The Question of Miracles (7 page)

One down. Five to go.

The second and third boxes did contain her books, and Iris spent a happy hour arranging them on the low white bookshelf underneath the window. By the time that was done, she felt a little better.

Then she opened the top box in the second stack and found Sarah staring up at her.

It was a picture—just a picture, of course. But then why did it
feel
that way, like an electric zap? Painful, but proof of life, just the same.

The two of them were in the photo, together. It had been taken last spring, after a round of tennis. Sarah and Iris had won, and in the picture their smiles were triumphant. Sarah was wearing her lucky pink sweatband across her forehead, and Iris's hair was pulled back into two short, uneven braids. Their arms were around each other's shoulders; Iris held her racket up high in triumph, and Sarah rested on hers like a walking stick.

Much of the picture was the wide bright sky behind them, and the chalky green expanse of the tennis court. There was just so
much
of it, Iris thought. So much to miss. And Sarah most of all.

Charles jumped down from the bed and padded out of the room. Then Iris was completely alone. She traced a finger around Sarah's shape. It seemed too much to believe—that
this
could be it, that Sarah had been reduced to photos and possessions. And that even those parts of her had been scattered like leaves, like seeds. This picture and the tennis racket here, in Oregon, and her other things, like her lucky pink sweatband, who knew where those things were . . . ? Maybe Sarah's parents had loaded all that was left of her into boxes—boxes that looked just like these slightly crooked cardboard containers—and had given them away, to charity, to the needy.

I'm the needy,
thought Iris, sounding pitiful in her own head. She clasped the picture to her chest and wished, hard, that things could change.

And then Iris suddenly remembered Boris. The Catholic Church believed something had changed for Boris. And if their leaders—the Vatican—believed that a group of nuns had successfully communicated with a dead pope in order to save Boris's life, then maybe it
wasn't
crazy, this feeling Iris had that Sarah was somehow still here. That she was more than this picture and a body in the ground. Like maybe there was another part to her—a soul—and maybe that part was still out there. And if her soul was still there, then maybe, just like those nuns had spoken to the dead pope, Iris could find some way to communicate with Sarah.

 

“So, Pigeon, how'd it go?” Iris's dad slid out from under the kitchen sink, where he was attempting to install a garbage disposal.

“I emptied half the boxes,” Iris said. “That's all I'm going to do today.” She spoke defensively, ready to fight if he said she had to finish.

But all he said was “Good progress.” He slid back under the sink. “Hand me that smaller wrench, will you?”

Iris looked around. There, on the table, partially obscured by the newspaper, was the wrench. She handed it to her dad and then got some cookies before sliding into a chair at the table.

“How's it going?” she asked.

“Home ownership is a privilege and a joy,” he answered, but Iris heard that tone in his voice that meant he was only half serious.

She munched through her first cookie before asking, “Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you believe that a person has a soul?”

He laughed. “That's a big question for a Saturday morning, Pigeon.”

“Well,” said Iris, “do you?”

Her dad stopped thumping at the pipes. He was still for a moment before he slid back out. Sitting up, he scratched his head with the wrench. “You know,” he began, “I didn't used to. Before you were born. But after I met you . . .” He shook his head and smiled. “I don't know, Pigeon. I never cared much about that sort of thing—I figured that when I died, that would be that, and honestly, that was all right with me. But since becoming a dad, I guess I've gotten softer. Because I can't imagine that
you
won't still be around after you die, you know, one day far in the future when you're a hundred and fifty or so. That I just can't bring myself to believe.” His eyes looked misty for a minute, and his gaze drifted off to the side. Then he cleared his throat, spun the wrench in his hand.

Iris didn't like thinking about dying, even if it did happen when she was one hundred and fifty. It occurred to her that if she lived to see a century and a half, both of her parents would most likely be long gone. And she didn't like thinking about
that,
either.

She rearranged her cookies, building a pyramid first and then a circle. “It seems like there should be some way to
know,
” she said.

“You're not the first to wonder, that's for sure,” said her dad. “Did you ever hear about Dr. Duncan MacDougall?”

Iris shook her head.

“Toss me one of those cookies,” he said.

She did. He bit into it and continued: “He's probably a crackpot, but it's an interesting story. So back in the early 1900s, Dr. Duncan MacDougall tried to prove that there really is such a thing as a soul. He thought if he could show that a soul had mass—that it
weighed something
—then people would have to agree that it was a real thing. So he built this special bed in his office, and he got volunteers—dying people—and one by one, as they got close to their end, he laid them in the bed and waited for them to die, weighing them before and after. He figured if their weight dropped after death, that would be proof that their souls had left their bodies.” He paused here, a worried expression wrinkling his brow. “Is this too morbid for you, Pigeon?”

Iris shook her head. “So? How much does it weigh?”

Her dad laughed. “You sound like you're already convinced that it weighs something.”

Iris thought about Sarah. About how one moment she had been fine, perfectly fine, and the next moment, she had not. It was just too hard to believe that, because her body had ceased to work, there was no more Sarah at all in the world. It just couldn't be true. There had been too much to Sarah—too much life, too much wonderfulness, for all of her to go away, all at once.

“It must weigh something,” she said firmly.

“The good doctor agreed with you,” her dad said. “According to his calculations, the weight of the soul is three-quarters of an ounce.”

“So there you go!” said Iris, triumphant. “Proof!”

“Slow down, Pigeon,” cautioned her dad. “You know science is never that easy. He only had six subjects, and his results were only clear with a couple of them.”

“But still,” argued Iris, “it must mean
something.
”

Her dad shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Want to know what I think?”

Iris shrugged.

“
I
think,” he said, “that people see what they're looking for. Especially when they're afraid of seeing anything else.”

Iris felt her face scrunch up. She didn't answer.

“I
also
think,” her dad continued, “that the garbage disposal is one of humankind's most clever inventions. And the homestead will be greatly improved if I can get this thing installed. What do you say? Want to be my assistant? See if you can make sense of these instructions?” He pointed the wrench at a crumpled-up manual on the floor.

“Okay,” said Iris. But though she read the instructions and helped her dad install the disposal, her mind wasn't really there. A secret voice sang inside her heart:
The soul has weight.
She was thinking about Sarah, and souls, and the blossoming of hope she felt in her chest. If Sarah was out there, then Iris was going to find her.

“We should be partners for the science project,” Boris said. He and Iris were waiting for the bus; it was late. They crowded together with the rest of the kids who took the bus, just inside the back door of the gym, where they waited on the rainiest days. The sky was so fiercely dark with clouds that it felt like it should be bedtime.

Iris shrugged. “Why not.”

“We could write about Linus Pauling,” Boris suggested, “the guy our school is named after.”

“Uh-huh,” said Iris. She wasn't really listening. She was watching Starla and Isobel. They didn't look anything alike, they didn't even dress the same, but still, it was clear as could be that they were best friends. Starla pulled out a pack of gum. Iris could see there was just one piece left.

“Do you know anything about Linus Pauling?”

“Uh-uh,” said Iris, her attention still on the girls. Without hesitation, Starla tore the piece of gum in two and handed half to Isobel.

The bus arrived at last. The driver smiled at them as they climbed aboard. “Sorry I'm late,” she told them, once the bus was full. “There was a problem with the battery.”

“That's all right, Mrs. Kassab,” said Boris. “Thanks for the ride.”

There were snickers, of course, from some of the other kids. Why was it, Iris wondered, that politeness was so funny to some people?

“Better watch out, Iris,” came a voice. “Looks like your boyfriend has a thing for the Casaba Melon.”

So much was embarrassing about this taunt, coming from the back of the bus. The boyfriend thing, of course, and the terrible nickname the older kids had started calling Mrs. Kassab since it had become obvious that she was pregnant, her belly pushing out round and hard against the flowered tops she wore over khaki slacks.

Iris knew that Mrs. Kassab didn't like the nickname, even though she always laughed when she heard the kids say it. Iris knew because of the way Mrs. Kassab's hands tightened on the steering wheel, the way she shoved the long gearshift into position rather than easing it into place as she usually did.

Next to her, Boris was busy punching words into his phone, browsing articles, it looked like.

“What are you doing?” Iris asked.

“Did you know that Linus Pauling is the only person who has ever won two unshared Nobel Prizes?”

“I told you, I don't even know who Linus Pauling
is,
” Iris said, irritated.

“
Was,
actually,” said Boris, his eyes scanning the tiny lines of text on his phone's screen. “He died in 1994. He was ninety-three years old.”

“Interesting,” said Iris, but Boris missed the sarcasm in her tone.

“He was an interesting guy,” he said. “It says here that when he was eleven years old—our age—he underwent a religious crisis. He decided that the miracle stories in the Bible couldn't be true, and he became an atheist.”

Upon hearing the word “miracle,” Iris found herself begrudgingly engaged. “What else does it say?” she asked.

“He was a chemist,” read Boris, “and a peace activist. That was what he won his awards for—chemistry and peace activism. But I guess later on he got kind of wacky—he wrote all this stuff about vitamin C and how it could maybe cure cancer. Some people call him a quack.”

“So, then, he could have been wrong,” said Iris. “About other things.”

“What other things?”

“About miracles not being real. Maybe he wasn't right about that, even if he was a scientist, if he was wrong about the vitamin C thing.”

“Vitamin C is super good for you,” Boris said.

“But not as good as a miracle,” Iris answered.

“What's up with you and miracles?”

“I heard about this other scientist,” Iris said, ignoring Boris's question. “My dad told me about him. He wanted to prove that people really do have souls, so he weighed people before and after they died to see if they got any lighter, to show their souls left their bodies.”

“Creepy.”

“If souls are real, though,” said Iris, “then maybe miracles are real too. You know, like your miracle?”

Boris shrugged, pocketed his phone.

“You look like you don't care about it,” said Iris. She felt angry.

“About what?”

“Miracles,” said Iris. “Whether they're real.”

“The way I figure,” said Boris, pushing up his glasses, “it doesn't really matter.”

Now Iris felt furious. “I don't know how
you
of all people can say that.”

“What
I
don't get,” said Boris, “is why it's such a big deal to
you.
”

“Forget it,” Iris said.

The bus screeched to a stop by Boris's neighborhood. The sound of the falling rain intensified as Mrs. Kassab pulled the lever to open the doors.

“Wanna come over?” Boris asked, standing.

“Nah,” said Iris. “See you tomorrow.”

Boris looked concerned. Iris could tell that he wanted to stay and figure out what was the matter, but then his shoulders drooped a little, and he said, “See ya,” before heading out into the rain. Iris was still irritated, but watching Boris walk down the street as the bus pulled away, she wished she had been more kind.

At the second-to-last stop, after the only other kid had gotten off the bus, Iris scooted up to the seat behind Mrs. Kassab. Iris didn't really want to talk, but she felt kind of bad about the other kids calling the driver Casaba Melon, and it seemed like the nice thing to do.

“How much longer until your baby comes?” she asked.

Mrs. Kassab patted her belly. “Five more months,” she said. “In the spring.”

“That sounds like a good time to have a baby,” Iris said, being polite.

“Absolutely perfect,” said Mrs. Kassab. “I will take a leave from my work in the spring, and will have the summer to focus on my new son.”

“Oh, it's a boy?” Iris asked.

Mrs. Kassab laughed. “Well, I
think
he is a boy. My husband doesn't want to find out. He says it's supposed to be a surprise. But I cheated a little.”

“Did you get an ultrasound?”