The Question of Miracles (11 page)

Fall collapsed into winter. The days grew even colder and darker. By early January, Iris's mom decided she didn't want Iris riding the bus to school anymore.

“Black ice,” she explained. “Too dangerous without seat belts.” So she or Iris's dad did the morning drive.

This at least let Iris sleep in an extra fifteen minutes, which Charles appreciated. When she finally did have to climb out of bed, she folded the blankets around him, up over his ears to keep him warm.

On the first of February, Iris awoke to a different quality of light filtering through her bedroom window. She slid out from underneath Charles's warm body, tucked him in, and went to look outside.

All around was soft and white. Their car, parked next to the house, wore a coat of snow; the branches on the trees were bowed slightly with the weight of it.

Iris blinked against all the whiteness, it was so bright. And the
sky
—blue, painted with big, fluffy gray-white clouds. Iris hadn't seen a sky that blue since they'd arrived in Oregon.

Iris dressed quickly, pulling on her heaviest socks and her favorite jeans along with a thermal shirt and her thick purple wool sweater. And she bounded down the stairs two at a time, throwing open the front door and skidding to a stop on the porch.

She took a deep breath. The air filled her, cold and sharp. She bounced up and down, excited.

“Beautiful day,” said her dad behind her. Iris turned and smiled at him.

He was wearing a sweater too. A funny zigzag-striped rainbow one. Steam from his coffee rose up, meeting the plumes of his breath. Her dad had started growing a beard when they moved to Oregon. It had been a funny beard at first, spotty in parts, but it was filling in pretty nicely, and Iris liked the way her father looked, standing there with his sweater and his coffee and his beard. He'd gotten a little thicker through the middle, too, from all the home-cooked meals he'd been preparing. Iris thought it suited him.

“Too pretty a day for school, I think,” said her dad in a neutral tone of voice.

“Really?”

Her dad nodded. “Absolutely. First snow is a cause to celebrate. Come on inside. Let's eat some breakfast, and then I've got a surprise for you.”

 

Her dad's waffles were always delicious, but Iris had a hard time concentrating on them this morning. She ate a few bites as she watched him bustle around the kitchen, packing a picnic lunch—a large thermos of hot chocolate, a smaller one of soup, a box of crackers, a plastic container of cheese and salami. Three plates.

“Is Mom coming with us?” Iris asked.

Her dad shook his head. “No, she had to go in to work early.”

“So who's the third plate for?”

He smiled. “Not Charles.”

They loaded the picnic into the old station wagon her dad had bought for hauling gardening supplies. There was something in the far back, something long and lumpy, covered by a blanket.

“What's that?” Iris tried to peel back the blanket, but her dad grabbed the hood of her jacket and pulled her away.

“Wait and see,” he sang. “Hop in.”

They drove toward town, their tires crunching through snow. Iris's dad had wrapped them in chains and they clanked loudly.

“Where are we going?” Iris asked from the back seat.

“You'll see.” Her father caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. Iris loved the network of lines that crinkled around his eyes when he smiled.

Iris thought maybe they were going to the movies. Or to the bookstore. So she was surprised when they made the familiar turn into Boris's housing tract.

And there he was, waiting for them in his driveway—bundled up in a bright green jacket, a pair of thick black snow pants, boots. He wore his beanie, too.

Iris's dad honked two short, cheery blasts, and Boris waved. He ran to the curb as they pulled up, slipping once but regaining his footing before he hit the ground.

Iris slid across the back seat and opened the door for him.

“Hi, Iris. Hi, Frank,” he said, grinning widely. “This is so much cooler than school. Thanks for inviting me!”

“It wouldn't be a party without Boris,” her dad said. They pulled away from the house and turned onto the main street, heading back out of town.

“So where are we going?” Iris asked, feeling as if she might burst from the not-knowing.

Her dad pointed out the front window. “Yonder,” he said. “Mary's Peak.”

 

The sky stayed mostly clear as their car wound up Mary's Peak to its summit. Occasionally a thick gray cloud would drift in front of the sun; when it did, the world darkened into shadow until the cloud shifted again. Then sunlight sparkled on snow, reflecting starbursts like diamond light.

It took forty minutes before they finally pulled into the parking lot. A few other vehicles sat quiet in the snow, but there were no people in sight. Iris's dad twisted the key counterclockwise and the car ticked a little before it fell silent.

“Everybody out,” he said.

Boris threw open his door and ran a few steps to an embankment of snow. He spread his arms wide, falling backwards, waving his arms and legs. “Snow angel!” he cried as he stood up.

Iris went around to the back of the station wagon and watched as her dad removed the blanket from the mystery lump she'd been wondering about the whole trip.

It was a sled—the cool old-fashioned kind, made of wooden slats screwed onto red metal runners. A length of rope formed a triangle at the front end, for steering. It was, Iris thought, a wonderful surprise.

“Awesome sled, Frank!” Boris fished a pair of mittens from his jacket pocket.

Iris's dad smiled at her. “So, what do you say? Ready?”

Iris pulled the sled by the rope handle to the end of the parking area. She made her way carefully around Boris's snow angel, making sure not to pass the runners across its shape.

Boris sledded every year with his sisters, he told them as they walked in search of a good slope, so he knew just what to look for. Not too steep, because that made climbing back up too much of a chore, and someplace wide with no trees in the way.

Iris was pretty sure she would have figured all that out on her own, but she didn't say anything to Boris. He seemed—as usual—to be enjoying his expertise.

She got more irritated, though, when Boris insisted that they pass up the first two spots that appeared to meet all his requirements. Finally Boris pointed to a slope not too far ahead. “There it is,” he said, in a reverent tone. “The perfect slope.”

They climbed the hill together, Iris's dad dragging the sled. Iris's boots crunched through the topmost snow, sending a shiver up her spine like when she pulled apart a cotton ball or when the teacher's chalk screeched across the board.

When they reached the top, all three of them stood for a minute breathing heavily. Iris was warm now, from the exertion of the climb, but she didn't want to take off her coat because she thought she might want it for the downhill sled ride. It took Iris's dad the longest to stop breathing so hard. When he finally did, he muttered, “Gotta get in better shape.” He adjusted the sled so its nose pointed straight downhill. “Who's first?”

“I've done this lots of times,” said Boris. “Let Iris go first.”

Iris's dad gestured for her to climb on.

Suddenly the slope they'd climbed looked awfully steep. “I don't know about this,” she said.

“Go on, Iris. It's fun,” Boris said.

Iris stepped over to the sled and straddled it, sat down. Her dad handed her the steering rope. She looked up at him.

He must have seen the fear in her eyes, because he knelt down next to her. “You okay?”

“I don't know about this,” Iris said again.

Her father nodded and stared down the hill. “It's pretty steep,” he admitted.

“This is nothing!” Boris said. “You should
see
some of the hills I've sledded down. They're like cliffs compared to this!”

Iris's dad shook his head, and Boris shut up. Her dad turned back to Iris. “Pigeon,” he said, “no one's going to make you do this. We can walk the sled halfway down if you want, and you can try from there. Or you can watch Boris try it first.”

Iris stared ahead at the snowy slope. Her tears fractured the light, making the snow gleam even more brightly. But when she answered him, her voice sounded strong to her own ears. “No,” she said. “I've got this.”

Her father grinned and patted her back. “That's my girl,” he said, and stood. “Now, remember to keep the nose pointed downhill. Other than that, all you've got to do is hang on and have fun.”

Iris nodded and wrapped the rope around her mitten-clad hands. She braced her feet against the front rail and made sure her weight was even. Then she said, “I'm ready.”

That was enough for her dad, who gave her a push almost as soon as the words were out. At first the sled slipped slowly, and the back listed a little to one side, but after a couple of seconds it picked up speed, and then Iris was flying.

“Ohnoohnoohno!” she yelled, louder and louder as the sled kept gaining speed, and then a lump of fear swallowed up her voice as the sled went even faster.

The white-powdered trees on either side of the slope whizzed by, blurring white-green-white in her peripheral vision. Her face felt icicle-cold, her fingers frozen into claws on the rope. There was the sound of the runners on the snow, of her father and Boris cheering above her, of her own ragged breaths. There was the shock to her spine of the sled's occasional bounce, the tightly wound muscles of her shoulders and neck, the frigid air as she gulped a breath.

And then, just before she reached the bottom, where the slope meandered into flatness, when everything else was still brilliantly, blindingly fast, and so purely
free
—nothing but speed and snow—a wave of pure joy washed through her and she smiled so widely that her cheeks grew sore.

Then the sled slowed, and slowed, and finally stopped. Iris blinked, swallowed, and turned to look back up the hill. Her dad and Boris were jumping, waving their arms wildly, and cheering.

Iris waved back triumphantly. She stood up on shaking legs and waved again, turned her face toward the cold winter sky, and laughed out loud.

 

Later, after they'd eaten the picnic and drained the thermos of hot chocolate, when they'd each slid down the hill a dozen times or more, Iris, her dad, and Boris trudged back to the car. The clouds had thickened above them. Iris had worked up a sweat climbing the hill so many times, and as the air cooled, she began to shiver. Her father looped his arm over her shoulders. Boris trailed behind, dragging the sled. He was whistling, not a song or anything, just random notes strung together.

The clouds seemed to be deciding what to do next. Iris hoped that, just for a change, they'd decide to break apart and leave her in peace. She even thought the words
Please don't let it rain.
But of course it did.

When the first raindrop hit her face, Iris pretended not to notice. But then came a second, and then a rumble of thunder drowned out Boris's whistling, and the rain poured down.

“Run!” Boris yelled. He sounded panicked, like they were being chased by zombies, and Iris and her dad laughed and stumbled and ran the rest of the way to the car.

Iris's dad yanked open the hatch at the back of the station wagon. Boris and Iris hefted in the sled. Then they ran around to the side doors and slid into the back seat. Iris's dad slammed into the front, behind the wheel. The three of them sat and dripped and listened to the rain pound against the roof. It was so, so loud, and only then did Iris realize how peaceful the day had been, how quiet, without the constant thrumming of the rain.

As they pulled out of the lot, Iris's gaze landed on Boris's snow angel. The rain puddled in its center, and Iris saw their own footprints punched into its wings, crushing the side of its head.

“They've been married for twenty years,” Boris told Iris. It was Friday, and Iris's dad had picked them both up from school to drive them to the homestead. “That's a long time. Neither set of my parents' parents was married that long, even though they were more Catholic than we are.”

“Huh.” Iris was only half listening. Most of her attention was focused on Boris's bright blue duffle bag, wedged between them in the back seat of the station wagon. Because of Boris's parents' twenty-year anniversary, his sisters were all spending the night with friends from school, and Boris would be staying at the homestead. He'd be the first guest to sleep in the spare bedroom, which reminded Iris of Sarah's favorite book,
Anne of Green Gables,
in which Anne had yearned to sleep in the “sparest of spare rooms.”

This visit, they'd decided, would be the perfect chance to try EVP, and Iris knew that somewhere in that duffle bag was a digital voice recorder. “My dad bought it a year ago because he wanted to write a science-fiction novel,” Boris had told Iris. “It was going to be about a race of aliens that came to Earth searching for the perfect companion animal. They were going to take a group of humans back to their planet, as pets, only then they find out that the humans have pets of their own, and that throws everything off. Like, can a pet have a pet? And if they take the humans to be their pets, should they bring the humans' pets along too? Anyway, he never really got started, and the recorder has just sat in the top drawer of his desk for the last nine months.”

Iris had still never met Boris's father, but it seemed right to her that he should have science-fiction-novel-writing ambitions.

“I can't wait to see your place,” Boris said to Iris's dad enthusiastically. “Iris never talks about it.”

“What's there to say?” Iris asked. “It's a house. We live there.”

Iris's dad laughed. “It's more than a house,” he said. “It's the homestead. Boris, my boy, are you interested in home improvement? Restoration? Biosustainability?”