than she was ripped the umbrella from her hands and flipped the canopy inside out. Her umbrella tumbled off the driveway and into the overgrown grass, like a broken bird. Without meaning to, Iris stopped, open-mouthed, staring after it as it tumbled on and on, end over end. And then a crack of lightning split the sky, and Iris ran for the house, banging up the wooden porch steps and through the door, which she slammed behind her.

She stood and dripped the rain onto the carpet runner in the front hall, breathing sharply.

“Iris?” called her dad. He poked his head in from the kitchen and raised his eyebrows at her. He had terribly expressive eyebrows. “For God's sake, Iris, take off those boots and your jacket before you flood the place.”

His words brought Iris back into her body, and she tore open her raincoat, hearing the seven satisfying pops that accompanied the snaps. She hung the coat on the coat rack and pulled off her rain boots, setting them by the door.

Her dad reappeared, this time with two towels, and he tossed one to Iris before spreading the second beneath the raincoat to soak up the water it still dripped.

“We're going to have to devise a better system,” he said, but Iris recognized his tone to mean that he was thinking aloud rather than talking to her, and so she said nothing.

She appreciated that her dad had built a fire, although if he hadn't moved her way out here to the middle of nowhere, no fire would have been necessary. Now, away from Seal Beach, she realized that their old fireplace had really been ornamental; any fire they built was for mood rather than a need for warmth.

Poor Charles skulked as close to the fire as he could. His gray-skinned flank pressed almost against the fire grate, his long, skinny tail curled into a loop against his side. Charles was Iris's only pet. She was allergic to cats but desperately in love with them, and so her parents had bought her Charles for her ninth birthday, two years ago. He was a sphynx—a hairless cat. An abomination, Iris's dad sometimes joked, but Charles looked so pitiful here, huddled up beside the fire, that Iris felt especially sorry for him.

Iris pulled off her sweater because it was damp and used her toes to peel her socks off, inside out, and then perched on the hearth, careful not to disturb Charles. She reached out to stroke his back, down the knobby path of his spine, but her hand must have been freezing because a wave of wrinkles tightened over his gray alien skin and he leaped down, his tail unfurling and pointing into the air as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Now it was just her—just Iris—alone by the fire. She sighed and slumped down, turning first one way and then the other in an effort to get warm. In the kitchen, her father whistled a song, and she heard the thud of the knife as he chopped something for dinner. After a while, Charles slunk back into the living room and jumped onto her lap. Her hands were warmer now, and the cat allowed her to scratch his ears, rub his shoulders a little. He didn't purr, though; Iris wondered if he was conserving his energy.

The fire was working, warming her through, and Iris considered finding the remote control so that she could watch some TV. But she didn't want to disturb Charles again, so she just sat there underneath him. He closed his uncanny blue eyes and settled into her more fully.

Little around her was familiar; in an effort to embrace the idea of a “fresh start,” her parents had thrown a giant yard sale, practically giving away all their furniture—the couch, the kitchen table, the sideboard that had held their knickknacks and holiday china.

Even the holiday china.

“It's silly to have a whole set of dishes for just one day a year, don't you think?” her mother had said to Iris, just before she sold the set to an enormously pregnant Asian lady.

So there wasn't much in this room to remind Iris of home—a leather ottoman her dad had refused to get rid of; a standing lamp with a Tiffany shade that had been a wedding present to her parents; Charles.

And, of course, there was Sarah's ghost.

Iris's dad made lasagna for dinner. Iris ate it begrudgingly; she felt like punishing him for her horrible day by ignoring her meal, but it was just so
good
—aromatic meaty tomato sauce, melted stringy cheese, layers of cooked-just-right flat noodles.

There was a salad, too, which Iris found easier to ignore. She didn't like to eat more than one thing at a time, and rather than fill her plate with salad when the lasagna was gone, she spooned out a second hot serving.

Iris's mom had gotten home right before dinner was served. When she banged through the front door and dripped her share of rain onto the hall runner, Iris's dad repeated his routine with the towels. “You girls have no appreciation for the importance of maintaining a dry floor,” he said, clearly irritated.

But Iris's mom just laughed and shook her wet hair at him. “I think you're going to have to get used to a certain base level of dampness,” she said as she loosened the belt of her raincoat.

Iris admired her mother's fashion sense. She was a big woman—tall, but also broad-shouldered and full of soft curves—large breasts, a belly that Charles loved to sleep on in the evenings when they watched TV together, a rear end that ensured she would always be perfectly comfortable without a seat cushion.

And she loved to wear frilly things. Even her raincoat was pretty—light pink and yellow with an ornamental puff capping each sleeve and a ruffle along the bottom edge.

Secretly, Iris liked frills and puffs too. But she always felt silly wearing them, like she was trying to get attention, which she wasn't.

At the table, her dad poured dark red wine for himself and Iris's mom. Iris had milk.

“Did you make any friends today?” asked her mother as she sipped the wine.

Iris shook her head, but her mother looked so disappointed that she said, “Well, I sat next to this kid Boris at lunch. He was all right.” Her mother's mood seemed to brighten considerably. Iris turned to her dad. “Have you ever heard of Pink Ladies?”

“Is that a punk band?” he asked.

“No. It's a kind of apple. Boris said they're the best.” Iris tried to remember his exact words. “Boris told me that they're crisp like a green apple, but sweeter, like a red. And tangy.” She shrugged.

“You talked about
apples
with the boy?” Iris's mom seemed to find this amusing.

“What
should
we have talked about? I don't know any of these people. They don't know me. They
shouldn't
know me. I should still be back home in Seal Beach.”

Her parents exchanged a worried glance, and her mom said, “I'm sorry. Of course you can talk about apples. You can talk about anything you want.”

“Well, thanks for your permission,” Iris answered sarcastically.

“No need for that tone,” cautioned her father, and Iris sighed.

“Okay,” she said. “Sorry.”

Then they just ate for a while, and the only conversation was the clink of their glasses against the wooden tabletop and the scrape of their forks against the ceramic plates.

In the relative silence, Iris heard something from the front hallway. A kind of rasping, scratchy sound. She wondered if it came from the closet under the stairs. It sounded like it came from the closet under the stairs.

She put down her fork and listened carefully, waiting to see if the sound would come again. It did.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” asked her dad loudly.

“Shhh.” Iris strained to hear. There it was again. “That.”

“We probably have mice,” said her mom. “This is an old place.”

“If Charles were a
real
cat,” said her dad, “he'd take care of that for us.”

But Iris didn't think the sound was from a mouse.

 

After dinner, Iris and her parents washed the dishes. They had to do it by hand because there wasn't a dishwasher. They had an assembly line: her dad washed, her mom dried, and Iris put away.

It didn't take very long, but even so, Iris resented the lack of modern kitchen appliances. The farmhouse was over one hundred years old, and apparently no one who had lived in it during the last half century had thought it worthwhile to bring a few things up to date.

“I think it's charming,” her mother said when Iris complained about it.

“That's because you're drying instead of washing,” said her dad, scrubbing at the stubborn lasagna tray. “We're getting a dishwasher.”

Iris felt a surge of triumph, like she'd won a point against the old farmhouse.
Fifteen–Love,
she thought, keeping score, out of habit, like she would a tennis match.

As soon as she thought the words, she regretted them. Thinking about tennis made her think about Sarah.

Iris's mom had played doubles tennis all through high school and college. She had been a star—her height, her long arms, and her broad shoulders all combined into one heck of a mean serve. So she'd loved it when Sarah would spend the weekend at their house and the four of them—Sarah, Iris, her mom and dad—would walk over to the local high school to play together. Iris and her dad weren't great, but they did their best to keep up—the grownups on one side of the net, Iris and Sarah on the other. But most of the matches ended up coming down to Sarah and Iris's mom, with Iris and her dad just standing there, rackets in hand. Iris was built like her dad—like one of the fairy folk, he liked to joke. He wore smaller shoes than his wife did.

Every time Sarah scored a point, she'd trill out a chirp of joy, like it was the first time she'd ever done such a thing. Like she'd surprised herself. Then she'd call out the score, gleeful—“Fifteen–Love,” or “Thirty–Fifteen,” or whatever. Scoring tennis was funny; both sides started out with “Love,” which equaled nothing. The first and second points were each worth fifteen; the third point was worth ten. The first side to get a fourth point won—as long as the opposing side was at least two points behind. If not, scoring got even more complicated. Iris hated keeping score, so it was always Sarah's job.

Before every serve, Sarah would spin the racket in her hands, tapping the head and loosening her grip on the handle so it'd spin around and around. She always did it three times—never twice, never four times. Iris teased her about it, but she had her own tennis habit too—rocking back onto her heels and then up onto her toes, once for each time Sarah's tennis racket spun.