Immaculate

I shrieked, my heart pounding in my chest, before I realized that it was Gracie. She was standing in the doorway, soft light from the hallway framing her tiny body.

“What are you talking about, Gracie?”

“Iris. She won’t come if you’re screaming at her like that.”

“What do you know about Iris? You’ve never seen her. I do. I see her, Gracie. I haven’t told anyone, but I still see her sometimes.”

“I see her, too, Mina. She’s everywhere.”

A chill prickled along my spine as I stared at her, my mouth gaping open.

“How . . . ?”

“She’s there when you need her most, I think. When you’re really sad, or maybe when you’re really happy, too.” She pushed herself onto the bed and crawled to squeeze in next to me. “When I get mad at school about something somebody says about you, or when I can’t sleep at night because I’m scared about what’s going to happen to you and the baby . . . that’s when I see her. She never says anything, but she smiles at me. She smiles with those happy green eyes. And that’s enough. I always feel okay again when I see her.”

“But I don’t get it. How did you know it was Iris? How did you know about her green eyes? I never told you that.”

“I just knew.” She shrugged. “Who else would it be?”

“Why haven’t you told me?” I asked, my lips still shaking.

She scrunched her face. “I don’t know. I guess I was worried you’d think I was making it up, maybe. Because even though I think she’s real when I see her, she always disappears right away. Like a ghost or something. I was scared no one would believe me.”

“I believe you, Gracie,” I said, and sighed. “I’ll always, always believe you.”

I knew that I hadn’t just imagined Iris at school or at church, or in that depressing old restaurant. She was real, just like my baby was real.

I don’t really want Iris to take you back, I said in my head, desperately hoping that the baby could somehow hear me. I felt hot and sick with shame, as if flames were burning holes through my stomach. I didn’t mean that, not at all. I wouldn’t trade you in for anything or anyone.

Both of us were silent after that, and when Gracie’s breathing fell into a slow rhythm next to me, I closed my eyes and prayed.

Not to God, because I still wasn’t sure who or what that was.

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 wi

I called Ha

Jesse and I barely glanced at each other when he walked into the living room a few hours later. Ha

“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 begi

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 pa