Immaculate (25 page)

Within seconds the phone wailed at me again, and I pushed myself up to stand, arms reaching toward the shiny silver base mounted on the wall. I grasped at it with both hands, tearing it from the wall with a loud snapping of plastic brackets, and slammed it down against the floor. It slid against the tiles and I chased it, my feet, my legs, my entire body burning with the need to see it smashed into as many pieces as possible. I jumped on top of it, stomped again, right foot, left foot, kicked it against the bricks that lined our pantry and watched a spray of plastic chips fly into the air with an ecstatic sense of satisfaction. I lunged again, sending the machine rocketing toward the kitchen table. I was so focused that I didn't hear myself screaming, didn't hear the front door click open or the sound of my family's footsteps pounding down the front hallway.

“What the hell, Mina?” my dad shouted, running at me and wrapping his arms around my shoulders and my chest, lifting me up so that my feet dangled above the ground. “What are you doing? What the hell do you think you're doing?”

He spun me around and I saw my mom and Gracie, slack-jawed and cowering by the door, Gracie's face half hidden as she pressed against my mom's puffy winter jacket.

“I'm sorry,” I said, my eyes meeting Gracie's in apology. I swallowed my terror, willed Elliot S's cold, brittle words from my head. I didn't want to add even more fuel to her fears. I didn't want her to know how right she probably was to be afraid. “I didn't mean to get so . . . so violent. But people are calling me, and I just couldn't hear one more ring right now. I just couldn't.” Dad's stiff hold softened. My feet hit the ground, but he kept his arms around me. I breathed in the smell of him, the scent that I realized just now how much I'd missed—cool evergreen pine and spicy clove that somehow clung to his sweaters and T-shirts for days after he'd worn them. I inhaled again, savoring the closeness. I felt protected. Shielded from everything that lay beyond our front door.

“Who?” he demanded. “Who's been calling you?”

“Strangers.” The word felt frigid, grim when I heard it on my lips. “Our number was listed on the website, apparently.”

At that, I heard a distant, muffled ringing—the phones in my dad's office, my parents' bedroom. I hadn't even thought about the other extentions, I'd been so caught up in my fury. But I wasn't inaccessable, not even close. It would take much more than annihilating a single phone to actually cut myself off from the rest of the world.

“Damn it,” my dad snapped, his arms dropping to his sides. I shivered, suddenly cold without the comforting warmth of his hold. “I knew this would happen. I knew it.”

“What do we do now?” my mom asked, her face as pale as the stark white fur lining her hood.

“I'm calling the phone company and finding a way to block or change our number. And then I'm calling the police, because this is harassment and I refuse to let these ignorant sons of bitches invade our family home.” My dad ducked his head and started for the hallway, boots stomping across the tiles. But then he turned back to face me, an afterthought, his eyes burning into mine so fiercely, I had to fight not to look away.

“Let me say this. I may still not know what to believe here, Mina, and I'm well aware that I haven't been one of your biggest supporters. But I would never—
never
—do to anyone what these people are doing to you right now. I would never force my religious opinions on a complete stranger. I would never disrespect another family's right to privacy. Because from where I'm standing, these people are committing much graver sins of their own, casting judgment on you like they have the authority. Acting like they have the right to make God's own decisions. I won't stand for it, Mina. I won't.” With that he started back down the hall, his footsteps dying out with the slam of his office door.

“Can I go on the news for you, Meen?” Gracie asked, pulling me over to sit with her at the kitchen table. “Maybe they'll believe you if I tell them all what a good sister you are. I'll tell them that your eyebrows always get all funny and squiggly when you lie to me about something, and that's how I know you're not lying about this.”

I laughed, though I stopped myself after I saw the look of hurt on Gracie's stoic face. “That's very sweet of you, Gracie, but they'll probably just think I brainwashed or blackmailed you. Honestly, I'm not sure there's anything that any of us could say to change their minds.”

“You could tell them about Iris,” my mom said, her voice wavering and paper thin, like I could poke right through it if I so much as lifted my finger. “You didn't say anything about her at all in the KBC interview. The way you told it to the reporter, you more or less woke up one day with all the standard pregnancy signs.
Poof
. Not pregnant one day, pregnant the next. Maybe people need to hear that there was
something
—some event, no matter how vague and inexplicable—that was the catalyst for all this. Iris was your Gabriel, Mina. That conversation was your own kind of Annunciation, as insane and sacrilegious as that sounds. And I think that's what people want to hear. That's what people need to hear.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said, trying my best to keep the words flat and even. “You think people are
more likely
to believe me if I say that an odd old lady came into the local pizza shop and told me I'd be having a baby?”

“I'm not saying that everyone will believe you, Mina.” She sighed. “I'm not even saying that most people will believe you. But I think that there are people out there, people who want to
find something
to believe in. Anything, some sign that there's more to life than we have right here in our mundane and predictable day-to-day existence. Maybe if you say it, tell them all about Iris, maybe, just maybe, a few people will stop and think. Some small piece of them, buried somewhere beneath all the cynicism we're trained to carry around from the time we're supposed to
know better
, will hear what you're saying. Will open up to you, to the idea that there may not be a black-and-white explanation.”

“And if they think I'm just crazy?”

“Then they think you're crazy. They're already hell-bent against you, Mina. The way I see it, a few desperately hopeful people switching over to your court is better than nothing. We can use whoever we can get on our side.” Her voice was getting stronger, the argument in her mind fully clicking into place as she put it into words out loud. “And there are decent people out there, too, people who still may not believe a word you're saying but will believe in your personal right to say it without getting attacked by the media and the country's conservative zealots. You need to face the camera and pour it all out, Mina, let America see that you're not holding anything back anymore. Let them know what this is really doing to your everyday life.”

“So you think I should have cameras follow me around all day? Some sort of warped teen pregnancy documentary?”

“I wasn't thinking of it quite like that, no. I meant that you could verbally and metaphorically walk them through your day.” She paused, her thumb drawing tiny circles along her palm as she considered. “But maybe what you're suggesting is a much better idea. Maybe if people see the real you, your life, you'll be more humanized. Less of a publicity object and more of a normal teenage girl going through a very abnormal experience.”

“Nice idea in theory, Mom. But seriously, think about how the media tears people apart, scatters their shreds across the tabloids. I can't trust a reporter to do me any favors. I was just a prop to KBC. They all have their own motives and their own angles, and the bigger the scandal, the better for them because that's what their viewers want, right? They'd turn my life into a total joke. Any dignity I have left—and that's assuming I have any left at all—goes straight out the window.”

“Maybe we don't have the typical reporter film you then.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“Jesse.”

“Jesse?”

“Yes, Jesse. You told me that he helps out with a film crew, right? And he had that camera glued to his hand on your birthday. Why not have him record some of the day to day? You at school, you at home, pull some other interviews together, and then we could talk about submitting it somewhere. If it feels right, that is, after we've all looked it over. At the very least it'll give you practice talking on camera. You can trust him to show the real Mina. That's what matters. That's
all
that matters.”

“I don't know.” Sweat was already prickling along the back of my neck just at the thought of it. I wasn't sure what made me most nervous: the idea of Jesse observing my life so closely, observing
me
so closely, or the idea of sending the final project out to the public. Things had been different since my birthday—cooler and more polite. We were still friends, of course. He drove me to school and sat with me and Hannah at lunch. Jesse had promised me—had promised Iris—his support, and he wasn't the type to break his word. But after that kiss . . .

“I have to think about it,” I said, not meeting her eyes.

“Of course. But I think having Jesse film you couldn't hurt, even if we don't end up sending it out or posting it anywhere. It might be good to have this period of your life recorded. It's a special time, Mina. Strange and terrible at times, yes . . . but definitely still
special
.”

chapter fifteen

Jesse didn't waste
any time leaping full speed ahead into my mother's grand plan.

I spent the next week and a half living on the opposite side of Jesse's camera, trying my best to pretend that he wasn't there and that there wasn't a tiny machine recording every movement, every expression, every word. I was used to seeing the camera in his hand—it was more unusual to see him
without
his second set of eyes—but I wasn't used to the lens being focused so exclusively on
me
.

Our classmates weren't fazed by Jesse filming me, probably because he was either A, invisible to them, or B, already the weird kid who always had a camera in front of his face. Whichever reason, the camera definitely didn't curtail any of their typical behaviors. If anything, the pre-Christmas hype had made some of them even more determined to harass me. Kyle and his crew fell to their knees and hailed me whenever we crossed paths in the hallway, and I was getting more notes jammed in my locker, more balls of paper wadded up and thrown at me during class or in the cafeteria. I'd stopped reading the messages altogether after catching Jesse recording over my shoulder, making a point of throwing them away unopened. I had always suspected that some of my classmates thought I was a bit of an outsider, maybe, a grade snob who didn't dare to step outside of her little social circle. But I'd never realized how outside I'd really been. How detached I was from all but a measly little handful of companions. It's funny, really, the kind of pseudo-safety a few qualified close connections can give you. Nate, Izzy, Hannah. They'd been my guardians, and I'd never once stopped to think about who I'd be without them. But now I knew. Now I had no delusions.

There were, thankfully, some people who cruised right past me in the hallway, too—as if I was anyone, or maybe even as if I was no one at all. Kids who'd either gotten sick of the hype or had never really cared in the first place. They cared about Christmas, exams, college applications, their own best friend and relationship dramas. Their
own
lives.

Sadly, though, those indifferent classmates were still in the minority.

Jesse met me at my house each weekday morning, but instead of just waiting outside for me to hop into his truck, he'd come in first, take random footage of me getting ready for the day, reading over the latest Virgin Mina web posts, talking with my mom and Gracie at the breakfast table about nothing and everything—what kind of pizza we'd have for dinner that night, or how my mom had woken up one day to find
BURN IN HELL
written in bright red spray-painted capital letters on our porch.

We'd had it painted over that same day—the same day that we also, not so incidentally, ordered the installation of a new state-of-the-art home security and surveillance system—but I still saw the words every time I stepped up to our front door. They couldn't be painted over in my memory. I couldn't stop thinking about the stranger who had prowled across our lawn the night before, wondering who and why—and what he or she might do next. Maybe this had just been a warning, like Elliot S's cryptic call. A preview for something much bigger than a few nasty words. I hadn't watched the footage, but I already knew how petrified my face would look on playback. I was completely vulnerable—my entire family was vulnerable. We were never safe, not even in our own home. But other than a few slips on mornings like that one, I kept a straight face. I pretended to be brave.

Jesse shadowed me over the weekend, too, when he wasn't working at Frankie's or schlepping around for his uncle. Me wrapping presents on my mom's bed, pretending not to cry as
It's a Wonderful Life
played in the background. Me watching birthing videos in our living room, my substitute for actual group instruction because I refused to go to any public classes, no matter how enthusiastic my mom and Hannah had both been about filling in for the “daddy” role. Jesse never offered, but I think we both more than understood that his role in all this was already suspicious enough. And after that birthday kiss, I had a feeling that playing mommy and daddy together, even for a ninety-minute class, would topple our fragile balance.

I had a hard time, though, believing that this was the kind of real-life drama strangers would want to watch—that there was something compelling to be gleaned from my morning bowl of cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal. But I didn't want to challenge Jesse's vision for the project. And as much as I refused to admit it, out loud and just barely to myself, I didn't want to say anything that would make Jesse stop. I didn't want to say anything that would mean us spending less time together. Because despite what I'd said—and how I knew things had to be—it was hard to imagine starting and ending my day without him.

• • •

“Are you coming to church with us, Jesse?” Gracie asked, looking around behind her to make sure my mom was nowhere around. Satisfied that there was no imminent risk, she reached into the tin of freshly baked cutout sugar cookies we'd be giving to our pastor's family later that night, swallowing a sparkly blue snowman in two massive bites.

“Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude on your Christmas Eve family time,” he said, glancing up from his camera, where he'd been replaying some of the day's footage for Gracie to see.

“Does your family go to church, too?” Gracie asked, licking a few stray sugar crystals from her thumb.

“Yeah, but not until much later. Midnight mass. It's a tradition in my family.”

“Weren't you ever worried that Santa would come while you were still at church?”

Jesse put the camera down on the kitchen table and looked over at me, fielding the question in my direction. Gracie was just on the outer cusp of no longer believing—or maybe she
had
stopped believing but wasn't ready to admit to it, not yet, just in case that would mean fewer presents under the tree.

“Santa knows to come late enough,” I said, ducking my head below the table as I pretended to tighten my bootlace. I didn't want Gracie, the human lie detector, to spot my giveaway “squiggly” eyebrows, as she'd put it. “He knows when everyone is tucked in their beds and fast asleep. All part of the Christmas magic.”

Gracie nodded, content with that answer. “So will you come with us then, Jesse? Please? If you don't have to go anywhere until midnight?”

“Gracie.” I sighed, squinting at her. My nerves were wound too tightly to be patient. “Don't pressure Jesse. He probably wants to be with his family for Christmas Eve.”

“Well, I'd be happy to go,” he said, his eyes still on me. “As long as that's okay with you and your parents.”

“Oh,” I said, hoping my cheeks weren't as red as they felt. The room was suddenly ten degrees too warm for the scarf that I'd wrapped around the top of my chunky black sweater dress. “Of course you're welcome to come with us. I didn't know you'd want to come along, or I would have asked sooner.”

“Awesome. Then I accept the invite.” Jesse smiled and turned back to the camera.

I'd always loved the Christmas Eve service, but I was anxious about tonight. I hadn't been to my church in months now, and I didn't know how everyone would react to my being there. My parents had assured me it was fine, and regardless, I couldn't imagine not being there, with them, for the first time in eighteen years. But I felt better knowing that Jesse would be there, too. I felt even more secure.

Fifteen minutes later we were all bundled in our thickest, puffiest jackets and piled into the minivan: Gracie, my mom, and Jesse in the back, me in the hallowed passenger seat next to my dad because it required the least amount of squeezing and squishing for my awkwardly round belly—which, according to my most recent visit with Dr. Keller, now carried my massive three-pounder of a baby. How the baby could still more than double in size in the next two months before delivery left me equal parts mystified and horrified.

My dad dropped us off at the front steps of the church, insisting that I not have to walk too far in the bitter cold. I opened my mouth to argue, but the look of genuine concern in his eyes made me stop myself. I nodded instead, stepping out onto the sidewalk as my mom took my arm and ushered me through the twinkling entrance lined with boughs of evergreen. I started to duck my head, screening my eyes from any open hostility—but then the homey piney smell washed over me, reminding me of everything that I loved about Christmas Eve. Even this Christmas Eve, which was so different from every one that had come before it—but still so similar to them, too. My family, my church, the same carols and the same familiar faces of people I'd known my entire life. But there was
more
this time. There was my baby, of course. There was Jesse. I liked to look at it that way—I had more than instead of less than. I had gained rather than lost.

So I kept my head up. I didn't want to miss anything about this night.

As people passed, I smiled and waved along with my family, and while eyes maybe lingered on me for a few beats too long, no one seemed offended by my presence. We sat right in front of the altar in our family's regular pew—or at least what
had
been my regular pew, too, before I'd stopped going every Sunday with the rest of them. Church was still, miraculously, a safe place for my parents. Church was about listening, singing, letting all the day-to-day worries and hopes go. It was about drifting to a better, more purposeful place. I envied them that kind of devotion, and that kind of certainty in an actual
doctrine
, a rulebook to play by. I had my beliefs centered on my baby—my own individual, tailor-made kind of faith—but that didn't translate to a neat and orderly way to worship.

I couldn't call myself a Christian, not anymore; that much I was certain of. And even though I would have previously considered myself a Christian, in my life before this baby, I'm not sure that it would have been accurate, looking back now. It had been a stamp without real meaning, a word I'd carried with me because of my parents and my upbringing—because it was
expected
of me—rather than a realization I'd come to on my own. If I'd never really thought about my beliefs, how could I have known? How could I have been classified as anything, really?

I certainly couldn't give myself any kind of traditional label now. I just
believed
in the power of something beyond myself, something beyond the physical world of science and math and predictability. What did that make me? Was I the sole member of a radical new religion?

Aunt Vera and Uncle Teddy and the kids swept in, interrupting my thoughts with big, jolly Christmas hugs as they settled into the pew behind us. I'd last seem them at Thanksgiving, when both Vera and Teddy had locked me in a fierce hug the second they'd walked through the front door. I was their niece, they'd said, and they would always love me no matter what. Nothing was said after that. But nothing else
needed
to be said. Vera rested a hand on my shoulder now, and I squeezed it, silently thanking her for being there. They didn't usually come to church, not even on Christmas Eve—but they were here tonight, and I had a feeling that I was the reason. The opening music started up, and I felt my mind and my body soften, the usually nonstop anxiety easing away. Tonight was about family and tradition and cozy carols by candlelight—everything else could wait.

I smiled up at Pastor Lewis during his readings from the Bible, the oh-so-familiar Gospel of Luke, and the sermon that sounded more or less identical to me every year. He ended the message with a few moments of silence, and then, as part of the Christmas Eve tradition, we all reached down for the miniature white candles placed at each of our seats. The lights overhead dimmed as ushers carried a lit candle to each pew, their flame passing down the line until every face in the room was lit from below, golden balls floating eerily in the shadows.

This was always my favorite part of the service by far, a moment that I looked forward to all year.
This
was Christmas. This was happiness—pure, simple, unconditional happiness. Standing shoulder to shoulder with my family, singing at the top of my lungs, knowing that Christmas morning was just around the corner.

The choir stood from their mounted pews behind the altar as the first few notes rose up from the piano. “Silent Night.” Just like always.

A small figure emerged from the dim corner of the pews, her head down as she edged slowly forward to stand ahead of the rest of the singers. As she stepped into the glow of the candlelight, I could see her face clearly.

Iris.

She was luminous against the darkness around her, her white hair glistening and her pale face like a moon hovering above the altar. Her green eyes landed on mine as she opened her lips and the first words poured out, fuller and richer than I could have ever imagined coming from her petite, fragile body.

Silent night, Holy night,