Immaculate (31 page)

Hannah was up then, telling the camera about the day I took the pregnancy test, the first moments of realization for her and for me. It hadn't been easy, she said, none of it, but staying by my side was the right thing to do. I had been so strong and courageous that it had inspired her to be strong and courageous, too, even if that meant losing every other friend she had. Or more accurately, “redefining friendship and what loving someone unconditionally actually means, when you strip it out of the hypothetical and give it real-life context.”

Jesse flipped the camera around to himself after that, and I tensed, surprised to suddenly see him staring out of the screen. I didn't recognize the backdrop behind him, but based on the numerous overlapping movie posters tacked along the wall, I suspected it was his bedroom. I hadn't realized, not until that moment, that I'd never actually been to his house and that our friendship was so conspicuously one-sided. The thought made the guilty knot in my stomach twist even tighter, and I watched his warm, adorably sincere face while he described Iris and that night we first met. He swore that even though we'd worked together through the summer, we'd never had a real conversation until a few months ago. We had been complete strangers at the time I would have conceived.

“I came to this school not knowing anyone, and Mina . . . she took me in. I may have only known her since this fall, so I can't comment on her past here and her reputation through the years, but I know who I've seen—I know this Mina, today and now, and she's one of the strongest, sweetest, most genuine and good people I've ever met.” He smiled, distracted, as he swiped a hand through his knotty curls. “I hate that our friendship has started even more rumors about her and the baby, and honestly, if I were the father, I'd be proud to admit it. Any guy should be with a girl like Mina. But I'm not, at least not biologically speaking. Emotionally, though . . . emotionally I already know that I would do anything to keep both of them safe. So maybe I'm protective like a father, and care like a father, but I'm not—I am
not
the father. And I don't think we'll ever fully understand who is.”

The film kept playing from there, artfully jumping through various scenes from the past few weeks: me taking notes on my faux birthing class DVDs, a trip to Dr. Keller's office, my birthday night and our shocked reactions to the first news report, which I hadn't even noticed him recording. But I could barely absorb any of it, not after listening to Jesse talk about me—not after knowing that he'd said those things before our fight, and probably wished he could take them back now, rerecord his statements about an idolized girl who didn't actually exist.

A clip with Pastor Lewis brought me back, though, and I leaned forward for a better view of the screen. He looked stiff and uncomfortable behind his glossy wooden desk, as out of place in his own office as he had been that day in our living room. He was fidgeting in his seat, the leather squeaking slightly as he spun the chair in tiny half circles, left and right. But his light hazel eyes, solemn and wide, were fixed on the camera as he opened his mouth to speak. He talked about how he'd known me since the day I was born, baptized me in that same church eighteen years ago, and watched me grow up through Sunday School and choir, youth group and catechism classes.

“I won't say that I believe unequivocally that Mina is carrying a baby conceived through some sort of divine intervention, because I can't be sure of that. No one can be sure of that. But I will say that in our times, I think we've reached a sorry, sad state of cynicism. That we've stopped believing that miracles—any miracle, no matter how small or large—are inherently possible. We've become so obstinately certain that we can explain every last detail about the world around us, and I think that in doing so, we've lost some of the magic and the beauty that God intended for us to have in our lives. We've lost that humble, grounding belief that there are things and acts outside of our power to comprehend—that as men and women we still have limits in what we can perceive of God's plan.

“So is it possible, could Mina actually be the virgin mother of a child who comes to us through some higher being? From God Himself?” He paused, knitting his hands together on top of the desk to steady himself, but his eyes never left the camera. “I think it is. Or at the very least, I think it's outside of our right and our authority to question and criticize what is or isn't God's doing. This is not for us to judge. We cannot condemn. We can only hope and pray and open ourselves to the possibilities that God can still reach down—can touch our everyday lives in ways that we've maybe never dreamed possible. We believe in the ideas that we read in the Bible. We believe in Jesus, in his mother, Mary. Why is it so hard to believe that miracles can still happen today, in our modern world? Ask yourself that, if nothing else. Why? Or, more appropriately,
why not
?”

Pastor Lewis's lips stilled, but Jesse kept the camera on him for a few more silent seconds, allowing the full effect of his words to linger, dense and electric in their implications.

Just as I was thinking we'd reached the end, the scene changed again. It was me, on Christmas Eve, hands dragging down the mural of the nativity as my sobbing body sagged to the floor. I gasped, pressing against my dad's arm to steady myself. I hadn't thought Jesse had been there that long before he'd called out to me—would never have guessed that his camera had been on me that whole time, the bright recording light blinking red as he captured my fall.

My first instinct was to scream, to accuse him of completely violating my privacy. But then I saw the reactions that Hannah and my entire family were having, and I held myself back. Every cheek was shiny wet with tears, all eyes riveted by the scene—the round-bellied girl, the mother-to-be, so symbolically close to another mother. Another mother who mirrored so much of what she was experiencing in her own extraordinary life, two thousand years later.

And I realized that maybe—just maybe—that scene could actually change peoples' minds. Soften them at the very least. Because how could that girl, that poor aching, breaking girl, be a fake, an impostor? And why would she? Why would she, or anyone, willingly put themselves through this experience? This kind of judgment?

That girl, that girl up on the screen, she was real. She was real, and she was hurting, but she was also determined and resilient and proud. She was the Mina I wanted to be.

She was the Mina I wanted the world to know.

chapter eighteen

I don't know
how the girl knew where to find me, but she did. She was sitting on the steps outside of Dr. Keller's office, her small chin propped in her small hands, waiting as my mom and I made our way to the door. I didn't pay any attention at first, not until she jumped up and latched on to my waist.

“Mina, Mina, Mina!” she screamed, her whole face lighting up in a big smile, adorably crooked from her two missing front teeth.

I stepped back a little, startled. I looked to my mom, and she shook her head at me, just as confused.

“Excuse me. I don't think I know you?” I put one hand on her shoulder as I gently pushed her back to get a better look. Red braids, freckles, a sparkly pink jacket. She could have been Gracie's age.

“No, but I know all about you. My whole family does. And I need to ask you a really important favor.” Her grin disappeared, and she looked suddenly much older, more serious.

“My mom is the one who needs you, but she was too sick to come. She's really sick. And they won't tell me much because they think I'm too little, but she has cancer. I'm scared she's not going to be okay. Not ever maybe.”

A sob rose up my throat, but I forced it down. I took my mom's hand instead, squeezing it as I steadied myself.

“I'm really sorry to hear that . . . ?”

“Katie.”

“I'm so sorry, Katie.”

“I told her that I would find you, though. I thought maybe if you pray for her, she might get better. Or maybe . . . maybe you could give me something to take back to her? Like a bracelet or a glove or something? Just something that you've touched. Like a good luck charm to help save her.”

“Katie, I . . .” I stopped, struggling with what to say. It felt morally wrong, deceitful to give her the hope that anything I could do would make any difference for her mom.

But at the same time, was it so awful to give someone hope? Wasn't hope sometimes all we needed to be stronger? To pass through something hard—to make it to the other side.

Maybe hope isn't always about the perfect ending. Hope is making the journey easier.

“Sure,” I said, before I could change my mind. I slipped a thin silver band from my thumb, a random find from a Saturday thrifting with the girls at the local flea market.

The look of pure joy on Katie's face erased any regret I might have felt.

“Thank you, Mina,” she said through happy, glistening tears. We hugged, and she ran off, anxious, it seemed, to get the ring to her mom as soon as possible.

“I don't even know her last name,” I said, looking up at my mom as Katie disappeared down the sidewalk. “I'll never know if her mom gets better.”

“You did the right thing, sweetie. You did what you could do.” Mom sighed, tugging me gently toward the door. “It's out of our hands now.”

• • •

“Everything looked great in the exam room today,” Dr. Keller said, “perfectly normal and on schedule.” I sat up straighter in my chair, trying to focus on what she was saying, but my thoughts were still with Katie. I considered calling my mom in from the waiting room, worried that I probably wouldn't remember anything about the visit without her listening in.

“One more week and your baby will be full-term, Mina. Strange to think about, isn't it? It feels like just a few weeks ago that you first came in here, so scared and confused. You hardly even seem like the same girl. Or the same woman, I should say.”

I nodded, still only half listening.

“Mina?” Dr. Keller leaned over her desk to stare at me straight on. “What's going on? I guess that's a silly question, though. I'm sure it's been an interesting month, with everything that's been happening after that video of yours.”

“Interesting,” I echoed, staring back at her. I smiled. “Interesting is probably the best word for it.”

When Jesse's video went out to the news circuit, it was like a brilliant, blinding comet had burst from the roof of my house—fanning out its shimmering trail across the country, around the world. News stations played clips during prime-time broadcasts, the whole video could be found everywhere online, and people—well, people certainly watched. People were engrossed. The Virgin Mina website and online network was stronger and more active than ever, and the page was quickly becoming less of a trashy high school tabloid and more of a streamlined public forum for critics of all ages. I had my detractors, yes, the cynics, the disbelievers, and the angry zealots. People were still calling my house, still shoving notes in my locker, in our mailbox. People were still posting cruel accusations and compromising pictures that had been taken of me in private, unsuspecting moments. Even some of the more bored, indifferent kids at school had started getting angry with me now. Not because they cared about why or how I'd gotten pregnant, but because—as I'd heard one stranger put it while ranting to friends at her locker—I'd become a “total media whore who would do anything to stay in the spotlight.”

But . . .

There were other sorts of outspoken people surfacing, too, people who were speaking out not against me, but against those who were pointing their fingers and publicly flagellating me. They saw me as a human being who deserved privacy and the right to live my own life. And there were also people like Katie. People of all different ages, religions, and nationalities who could accept the unexplainable, open their minds to new possibilities. They were people who wanted hope. People who
needed
hope.

And I, somehow, had become their source.

“You've heard,” I said, “that I have ‘followers' now, I'm sure. I saw one of them on my way in, actually. That's why I've been so . . . distracted.”

She nodded, and I kept going, suddenly needing to talk.

“Some days I don't know who I'm more scared of, Dr. Keller: the people who hate me or the people who claim to worship me. I got a letter the other day from a Muslim woman in Indonesia. Written in Arabic, so we had to take it to the police to translate. A woman in
Indonesia
knows about me. And she hates me, too, according to the letter. Told me all about how this is not ‘the Day of Resurrection,' and I'll pay the price for all my lies in the afterlife. It was nothing I hadn't heard before, but still . . . she lives across the world. It's absurd to even think about her knowing about my life, let alone
caring
about it.”

“That's so scary and so upsetting, Mina,” Dr. Keller said, reaching over the desk to hold my hands in hers. “I can't begin to imagine how you feel when you read something like that.”

“It sounds crazy, but I'm almost unfazed by people like her now. But these others, the ones who seem to worship me . . . Sometimes I'm terrified, Dr. Keller. I've been getting all these strange letters and e-mails—begging for locks of my hair, my clothing, anything I've touched. They all seem so desperate—so obsessed. Obsessed. With
me
. It's entirely surreal. I worry that some of them will do whatever it takes to feel close to me. To feel saved by me, blessed somehow. Which is ridiculous. I'm still only me, Dr. Keller. Only Mina. How can I save anyone? I'm just fighting to save myself.”

We sat in silence, the ticking of the clock above her desk the only sound in the room. She still held my hands tightly, which left the tears dripping down her cheeks unstopped.

“Dr. Keller,” I said, eager to make the moment feel lighter, easier again. “Dr. Keller . . . I'm sure this probably isn't orthodox, and if you're not comfortable with it or you're busy, I completely understand, no pressure at all. But my mom's having a little baby shower for me this Saturday, and I'd love it if you came. It's nothing big, just a few friends and family, and of course you don't have to bring me anything. Any gifts, I mean. It would just be nice to have you there. But like I said . . .”

“Mina,” she said, laughing as she let go of my hands. “You're right. It's not traditional for me to go to patients' baby showers. But I want to be there. And I think for you, Mina Dietrich, I can make an exception.” She lowered her head and lifted her brows, shifting her eyes left to right. “Just don't tell on me, okay?”

“Secret's safe.” I grinned at her as I grabbed at the edge of the desk to haul myself up from the chair. “Wow. It'll be amazing to actually have any kind of balance again. I feel like a fat, clumsy penguin, waddling instead of walking. I could accidentally tip and roll over at any second.”

“Patience, Mina. Soon enough you'll be carrying that round bump in your arms instead.”

I closed my eyes for a second and let myself really picture it—my newborn, wrapped in blankets and nestled in my arms. I could almost feel him or her, the warm weight pressing against my chest, the sweet, milky smell of baby filling my nose. “Soon enough.” I sighed, turning to wave as I reached for the door handle. “Noon on Saturday, then?”

“Noon on Saturday.”

• • •

I hadn't wanted a shower and had adamantly insisted against one, in fact. But my mom was determined, and she made a valid point, tacky as it may have sounded: I needed whatever donations I could get. And so it was settled. I would be having a baby shower. It was a small crowd, anyway, just my aunt Vera and Lucy, Hannah and her mom, Dr. Keller, Pastor Lewis's wife, and a few of my mom's closest friends and coworkers who had supported her throughout the whole ordeal—regardless of what they actually believed or didn't believe about my explanation. They were all at least polite to me, and that was enough.

I was nervous, though, despite the small guest list, and I posed and squinted in front of the mirror for a solid half hour, changing back and forth between three different maternity dresses my mom had bought for the occasion. I wanted to look casual but capable, mature but pretty in that glowing soon-to-be-mom kind of way. I finally settled on a dark green sweater dress with an empire waist that seemed to be just the right balance of subtle and showy—classy but still proud of the gigantic bump I couldn't have hidden even if I'd wanted to.

I was still contemplating myself in the mirror when I heard a knock at the front door. I figured it was Aunt Vera, coming over early to help my mom set out the food and finish with any last-minute decorations. I didn't pay much attention to the quiet voices down below, at least not until I heard footsteps on the stairs.

They stopped just beyond my door, and whoever it was stayed there, still and silent, hesitating. I could hear myself breathing, could almost believe that I heard them breathing, too, from across the closed door. My heart started racing, which was ridiculous, admittedly, because it was probably just my aunt, maybe Hannah, even, just coming up to say hello.

I stepped back from the mirror and yanked at the knob, freezing when I saw the face, the eyes, staring back at me. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't use my lungs, my lips.

“Mina,” Izzy said. My name sounded so familiar on her lips—so normal and natural and wonderful.

“What are you doing here?” I was surprised that I did still have lips after all, and a mouth and a throat and vocal cords that functioned. One by one, piece by piece, my body started coming back to me, and I could actually feel what was happening—feel all the confused and angry and bizarrely happy sensations humming through me.

“Can we talk?” Her voice was quiet, almost shy. I studied her face, trying to relearn all the intricate details I'd missed for so long, and was surprised to see the dark circles under her red, sleepy-looking eyes.

“You want to talk now?” I took a deep breath and pressed my hands to my belly to center myself. “Today's my baby shower, Izzy. Not now. I can't argue with you now.”

“I'm not here to argue, Mina. I'm really not, I promise.”

“Then why are you here?” I was proud of how strong I sounded. A few months ago I would have already been fighting back tears, but Dr. Keller had been right—I
had
changed. I'd learned to be tough, to stand up for myself and what I believed in. I'd learned that the people who couldn't accept us didn't deserve my tears.

Izzy stepped farther into the room and closed the door before I could move to stop her.

“I'm here to say that I'm sorry, Meen.”

I was
Meen
again, not even Mina. As if nothing had changed, and we hadn't spent nearly the last six months without each other.

“I'm sorry for so many things, I don't even know where to begin. I'm sorry that I didn't stick by you from day one like Hannah did. You wouldn't lie, not to us, unless you had a really good reason to, and I should have respected that. I should have just been there for you and figured the rest out as we went along. The fact that I abandoned you when you were going through something like this makes me feel like the absolute shittiest friend ever. You deserved so much more than that. And I realize I can never make up for it. I can never go back and support you through the last six months. But I can help you now. I can help you every day after, because I want to be in your life again, Meen. I
need
to be in your life.” Her shoulders started shaking, and she buried her head in her hands.