The Question of Miracles by Elana K. Arnold Read Free Book Online Page A

energy. Iris gently shut the closet door and went back upstairs. When she got to her room, she left her robe on and pulled the covers up around her and Charles both. He slept there, against her chest, an oversize heart outside her body.

7
    At breakfast, Iris’s mom said, “Did you have a hard time sleeping last night, Pigeon?”
    Iris looked up from her plate of eggs and toast. “Sort of. Why?”
    Her mom smiled, but it was sad. “I thought maybe I heard you downstairs, saying Sarah’s name.”
    Iris looked back down. She pierced a piece of egg with her fork but didn’t eat it.
    â€œWe all miss Sarah,” said her mom. “Your dad and I miss her too.”
    A tear slipped from Iris’s eye and splashed on her plate.
    â€œDo you want to talk about it?”
    Iris shook her head.
    â€œWe all
need
to talk about it, baby.” Her mom took a sip of coffee. Iris loved to fix her mother’s coffee—she loved to scoop in the sugar, pour in the white cream. Her mom liked to keep her spoon in her mug, tucking it behind her index finger to keep it from slipping around and hitting her face.
    It would have been simpler to take out the spoon, but her mom liked it that way, so Iris always left the spoon in the cup when she fixed her mom’s coffee.
    Iris spoke. “I don’t know if Sarah is really gone,” she said. “Or, at least, not all-the-way gone.” It wasn’t easy to speak around the lump in her throat, and she had to wait a long time before her mom answered.
    â€œThe people we love never go away completely. We keep them with us, in our hearts.”
    Iris met her mother’s eyes and wondered if she really believed that, or if it was just something to say. “I think Sarah is
here,
” she said. “I hear her sometimes, moving around.”
    Her mother nodded, like she wasn’t surprised that Iris had said this, but her face didn’t exactly light up with excitement, either. “I think that’s probably pretty normal, to hope for that,” she said.
    Iris felt angry. “Miracles happen, you know.”
    Her mother took another sip of coffee, the spoon tucked behind her finger. “Do they?”
    Iris didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. “The bus’ll be here soon. I’ve got to walk down the driveway.” She pushed back from the table and went to get her boots and coat from the hallway. Her mother followed her.
    â€œI’m going to make an appointment for us,” her mom said. “With Dr. Shannon, in town. We’ll all go together, okay?”
    Iris didn’t answer. She snapped her coat shut and swung her pack onto her back.
    â€œI love you, Pigeon,” her mom called after her as she headed out into the rain.
    For a second Iris didn’t answer. But then she stopped and turned. The rain splashed all around her. “Coo,” she called, and lifted her hand in a wave.
    Â 
    She should go about this scientifically, Iris decided. And she should start by doing the necessary research.
    Boris had a thermos full of split-pea soup and a roll of round butter crackers. He dipped the crackers into the soup and nibbled at them, raining down soupy crumbs onto the table. He hadn’t bothered packing a spoon. Iris considered telling him that maybe it was habits such as this that made cultivating friendships difficult for him, but she didn’t want to get into a whole conversation about it, so she just sat down across from him and opened her bag. Her dad had picked up a reusable lunch bag for her at the co-op, and he even wrapped her sandwich now in a rectangle of plastic-lined cloth that buttoned closed. Her juice was in a reusable PBA-free plastic bottle. Her lunch looked just like all the other Corvallis lunches.
    The lunch inside, however, was undeniably delicious. Since her dad had begun his “conscious rebellion against packaged foods,” instead of plastic-wrapped