Immaculate, page 27
But to Iris. I prayed to Iris.
• • •
I woke up on New Year’s Day puffy-eyed but determined—determined to make the best of a fresh start. I wrote up a list of resolutions, which I’d never done before, and every single one revolved around the baby. Because that was what this New Year would be: all about the baby. Not about me. Not what I wanted. Not who I wanted. There would be time for that—for me—later, after the baby was born, and after life settled again. But I couldn’t sit around sulking and brooding. It was a relief, really, to have no choice but to pick myself up and move past it all. Just one more reason I was glad to have this baby growing inside of me. I was learning what it really meant to be selfless.
I needed to apologize to Jesse, but I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know of any words that could possibly undo the ones I’d already used. So I decided not to call, not right away. I needed time to get the apology right, and besides that, he deserved some time away from me. I didn’t have to wait long, though, because he called me the day after New Year’s, the day before we’d be going back to school for the new semester.
“I finished the video,” he said, all businesslike and matter-of-fact. “Do you want me to come over tonight to show you guys?”
“Sure. That sounds great,” I said, cringing at the false, cheery ring of my voice. I opened my mouth to say more, but the words stuck in my throat. Jesse was silent for a few awkward beats, too, before he said a clipped good-bye and the line went dead.
I sighed, frustrated with myself. I needed to say something—he deserved that much at the very least. I was scared to lose him, but I was just as scared to get any closer. There seemed to be no winning here, no easy way to crawl out of the big hole I kept on digging.
I called Hannah and invited her over, too, hoping that she’d buffer at least some of the awkwardness. I still hadn’t told her about any of it, not even that first kiss on my birthday. She suspected something, I could tell, but she hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t offered. I was too conflicted—and now too ashamed—to explain myself, even to her.
Jesse and I barely glanced at each other when he walked into the living room a few hours later. Hannah filled the void, just as I’d predicted, telling us all in great detail about her resolution to read a book every week for the next year, fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks. As she rambled, my whole family huddled around Jesse and the TV.
“I’m pretty excited about how it turned out,” Jesse said, sounding anxious as he inserted a disc and fidgeted with the settings on the screen. “But don’t be afraid to offer up any constructive criticism. You all need to be happy with it, too, of course.”
We all fell silent as the video started playing—a shot of my house with the rising sun glowing just behind it, squares of light shining from my bedroom window and the kitchen, where my mom was probably standing, pouring her first mug of coffee.
And then, in a blink, it was my face, my voice. “I wake up every morning and the first thing I think, every single time, is I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.” I was sitting at my desk, my hair still wet from my shower, just about to read through the newest website posts. “At first, in the beginning, that was a bad thing. Like I was waking up from a nightmare, and then I’d remember that it was my reality and I’d want to pull the covers over my face and hide from everything for the rest of my life.” I smiled as the camera zoomed in, a small, sad smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “But it started getting easier every day, a little bit more and more. Now when I wake up, I think I’m having a baby! and I remember that I’m not alone in my bed, that there’s this little human being right there inside me. I hope that every mom feels that. That every mom feels like her baby is her own special miracle, just like I do.”
I talked about Iris next, though I didn’t use her name, and I didn’t reveal everything she had said either, or all the little, more peripheral details—the way she dressed, the way she talked, the way the blue of her old veins had almost shone through her translucent skin. Somehow it didn’t feel right to tell the camera everything. I wanted to keep most of Iris for myself. But I did explain, of course, that she’d left me with a cryptic message about the world’s troubles, and about the mysterious baby to come. I told them about the dream I’d had that night, the symptoms that popped up one by one soon after. Watching myself on the screen now, studying each tiny twitch, I could see fear etched on my face, but there was more than that—reverence, maybe. Awe.
From there, viewers would quickly get a heavy dose of the many low points to come—me reading some of the more disturbing online posts, including a note that suggested I actually be crucified in public, both as my punishment and as a lesson to others. “If we let her go, we’re just begging God for an apocalypse.” There were many less sinister, just plain cruel posts, too, about my baby weight, about how ugly and pathetic I was, about how desperate I must be for any kind of attention. I wasn’t crying while I read any of them out loud, which I was proud of—I looked surprisingly calm, actually, just exhausted.
The camera moved on as Jesse guided us through a standard day, Gracie chattering about baby names over frozen waffles, blatant stares and whispers as we navigated the hallway to my locker. I pulled out a note that had been wedged in the locker vent, tossing it on the ground without bothering to read it. I hadn’t realized at the time, but Jesse had panned the camera down and focused on the sloppily scrawled message: You’re not special. You’re just a slut. Not one of the more eloquent letters, but at least not as damning as some. There was a rapid montage of me in classes—a lot of yawning and staring off into space, slouched at my desk and avoiding any kind of student or teacher interaction. Doing my best to be invisible. I hadn’t realized how obvious I’d made it that I was so completely detached from all of it—except for one brief slip in European History, the frown on my lips as I looked down at the graded exam that had just landed on my desk, a bright red C at the top.
As difficult as it was to see myself on film—my expressions, the way the world responded around me—the interviews that followed were even harder to watch. Jesse had done most of the shooting without me in the room, so the footage was new to me.
“It’s hard to be in school sometimes because of what some of the other kids say.” Gracie was curled up in a ball on the sofa in our living room, her little fingers twisting the frayed blanket on her lap as she avoided looking up at the camera. “Like today . . .” She paused, and I could tell from the pink in her cheeks that she was trying her best not to cry for the recording. “Today someone asked me how I can still love my sister when she’s such a liar. They said I was just as bad as her for going along with everything, and that our whole family should just leave Green Hill. Even my best friend won’t talk to me, but you know what? That’s okay, because I don’t want to talk to her, either. I can’t be friends with anyone who is mean to Mina.”
“Are you excited, then? About the baby?” Jesse’s voice came quietly from behind the camera, prompting her.
Gracie’s eyes lit up. “Of course I’m excited! I’m going to be an aunt! I know that Mina is really young to have a baby . . . and that there’s been a lot of bad things happening because of it. But I think that this baby happened for a reason, and that it’s meant to be this way. And I also think that Mina is special. This baby will be special. I just want to be the best sister and the best aunt I can be, because Mina needs me. My family needs me.”
My mom came next, talking about how she had believed me from the very first second—trusted with her all-knowing motherly intuition—and how proud she’d been to watch me, my transformation from daughter into mother. My dad was more vague regarding what he believed or didn’t believe about my story, but he trembled as he admitted that he’d turned his back on me for too long. He’d let his own expectations get in the way of protecting and supporting me.
“I will never, ever abandon my own family again,” he said, staring unblinking into the camera, even as his voice broke and a stream of tears ran down his cheek. “Not for anything. Not even for a moment. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson from my role in all this.”
I looked over at him as the video played, at his face hidden behind his palms, hands kneading into his tired eyes, and I felt myself step toward him. I had already forgiven him that night on the porch. Or at least I’d said the words out loud then, because I’d wanted to wash it all off. I’d wanted to take us back to normal as quickly as possible. But I felt it again now—I really felt it. We—every one of us in that room—had learned lessons. We were all changed, and we were probably better people because of it. My dad wasn’t perfect, but he was trying his best. That was all any of us could do.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, wrapping an arm around his waist as I leaned into his chest. “It’s time for you to forgive yourself, too.”
He didn’t say anything back, but he didn’t have to. He hugged me, and we stayed like that, tangled up together, as the footage played on.
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 woke up on New Year’s Day puffy-eyed but determined—determined to make the best of a fresh start. I wrote up a list of resolutions, which I’d never done before, and every single one revolved around the baby. Because that was what this New Year would be: all about the baby. Not about me. Not what I wanted. Not who I wanted. There would be time for that—for me—later, after the baby was born, and after life settled again. But I couldn’t sit around sulking and brooding. It was a relief, really, to have no choice but to pick myself up and move past it all. Just one more reason I was glad to have this baby growing inside of me. I was learning what it really meant to be selfless.
I needed to apologize to Jesse, but I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know of any words that could possibly undo the ones I’d already used. So I decided not to call, not right away. I needed time to get the apology right, and besides that, he deserved some time away from me. I didn’t have to wait long, though, because he called me the day after New Year’s, the day before we’d be going back to school for the new semester.
“I finished the video,” he said, all businesslike and matter-of-fact. “Do you want me to come over tonight to show you guys?”
“Sure. That sounds great,” I said, cringing at the false, cheery ring of my voice. I opened my mouth to say more, but the words stuck in my throat. Jesse was silent for a few awkward beats, too, before he said a clipped good-bye and the line went dead.
I sighed, frustrated with myself. I needed to say something—he deserved that much at the very least. I was scared to lose him, but I was just as scared to get any closer. There seemed to be no winning here, no easy way to crawl out of the big hole I kept on digging.
I called Hannah and invited her over, too, hoping that she’d buffer at least some of the awkwardness. I still hadn’t told her about any of it, not even that first kiss on my birthday. She suspected something, I could tell, but she hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t offered. I was too conflicted—and now too ashamed—to explain myself, even to her.
Jesse and I barely glanced at each other when he walked into the living room a few hours later. Hannah filled the void, just as I’d predicted, telling us all in great detail about her resolution to read a book every week for the next year, fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks. As she rambled, my whole family huddled around Jesse and the TV.
“I’m pretty excited about how it turned out,” Jesse said, sounding anxious as he inserted a disc and fidgeted with the settings on the screen. “But don’t be afraid to offer up any constructive criticism. You all need to be happy with it, too, of course.”
We all fell silent as the video started playing—a shot of my house with the rising sun glowing just behind it, squares of light shining from my bedroom window and the kitchen, where my mom was probably standing, pouring her first mug of coffee.
And then, in a blink, it was my face, my voice. “I wake up every morning and the first thing I think, every single time, is I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.” I was sitting at my desk, my hair still wet from my shower, just about to read through the newest website posts. “At first, in the beginning, that was a bad thing. Like I was waking up from a nightmare, and then I’d remember that it was my reality and I’d want to pull the covers over my face and hide from everything for the rest of my life.” I smiled as the camera zoomed in, a small, sad smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “But it started getting easier every day, a little bit more and more. Now when I wake up, I think I’m having a baby! and I remember that I’m not alone in my bed, that there’s this little human being right there inside me. I hope that every mom feels that. That every mom feels like her baby is her own special miracle, just like I do.”
I talked about Iris next, though I didn’t use her name, and I didn’t reveal everything she had said either, or all the little, more peripheral details—the way she dressed, the way she talked, the way the blue of her old veins had almost shone through her translucent skin. Somehow it didn’t feel right to tell the camera everything. I wanted to keep most of Iris for myself. But I did explain, of course, that she’d left me with a cryptic message about the world’s troubles, and about the mysterious baby to come. I told them about the dream I’d had that night, the symptoms that popped up one by one soon after. Watching myself on the screen now, studying each tiny twitch, I could see fear etched on my face, but there was more than that—reverence, maybe. Awe.
From there, viewers would quickly get a heavy dose of the many low points to come—me reading some of the more disturbing online posts, including a note that suggested I actually be crucified in public, both as my punishment and as a lesson to others. “If we let her go, we’re just begging God for an apocalypse.” There were many less sinister, just plain cruel posts, too, about my baby weight, about how ugly and pathetic I was, about how desperate I must be for any kind of attention. I wasn’t crying while I read any of them out loud, which I was proud of—I looked surprisingly calm, actually, just exhausted.
The camera moved on as Jesse guided us through a standard day, Gracie chattering about baby names over frozen waffles, blatant stares and whispers as we navigated the hallway to my locker. I pulled out a note that had been wedged in the locker vent, tossing it on the ground without bothering to read it. I hadn’t realized at the time, but Jesse had panned the camera down and focused on the sloppily scrawled message: You’re not special. You’re just a slut. Not one of the more eloquent letters, but at least not as damning as some. There was a rapid montage of me in classes—a lot of yawning and staring off into space, slouched at my desk and avoiding any kind of student or teacher interaction. Doing my best to be invisible. I hadn’t realized how obvious I’d made it that I was so completely detached from all of it—except for one brief slip in European History, the frown on my lips as I looked down at the graded exam that had just landed on my desk, a bright red C at the top.
As difficult as it was to see myself on film—my expressions, the way the world responded around me—the interviews that followed were even harder to watch. Jesse had done most of the shooting without me in the room, so the footage was new to me.
“It’s hard to be in school sometimes because of what some of the other kids say.” Gracie was curled up in a ball on the sofa in our living room, her little fingers twisting the frayed blanket on her lap as she avoided looking up at the camera. “Like today . . .” She paused, and I could tell from the pink in her cheeks that she was trying her best not to cry for the recording. “Today someone asked me how I can still love my sister when she’s such a liar. They said I was just as bad as her for going along with everything, and that our whole family should just leave Green Hill. Even my best friend won’t talk to me, but you know what? That’s okay, because I don’t want to talk to her, either. I can’t be friends with anyone who is mean to Mina.”
“Are you excited, then? About the baby?” Jesse’s voice came quietly from behind the camera, prompting her.
Gracie’s eyes lit up. “Of course I’m excited! I’m going to be an aunt! I know that Mina is really young to have a baby . . . and that there’s been a lot of bad things happening because of it. But I think that this baby happened for a reason, and that it’s meant to be this way. And I also think that Mina is special. This baby will be special. I just want to be the best sister and the best aunt I can be, because Mina needs me. My family needs me.”
My mom came next, talking about how she had believed me from the very first second—trusted with her all-knowing motherly intuition—and how proud she’d been to watch me, my transformation from daughter into mother. My dad was more vague regarding what he believed or didn’t believe about my story, but he trembled as he admitted that he’d turned his back on me for too long. He’d let his own expectations get in the way of protecting and supporting me.
“I will never, ever abandon my own family again,” he said, staring unblinking into the camera, even as his voice broke and a stream of tears ran down his cheek. “Not for anything. Not even for a moment. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson from my role in all this.”
I looked over at him as the video played, at his face hidden behind his palms, hands kneading into his tired eyes, and I felt myself step toward him. I had already forgiven him that night on the porch. Or at least I’d said the words out loud then, because I’d wanted to wash it all off. I’d wanted to take us back to normal as quickly as possible. But I felt it again now—I really felt it. We—every one of us in that room—had learned lessons. We were all changed, and we were probably better people because of it. My dad wasn’t perfect, but he was trying his best. That was all any of us could do.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, wrapping an arm around his waist as I leaned into his chest. “It’s time for you to forgive yourself, too.”
He didn’t say anything back, but he didn’t have to. He hugged me, and we stayed like that, tangled up together, as the footage played on.
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.
