The Question of Miracles (8 page)

“Well, yes, we had an ultrasound, and the baby is perfectly healthy, but we told the technician not to reveal the gender. So that's not how I cheated. But I did do something kind of crazy.” She smiled. “Do you know what I did?”

Iris shook her head.

Mrs. Kassab met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I visited a psychic.” She sounded half embarrassed, half pleased. “She said the baby will be a boy.” Then she held a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she said. “Don't tell anyone! My entire family would think I am nuts.”

They had reached the homestead. Mrs. Kassab pushed the door lever, and Iris stood up. She didn't get off the bus, though, not right away. First, she asked, “Where did you find a psychic?”

“It wasn't hard,” said Mrs. Kassab. “There is only one in town.”

 

After dinner, while her parents played chess near the fire, Iris logged on to the computer to find the town's only psychic—Madame Occhiale. In her neatest writing, Iris printed the psychic's name, phone number, and address on the top sheet of the little yellow pad that her mother kept next to the computer. Then she carefully pulled the paper free from the rest of the pad, folded it in half, and slipped it into the pocket of her robe, all before her father called, “Pigeon! Your mother has beaten me again. Come tell her to take it easier on me.”

As casually as she could, Iris went back to her parents, back to the warmth of the fire, her fingers curled around the folded-up paper in her pocket.

“How long has it been since Sarah's death?”

Iris sat in between her parents on the orange couch in Dr. Shannon's office. It was a modern couch—low-backed, leather, with round metal legs. Dr. Shannon sat across from them in a blue velvet chair. Her suit was blue too—dark blue, with a knee-length skirt and a white button-down shirt underneath the jacket. Her hair was smoothed back into a low, neat bun.

She was too young to be any good at being a psychologist, Iris decided.

Behind Dr. Shannon was the room's one window. The sky, gray and clouded, rained and rained.

“It's been six months now,” said Iris's father.

Dr. Shannon nodded and wrote in a little book.

“And you moved here . . .”

“Just over three months ago,” said her mother. “I was hired by the infectious disease department at the university. Research.”

This interested Dr. Shannon. Iris let herself tune out as her mom explained more about her job. Iris knew her mom did important work. She didn't need to hear it all again.

Actually, she hoped they'd keep talking about her mom's job for the whole hour. But instead, after just a few minutes, Dr. Shannon stood up. “You're welcome to wait in the lobby,” she said as Iris's parents stood too. “Or there's a very good coffee shop down on the corner.”

“Where are you going?”

“We're going to let you chat with Dr. Shannon for a while,” her dad said. “We'll be back.”

Iris considered putting up a fight. But she knew from her past experience with the psychiatrist in Seal Beach that it was a losing battle. So instead she just said, “Bring me a hot chocolate, okay?”

After Dr. Shannon had shut the door behind Iris's parents, she came back to the sitting area. But instead of returning to the blue chair, she sat on the other end of the couch, tucking one leg underneath herself and turning toward Iris.

Iris looked at her. Dr. Shannon smiled a little. “I'm so sorry about your friend,” she said. “You must be terribly sad.”

Iris opened her mouth to say something—she didn't know what—but instead of words, out flew a choked sob, and then her mouth crumpled, and she began to cry.

Dr. Shannon scooted closer and put a hand on Iris's back. She didn't rub or pat or try to stop Iris from crying, she just left her hand there. Iris cried long enough for the warmth of Dr. Shannon's hand to seep through her sweater and her T-shirt, all the way down to her skin. And it was such a relief, to cry like this, without worrying that her parents might hear her. She had never cried in the old psychiatrist's office; maybe it was because he always seemed to expect her tears, and Iris hadn't wanted to be that predictable.

But she cried now, and after a while she breathed in those ragged after-crying breaths that collapsed a few more times into tears, and then she wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

Dr. Shannon tilted a box of tissues toward her. Iris pulled out three, wiped her face again, blew her nose loudly.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Absolutely nothing to apologize for,” said Dr. Shannon. “Would you like some water?”

Iris nodded. Dr. Shannon left the room for a minute and came back with a bottle of water. She twisted off the cap before handing the bottle to Iris.

Iris gulped down half the water. “Thanks.” She put the bottle on the low glass table next to the couch.

Dr. Shannon didn't ask any questions. She just waited, watching Iris calm herself down, but not in a creepy way. Iris decided that maybe Dr. Shannon wasn't completely terrible.

Finally, when Iris's breathing had calmed all the way down, when she'd blown her nose one last time, Dr. Shannon said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Iris shook her head, but then she said, “I'm okay, you know? I mean, it isn't great or anything, but I'm okay. I'm taking care of Charles, and I made a friend, this kid named Boris, and I'm not having any trouble sleeping anymore. Except just every now and then.”

Dr. Shannon nodded. “Were you having trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah. I mean, at first. Right after. But now it's way better.” Iris thought back to the first nights after they'd come home from the hospital, when Sarah hadn't.

She thought about how she'd spent each night wedged in between her parents, Charles on her chest, how she wouldn't dare to move in case it woke her parents up. She was afraid they might tell her to go back to her own bed.

“But you're sleeping better now.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them said anything for a while. Then finally Iris decided to ask a question. “Dr. Shannon, do you believe in miracles?”

Dr. Shannon's face didn't reveal any surprise about the new direction the conversation was taking. “That depends,” she said. “What exactly do you mean by miracles?”

Iris told her about Boris. About how he was supposed to die, but didn't.

“What a wonderful way for that to have turned out,” Dr. Shannon said.

“But do you think it's a miracle?”

Dr. Shannon shrugged. “What do you think?”

Iris thought about it for a moment. “I looked up ‘miracle,'” she said. “
Wikipedia
says a miracle is an event attributed to divine intervention. So something is only miraculous if it's because God made it happen.”

“That's interesting.”

“Yeah,” said Iris. “But what I want to know is, if there
is
a God . . . if divine intervention is possible . . . then why would miracles only happen sometimes? Wouldn't it make more sense, if God could make good things happen, that miracles would happen all the time?”

“Like with Sarah,” Dr. Shannon said. “I'll bet you wonder why there wasn't a miracle for her.”

Dr. Shannon was smart, Iris decided.

“Well,” Dr. Shannon went on, “what do you think? Why wasn't there a miracle for Sarah?”

Iris thought for a long time before she spoke again. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell Dr. Shannon. Mostly she was afraid—she didn't want this blue-suited psychologist to tell her that she was crazy, or that she was making things up, or that the thing that she wanted was impossible.

But finally Iris said, “I think maybe Sarah
did
get a miracle.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Shannon. She didn't sound surprised, and she didn't laugh, either.

Iris went on. “I think Sarah might be a ghost.”

Dr. Shannon still didn't say anything. She just nodded.

Iris continued, encouraged. “I think she's a ghost, like a floating soul, and I think she came with us from California. I think she's in our house. Our new house. And I think she wants my help.”

“What do you think she needs?”

“I don't know.” Iris was talking faster now. “She hasn't said anything to me yet. But I
feel
her there. It's like she's right around the corner. Like she just stepped out of the room and she'll be right back. It's like she's listening.”

Iris waited for Dr. Shannon to say something.

“Well?” Iris said at last. “What do you think?”

“I think,” said Dr. Shannon, “that you really miss your friend.”

Iris decided that maybe Dr. Shannon wasn't so wonderful after all.

 

When their appointment was over, Iris's parents took her to American Dream Pizza. It reminded her of when she was a little kid and they would take her to Chuck E. Cheese's after she'd get an immunization, to take the sting out of it.

The parking lot was completely packed; they'd had to leave the car around the corner and had run through the rain together, her father holding open the door while Iris and her mom ducked inside. The long wooden benches and booths were all crammed with people laughing and eating and talking loudly over each other and over the music that blared. All the noise made Iris's heart pound, and she wished her parents would just get the pizza to go. A girl took orders from the long line. The sleeves of her
AMERICAN DREAM PIZZA
T-shirt were pushed up, revealing colorful tattoos on both of her forearms. And Iris didn't think that her hair, black that shined blue when the light hit it, was a color that was found naturally on anyone.

They joined the line, inching slowly forward. When it was their turn, Iris's mom ordered. “We'll have a large Dream Special and a pitcher of root beer, please.”

The girl rang them up. Iris couldn't take her eyes off her tattoos. Her left arm had a tree with an enormous green canopy and stretchy brown roots; her right arm had a snake curved into a figure eight, its tail disappearing into its mouth.

The girl smiled at Iris. “Hey, little lady,” she said. “I've never seen you in here before.”

“We're new in town,” said Iris's mother.

“Oh, yeah? How are you liking it so far?” The girl spoke to Iris, not her mom.

Iris shrugged. “It rains a lot.”

The girl laughed loudly, like Iris had said something really funny. “That it does, my friend.”

They took their pitcher and three cups and wedged themselves in at the end of one of the long benches. Everyone else at the table seemed to know each other; it looked like a birthday party: a bunch of balloons were tied to a table leg, and a plastic box of cupcakes was off to one side.

In fact, the whole place felt like a party.

Iris's dad struck up a conversation with the man sitting across from him. “Is it always so busy in here?” he asked.

“The pizza's great,” said the man. He took an enthusiastic bite of his slice as if to prove his point. A long strand of cheese dangled from his beard.

The little girl sitting next to Iris pointed at it and laughed. “Gross!”

The man swung his head to make the cheese string loop up, and he caught it in his mouth. The kids at the table erupted in a mixed cacophony of disgust and amazement.

That girl Heather, who'd tried to sit next to Iris on the bus, was in one of the booths. A woman in a medical uniform and two other kids, both boys, one older than Heather, a teenager, and one younger, maybe seven, were with her. Iris wondered where their dad was, if maybe Heather's parents were divorced. Maybe Heather's dad had left them after the youngest kid was born because he'd wanted to start a rock band and Heather's mom didn't want him to. Maybe he'd decided that he'd rather have his music than his family. And maybe Heather called his phone all the time but he never answered. Maybe Heather had a big black hole right in the center of her where her dad had been.

Heather caught Iris staring at them and waved, but Iris pretended to be looking at something on the wall behind her.

“Do you know that girl?” Iris's mom asked. “From school?”

Iris shrugged. “We have a couple of classes together.”

“We should invite her to come sit with us,” her dad said in that voice he used when he was having a
great idea
that wasn't great at all.

“I don't think so,” Iris said. Her dad looked like he wanted to insist, but then he didn't.

Iris half listened as her dad told her mom about the pros and cons of solar panels and wind turbines. “Lots of local folks have solar panels,” he said, “but I really think a turbine might be the way to go, at least to start. We could invest in a nine-hundred-watt unit. It would have a seven-foot turbine—probably not big enough to power all our energy needs, but it would be something. And in a year or two, we could consider adding a few solar panels to the roof of the homestead.”

“That sounds great, Frank,” said Iris's mom.

A few minutes later, the door swung open and a man came in. He was tall and lean and more handsome than most dad-aged men. Heather waved at him, and he went over and slid into the booth next to her, leaning over first to kiss her mom.

No divorce. No rock band. No black hole.

At last their pizza came. Her dad asked for some ranch dressing so he could dip his slice. Iris had to admit, it really
was
the best pizza she'd ever had—just enough sauce, kind of tangy, loads of cheese. And the crust had been rolled in cornmeal, giving the outside a crunchy texture, while the center was soft and steamy warm.

Iris ate three pieces and drank two glasses of root beer.

After a while Heather and her family left with the rest of their pizza in a to-go box, and a different group of people sat down in the booth they'd occupied.