The Question of Miracles (9 page)

The kids at Iris's table offered her one of their cupcakes, and when they sang “Happy Birthday” to the birthday boy—who was turning six, he announced seriously—Iris and her parents joined in.

It was nice. The restaurant was warm and dry and fragrant, and though the rain pounded down outside, it was as cozy as Thanksgiving dinner inside American Dream Pizza.

It was a Thursday afternoon when Iris finally found both the nerve and the opportunity to walk over to Greeley Avenue, counting her way up the block until at last she saw the number that matched the one she'd printed on yellow lined paper.

It looked like a regular house, but there, in the front window, perched a little sign:
PSYCHIC MEDIUM. INQUIRE WITHIN.

Iris took in the overgrown tree in the yard, its waterlogged roots breaking through the rich brown earth, its wealth of waxy green leaves, the shadow it cast over the whole front of the house. The front stoop had two chairs on it, each seat puddled with rainwater. As Iris climbed the steps to the door, she looked up to see fingers of gray light filtering through cracks in the small, pitched roof that shaded the porch. A pair of green rubber boots, the same kind that her dad wore to work in the garden, leaned upside down against the porch railing. Iris looked at their soles, at the raised numbers that marked their size, and a cold moment of unease washed across her. Not only were they the same kind of boots as her dad's, they were the exact same size, too.

Iris forced herself to relax. There was no way her father could be inside this house. First of all, Iris couldn't imagine that either of her parents would ever seek the counsel of a psychic; psychologists were definitely more their speed. And even if her dad ever
did
visit a psychic, what were the chances that he'd be here today, the one afternoon that Iris had failed to board the bus, instead walking toward town, her slicker shining wet, the ends of her braids soaked and wormlike against her shoulders?

Then Iris saw the thin iridescent line of a spider web ascending from the left boot to the railing's topmost rung, and her shoulders loosened. These boots were definitely not her dad's.

But were they a sign, then, some message from the universe that she shouldn't be here, that her parents would find out? Iris immediately dismissed this idea, reminding herself that she didn't believe in signs, and then admonished herself—
If you don't believe in signs, what are you doing here?

At last she raised her hand to rap on the door, but just as she did, it swung open.

“I was wondering when you'd get up the nerve to knock,” said the woman behind it. “Come on in out of the rain.”

And then, all at once, several thoughts occurred to Iris. One, she wasn't supposed to go into strangers' houses. Two, no one—not her parents, not Boris—knew where she was. And three, this woman looked nothing like a psychic.

Not that Iris had ever seen a psychic before, in person. She'd seen them in movies, and they usually wore colorful turbans and lots of rings and long, flowing skirts. This woman looked just like a normal woman, nothing mystical about her in any way. Her hair, which was brown woven with streaks of gray, was up in a messy bun. She had on sweatpants and fuzzy blue slippers. There was a pencil tucked behind her ear and, Iris noticed, another shoved into her bun.

“Umm . . .” said Iris.

The woman's face crinkled. “Honey, are you lost?”

“I don't think so.” Iris looked at the address she'd written on the yellow sheet of paper, then back at the numbers hanging beside the door. “I'm looking for someone . . . but maybe I have the wrong house?”

“Ah,” said the woman. “You're looking for Madame Occhiale.”

Iris nodded.

“Well,” said the woman, “you found her. But my friends just call me Claude, short for Claudia.”

Claude reached out her hand, and Iris shook it.

“Do you want to come inside?” asked Claude.

Iris felt foolish. She'd expected to find the psychic in an office or something, not a regular house, and she knew her parents would be furious if she went inside.

“I just want to ask you a question,” she said at last.

“All right,” said Claude. She loosened the tie on her sweater and wrapped it tighter, redoing the bow at her waist.

“Do you think you could tell me about my friend Sarah?” The words came with the sharp sting of tears that almost always went along with saying Sarah's name. “She's . . . not alive, anymore.” It was hard enough to say that; Iris couldn't bring herself to say “Sarah's dead.”

Claude sighed and scratched her head. Her bun tilted slightly. “You sure you won't come inside?”

“I don't think so,” said Iris.

“All right, then. Just wait a minute.”

 

It was more than a minute, but Iris wasn't in any position to complain, and when Claude returned, she brought two towels—one for each of the chairs—a couple of blankets, and a tray with a pot of tea, a sugar bowl, and two cups. Together Iris and Claude nestled into the now-dry chairs. An occasional drip of rain landed on Iris's head, but with a cup of tea in her hands and one of the blankets spread across her lap, she felt warm enough.

“My bus driver told me about you,” Iris said, both by way of explanation and to make conversation. “She's pregnant, and you told her she was going to have a boy?”

“Oh, yes, I remember her,” Claude said. “She was excited about the baby.”

“Well,” said Iris, feeling shy, “I was wondering if you could help me talk to my friend Sarah. If that's possible?”

Claude sipped her tea. “Do your parents know you're here?”

Iris shook her head. “My parents don't believe in this stuff,” she said apologetically.

“I see. But you do?”

Iris shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “Maybe?” She thought about the Catholic Church, how they believed in miracles. She thought about the weight of the soul. She thought about Linus Pauling, how he dismissed all of it and focused his life on science and the potential benefits of high vitamin C consumption.

“When I was your age,” said Claude, “I didn't have many friends.”

“Why not?”

Claude laughed. “Not many kids want to be friends with the girl who says she can talk to ghosts,” she answered. “Plus, I had a really hard time trusting people.”

“How come?”

“I think it's because when I was eight or so, I had this one friend named Nona. God, I loved her. She had curly hair, and glasses, and she was the first friend who seemed as excited to see me as I was to see her. You know?”

Iris thought about Sarah. About how their friendship had felt so equal, like two balanced sides of one scale. She nodded.

“But then I got sick,” said Claude. She was holding her tea, and she was talking to Iris, but she was staring out into the rain as if she were seeing something far away and long lost. “I had to have my tonsils out, and I missed school for three weeks. And when I came back, Nona had made friends with this group of girls—the popular girls, I guess—and she wouldn't have anything to do with me. When I got upset and demanded an explanation, all she said was that I was weird.” Claude was quiet for a minute, still staring off into space, and then her gaze snapped back to the present, to Iris.

“I'm sorry,” Iris said.

“Me too,” said Claude. “Nona and I had a lot of fun together, before that.”

“Did you ever go back to being friends?”

Claude shook her head. “Nona's family moved the next summer. I never saw her again.”

Iris wasn't sure what Claude's story had to do with her. “So,” she said, “can you help me talk to Sarah? Is that something you can do?”

Claude looked at Iris for a minute. “It's something people pay me to do,” she said at last.

A wave of embarrassment hit Iris hard. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I know. I mean . . . how much do you charge?” Here she was, sitting and drinking tea and talking with this stranger like they were friends, like Claude
wanted
to talk with her, when all this time she had been waiting for Iris to pay her. It was like Dr. Shannon—she got paid, too, for talking with Iris, only Iris's parents took care of that bill.

“Usually I charge seventy-five dollars for a session that searches to connect with a lost loved one,” Claude answered. “But that's not what I meant. That is, I don't want you to give me any money.”

That was a relief, Iris thought, because she had nowhere
near
seventy-five dollars in her backpack.

“Let's just drink our tea,” Claude suggested, “and we can chat a while.”

That didn't sound like an ironclad promise to connect with Sarah, but since Iris didn't have enough money to pay Claude anyway, she just nodded and took another sip of tea. It was floral and sweet. Even in the middle of this rain and cold, it reminded her of springtime.

“Friends,” Claude suddenly said, after an uncomfortable length of time had passed, “leave our lives in all different ways. My friend Nona's leave-taking was not ideal, and certainly your friend Sarah's wasn't either. But this is what I think: We don't get to choose how or when our friends leave us. We don't even get to choose
whether
they leave us. But we do get some say over the stories we remember.”

“Uh-huh,” said Iris, being polite. This wasn't much different from what everyone else told her—that she needed to remember the good times with Sarah, that she could keep Sarah alive with her thoughts. But then, almost without meaning to, she asked, “Weren't you angry?”

“Angry?”

“Yeah. When Nona ditched you. For the other kids. Didn't that make you mad?”

Claude blinked. She lifted her teacup, then set it down again in its saucer. “At first, I couldn't believe it had happened. That Nona had really left me like that. Then I was sad. Terribly, heartbrokenly sad. But later . . . yes. Later I was mad as hell.”

Iris nodded. She felt mad too. Mad for this woman, Claude, who did seem kind of weird but couldn't have deserved to be dumped like that.

“Are
you
angry?” asked Claude.

“Me? Why would I be angry?”

“Well,” said Claude, “your friend left you, too, didn't she?”

“It wasn't like that,” said Iris, feeling her heart beating faster. “Sarah didn't
want
to leave.”

“But still,” said Claude.

Iris felt hot, suddenly, in spite of the wet air, and the blanket on her lap seemed to smother her. She was sorry she'd come, angry with herself for this whole encounter, and angry with Claude, too, even though she'd been pretty nice, considering how Iris had just shown up. “I've got to get home,” Iris said, and her teacup clattered against its saucer as she set it down. The blanket fell to the porch's wet wooden slats as she stood, but she didn't pick it up. “It was stupid of me to come here,” she said. “Sorry I bothered you.”

And she fled the psychic's house, the rumble of thunder drowning out whatever Claude called to her, words that later Iris would think might have been, “I'm sorry.”

 

That night, as Iris and her parents were doing the dishes after dinner, Boris called. “It's me,” he said in a spy-whisper, even though Iris's dad had already announced, “It's Boris,” as he handed her the phone.

“Hi,” she answered. She folded and unfolded the red dishtowel, the phone tucked against her shoulder.

“Listen,” Boris said, “I don't know where you were this afternoon, but your mother called my house looking for you, and I told her you were at the library doing research for our Linus Pauling paper.”

“Okay,” said Iris, trying to keep her tone neutral, in case her parents were listening. “Thanks.”

“But tomorrow,” he continued, “you have to tell me where you really were.”

“See you on the bus,” Iris answered, and she hung up.

 

So Iris wasn't surprised when the next morning Boris barreled down the aisle of the bus like an eager Labrador.

“Well?” He flopped down next to her, shoving his backpack on the floor between his rain boots.

Iris really didn't want to tell him about visiting Claude the psychic. She didn't want to think about it—about the visit, or the tea, about what Claude had said about being angry. But Boris had covered for her; she owed him something for that. So briefly, Iris recapped their conversation.

“Wow,” said Boris. Then, “What kind of a name is Claude?”

“It doesn't matter,” Iris said, annoyed that Boris managed to focus on the most insignificant detail of the whole thing.

After a minute Boris asked, “So do you think you can, like, talk with Sarah? I mean, for real?”

“It's not all that different from what the Vatican thinks about you,” she said. “About how those nuns talked to that dead pope.”

Boris shrugged. Iris knew he hated talking about all that.

“Maybe,” he said. They didn't say anything for a few minutes. The bus was quieter than usual. The days were growing shorter, and mornings were darker.

Then, like a bone he couldn't drop, Boris brought it up again. “It could be pretty neat,” he said. “Trying to contact someone who isn't alive. I mean, Linus Pauling probably wouldn't approve, but still . . . it's sort of like a science experiment. Can I help?”

Iris's first instinct was to say no. But instead she asked cautiously, “You'd take it seriously? You won't make fun of me?”

“Uh-uh!” Boris sounded insulted.

“Okay, then,” she said, and immediately regretted it when Boris started bouncing in his seat. But maybe it wouldn't hurt to have someone helping her out. After all, the thing with the psychic had been kind of a flop.

“This reminds me of Magic,” Boris said conspiratorially as they disembarked in front of the school a few minutes later.