Transcendent (8 page)

“He kept calling before I turned off the phones,” she said, her eyes still staring straight into mine. She didn't want to be saying this, I could tell, but she was. She had
no choice. “And he came again, twice, while you were at school this week. I threatened to report him and he seems to have backed off, at least for now. But do I think we've seen the last of him? No. No, I don't, Iris. And Dr. Keller—Dr. Keller, my doctor while I was pregnant with you—she lied to protect me, told the world you had been miscarried after that awful protest. She retired soon after everything happened, moved with her family to Hawaii. But Kyle managed to trace her, too. Called asking her all sorts of questions, threatening to prove that she'd faked medical records . . . He's angry, Iris. And he's very desperate. Angry and desperate . . . that's a dangerous combination.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing back the cold nausea that rippled through my stomach. My mom put her palms to my cheeks and pulled me in closer. “I'm sorry, Iris, but I want to be honest with you. I need to be. And I have a feeling that this—him coming here—was just the beginning. I have a feeling that there's more to come.”

The words struck hard, burrowing deep inside me where they'd be impossible to shake.

There was another question, though, that I needed to ask, a question that I should have asked before now. “Mom . . . do you believe in God? Because of this?”

“I've never known what to believe exactly, honey. Because there isn't a neat label for it. I just know that I
believed in Iris, and I always will. She gave me you. And I pray to her still, your dad and I both. We ask her to keep you safe.”

“Will I get to meet her, too?” I asked, the words tiny and frail, so paper thin.

“I don't know, Iris. But I certainly hope so.”

•   •   •

I was up the next morning before six and knew that there was no hope of falling back to sleep. I'd been awake for most of the night anyway, my mom's words about Kyle Bennett looping through my mind. The radiators hadn't kicked on yet, so I gathered my quilt around my shoulders and started down the stairs to make a cup of tea.

The lights were already on in the kitchen. I hesitated for a moment by the door, but it was too late to turn back. My dad looked up from the table at the sound of my footsteps, a small mountain of
New York Times
sections sprawled in front of him and a mug of coffee in his hand.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.
Dad
. My throat hitched around the word. A word that had felt so guaranteed, so obvious just the week before. Would it ever feel normal again? Could it?
How?
The idea that I didn't have a biological father hit me again, a full-force body slam, and I wished I'd stayed in bed. I hadn't felt the real weight of it the night before, too caught up in the strange power of my mom's words.
But I was gutted now, an entire and essential piece of my identity stamped out with one big question mark. I wanted to run over to him, jump on his lap, and wrap my arms around his neck. I wanted to never let go. But I didn't. I stayed where I was.

“You're up early, sweetie,” he said, gently putting his mug down.

I opened my mouth, preparing to tell him about mom's book, about my late-night reading, but then I noticed the purplish-gray circles under his eyes. The way he was looking over but not quite
at
me. He already knew all about it, even if he hadn't actually read the pages for himself.

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It's all seriously fucking bizarre, isn't it? The more you learn, the crazier it gets. But just like I told your mom back when it first started, we all need a little crazy in our life sometimes. Life would be so boring otherwise.” He smiled. I tried to smile back, but my lips wouldn't let me. It felt okay to talk about it, though. It felt better than not talking about it, at least.

“How about this,” he said, pushing the newspaper pages together in a messy pile. “Let's get out of here for a little, grab some food and some highly caffeinated beverages somewhere. This cup of coffee won't cut it. Let's just have some breathing time. The two of us.”

“You're not working?” I asked, surprised. “It's Saturday. You always work Saturdays.”

He shook his head. “Not today. I've been spending way too much time away. I want to be here more. For you. For Cal and Mom. Work can wait until Monday morning. So breakfast?”

I looked away, down at the floor.

“Please?” he said. “Just a quick meal. You don't even have to talk to me if that's still too much.”

I nodded finally and turned back toward the stairs to my room, where I pulled a chunky green sweater on over the T-shirt and yoga pants I'd slept in and grabbed my jacket. There was a tingling in my stomach, an uneasy churning. I was nervous, I realized. Nervous to sit down for breakfast with someone I'd known and loved for my entire life.

Mostly known
, I thought, cutting myself off. I hadn't completely known him—or my mom. Not until now.

We walked the dark sidewalks in silence, both knowing without saying where we were headed. Mueller's had been our place for as long as I could remember, a tiny mom-and-pop diner tucked away on a quiet little side street, too far from either surrounding avenue for anyone but locals to take much notice. It wasn't anything special, really, but their sunny-side-up eggs were always fried to perfection, not too hard on top, not too runny either, and we could both leave full for under twenty-five dollars—with a generous tip—which was phenomenal in New York City. Caleb
and my mom could sleep well into the afternoon on weekends, so these breakfasts had always been just us. Me and Dad. Or they'd used to be, I realized, as I stepped inside the jangling front door and breathed in the hot, heavy cloud of coffee and butter and bacon. I couldn't remember the last time we'd been here. I missed this. I missed him. Most of all, though, I already missed how things had been and how things would maybe never be again.

We both ordered without looking at the menu, waving our hellos at Mr. and Mrs. Mueller, who never seemed to take a day off from their posts behind the front counter. And then we sat, waiting, unfolding and fidgeting with our napkin-bundled silverware, staring down at the advertisement-covered paper place mats as if we were suddenly both in dire need of a new chiropractor or an accident lawyer.

“This,” my dad finally said, pointing to the table, pointing at each of us, “this doesn't have to change. It's
not
going to change. None of this. I just need you to know that.” He paused, sighing, as he ran his fingers through his gray-flecked black curls. “I need to hear you say it, too, Iris. I'm terrified right now. I'm terrified of everything that you're thinking about us. About what I am to you. About what you are to
me
.” His voice broke on those last words, and I could see the tears he was blinking back from his red-rimmed, tired eyes. “You have to know that I have
always felt like your father. Before your mom and I fell in love. Before you were even born. I always, always felt like your dad.”

“I believe you,” I said, partly because I knew it was what he needed me to say. But I also said it because he
had
been my dad for over seventeen years, had potty trained me and given me piggyback rides up and down the streets of Brooklyn. He'd taught me how to color inside the lines and, a few years later, how to hold a paintbrush. He'd held my hand the first time I tried to scooter on my own, down Vanderbilt Avenue, and swept me up when I fell and howled for the whole neighborhood to hear.

But biologically—biologically I was my mom and . . . I closed my eyes for a moment, the shock and the absurdity hammering down on me all over again. I could ask to get a DNA test, couldn't I? See who I was at a chemical level. But . . . then what? What if something
was
off about the results, what if doctors wanted to study me? No. I wouldn't be any one's specimen.

“I believe you,” I repeated, pushing away the image of sterile laboratories and scientists and needles from my mind, “but that doesn't mean that things can instantly go back to normal. This is all still hugely weird to me. You and Mom kept an enormous secret. I can't just forget that.”

“I know. And I'll give you all the time and space you
need.” He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I have faith, though. We'll be okay. You and me.”

I nodded, even if I wasn't sure it was really that simple. Maybe this was progress, but still—I couldn't help but think we had a long way to go.

“What about Caleb?” I asked. “When do we tell him? He's being tough about it, but he's smart enough to know that something very strange is going on. It's not fair to him.”

He was quiet for a moment, but then he nodded, slowly. “You're absolutely right. How about we tell him today? It's Saturday, so we'll have the weekend together, all four of us. He'll have some time to process before jumping back into the routine.”

“Okay,” I said. “I like that idea.”

We both fell silent again, until the waitress came over with our plates, our perfect bright yellow eggs.

“Can we please have some mustard?” I asked, just as my dad chimed in with a “mustard, please” of his own. We both wanted the mustard to drizzle with some ketchup over our runny yolks, our shared passion that made Mom and Caleb gag every time.

As the waitress turned away, we both reached at the same time for the ketchup already on the table. Our hands knocked over the glass bottle, and we lost it after that. He
cracked up first, a loud, barking laugh that must have made everyone in the restaurant turn and stare, but I was too doubled over to notice, tears pricking at my eyes, my stomach aching.

“
Ketchup and mustard, please!
” I screamed, as if they were the funniest words and the funniest coincidence in the entire history of the world.

I was desperate to believe that this was some kind of proof. Evidence that we still fit, and that my dad was right. Someday, maybe we really would be okay.

It was hard to believe now, the cuts so fresh, raw and stinging.

But I hoped. Someday.

M
Y MOM WAS
hesitant about telling Caleb, but my dad insisted.

“Iris is right,” he said, sitting next to her on the office love seat as I watched them from the door. Caleb was still sleeping, just above us. “We're a family, and we have to deal with this together. We can't keep leaving Caleb in the dark.”

“I don't like it,” Mom said, the words clipped coming out of her tight, frowning lips. “He's too young. He's not ready for all of this.”

“We might not have a choice.” Dad sighed. His voice was low, but still firm and assertive. “Listen, sweetie, you know as well as I do that this might not be our secret for much longer. We've always said both of them would hear it from us. So if that's what we still want, then I say we tell him. Sooner rather than later.”

Mom shuddered at that, and he put his arms around her.

“Okay,” she whispered. “You're right.”

We let Caleb wake up on his own, and then eat his usual bowl of Honey Nut O's as we all tried not to hover around the kitchen, waiting for him to finish up. Now that we knew what was coming, none of us seemed capable of doing anything else while we waited.

“Hey, buddy,” Dad said as Caleb rinsed his bowl in the sink, “can you come to the living room? We all need to have a little talk.”

Caleb's eyes grew wide and worried as he dropped the bowl with a clatter onto the rack.

“It's okay,” I said, rushing over to hug him. “It's not scary. Not really.”

He nodded and let me lead him to the sofa.

My mom sat across from us on the old rocking chair, and Dad pulled over a footstool to sit next to her. She looked at him; he looked at her. They both looked at me. I shook my head.
No way
was this story coming from me. Caleb had to hear it straight from my mom's mouth, just as I had.

Mom blinked her eyes a few times, and then turned to face Caleb.

“Sweetie, this is going to sound ridiculous . . . completely ridiculous,” she started. “But back when I was
your sister's age, living in Pennsylvania . . .” I tried to listen to most of it, the same story, more or less, that she'd told me the week before. But now that I'd read the book, this version felt so empty, so bare-bones. It was all so much harder to believe without the intricate details, the sights, the smells, the feelings that had made the story come to life for me.

My mom finished explaining. The room fell silent, all eyes on me.

“Cal?” I asked, forcing myself to look at him straight on. “Tell me what you're thinking, buddy. I know it sounds pretty impossible, right? But the crazy thing is that Mom, she wrote a book about all of this. Right after it happened. I read it last night, and—I don't know, but I actually believe it. I believe it's all true. I don't know what any of it means, really, or what's going to happen next. But no matter what, I'm still just me. Same old Iris. I need you to believe that, more than anything else.”

Caleb nodded, but he didn't say anything for a moment. He just stared up at me, his eyes oddly dark and unreadable.

“I need to think,” he said quietly. “I'm going to go up to my room now. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” my mom said, forcing a smile onto her face.

Caleb stood and, without looking once at any of us, made his way out of the room, up the stairs. We heard the
door close from two flights away, and then there was nothing but stillness.

•   •   •

Caleb didn't say much for the rest of the day, just a mumbled “Yes, please,” or “Can you pass the salad?” while we all ate dinner. I could see a thousand questions whizzing around behind his eyes, though. Even at ten, Caleb had a way of talking only when he was ready, and then saying only what was most important. He was oddly efficient like that, always going straight to the heart of the matter. I supposed that was what he was doing now, but the effect was unnerving.

I skipped the soup kitchen the next day to be at home with Caleb. He wasn't speaking to me still, but as the day went on, I started to notice that he was following me around the house, sitting at the kitchen table when I sat at the kitchen table, watching TV when I watched TV—even when I was playing old episodes of
Downton Abbey
, a show he usually couldn't stand.

It wasn't until I caught him refilling my glass of water on the table that I pieced together all the tiny little favors he'd been doing so subtly in the last twenty-four hours: pushing all the pillows to my side of the sofa when we watched TV, insisting on mushroom and black olive pizza the night before—my favorite, definitely not his—and
doing all the dishes, including my own, before I'd even left the table.

The realization dropped in my stomach with a sickening blow. Was he that scared of me now? Scared that if I
was
some kind of Messiah, I had the power to determine his whole future, to send him off to heaven or hell?

Or, just as unsettling, was he
worshipping
me, bringing me water and scraping my dishes, like a beggar bowing down to Jesus in the Bible?

Both options were equally uncomfortable to think about. I didn't want to be anything or anyone but his big sister. Just Iris. Just the same old me I'd always been. The big sister who was a pretty decent role model, I hoped, except for when she left her wet towel on the bathroom floor or forgot to pick him up on time after school.

I couldn't take it, the wondering and the analyzing. It was worse than the truth of whatever he was actually thinking—or at least I hoped so.

“Cal,” I said, patting the sofa next to me. He was perched at the other end, pressed up tightly against the armrest—as far from me as he could be, I realized, while still being on the same couch. “Come over here, buddy.”

He nodded, scooting over until our shoulders were nearly touching.

“I know you're still thinking everything over, and I get that. It's how you work. But you need to stop treating
me like I'm someone different. Because I'm
not
. I promise you, I'm not. Even though I believe what Mom told us, it doesn't mean that I'm actually special. I don't have any actual powers or anything crazy like that. Whatever happened back then, I'm still just like anybody else. Look,” I said, tearing at a hangnail so that a bead of blood popped to the surface of my skin. “Okay, disgusting example. But still. I bleed. Just like you.”

“Ew,” he said, his face crinkling up in disgust. But under that, I could see a little smile. “You're nasty, Iris. You better not put that on me.”

I pretended to lurch for him, just to see his flash of horror, and then I wiped the blood off on a tissue. “Gross, but point proven, right?”

“Maybe.” He nodded, refusing to look at me. “But what about . . . what about what I asked last week? They said
Second Coming
on the news. Doesn't that mean Jesus would come back? So what if it means
you
?”

I froze, a ripple of doubt seizing me.
No
. None of this had anything to do with me. The Judges had created this destruction—there was nothing divine about it.

“No, Cal,” I said slowly, breathing in deep to force some kind of calm, at least while I was facing my little brother. “Trust me. I'm not here to change the world. Because if that was the case, we'd all be in trouble.”

Our eyes met, and I could tell he almost believed
me—that he
wanted
to believe me at least.

“I'm tired,” he said quickly, standing up. “I'm going to bed. Good night, Iris.”

He disappeared into the foyer, leaving me without my usual hug.

I sagged back against the sofa cushions, closing my eyes. So I hadn't quite convinced Cal yet, but I'd keep trying. I was still glad that he knew the truth—it was like ripping off the Band-Aid. Things had to get worse before they could get better.

Maybe it was time to tell Ari and Delia and Ethan, too, no matter what my mom had told me to do. After all, it wouldn't be my secret forever. That much was clear. And I didn't want them to hear it from anyone else but me.

•   •   •

I woke up that Monday morning determined. I'd tell my friends. Today.

Luckily I was on my own for the last two classes of the afternoon—geometry and physics—no Ari or Ethan or Delia. I waited until then to slip my phone from my locker and text them, asking to meet at four o'clock at Asia Palace. It was easier than saying it to their faces, at least to start.
You guys were right,
I typed, committing myself to telling them the truth.
There is something I've been hiding. But no more secrets. Not after today.
I had debated telling
my mom that morning—I knew I could trust my friends with any secret, and deep down Mom probably knew it, too. But she was too scared. It'd be easier to confess to her once I'd already gone ahead with it. I'd apologize, and she'd forgive me. I hoped. It was already too late to go back.

Ari chimed in almost instantly.
I fucking knew it! You suck at lying.

I love you. I just hope you're okay
, from Delia.

Do you need me to pick up any of your homework assignments?
Ethan.

The last ninety minutes of the day were excruciating—I couldn't have repeated a single thing either of my teachers said. When the final bell chimed, I raced to my locker, grabbed my bag, and then plowed through the crowded halls toward the front door. I wanted to bike to Asia Palace on my own, to clear my head. I had a little time to kill, pedaling around quiet Brooklyn side streets and rehearsing the conversation in my head, perfecting my opening monologue.

I stepped inside Asia Palace at four o'clock exactly, a trickle of cool sweat sliding down the back of my neck. The restaurant was cramped and dark and half underground, and rows of hanging wooden beads surrounded tiny round tables with cushy, low-seated chairs. There were no other customers; there never were at this time of day,
which was why I had picked it for this afternoon. We'd be practically invisible there.

The three of them were already tucked into a back corner, sipping on bubble teas, and I saw a fourth cup waiting in front of my empty chair. Cocoa bubble tea, my favorite.

“Hey,” Ari said, reaching out to swat at my hand. Ethan gave a little wave, and Delia smiled. “Glad you showed up.”

“Of course.” I peeled my jacket off, pretending that six eyes weren't boring into me as I took my time hanging it very precisely over the back of my chair. “And thanks for this,” I said, holding up my cup once I could no longer busy my hands with the jacket. I forced a big gulp down, even though I had no appetite.

“So this is going to sound crazy,” I said, my eyes focused on the dark bubbles of tapioca swirling around my straw. “I mean, really,
really
crazy. But hear me out, okay?”

“You know you can tell us anything,” Delia said. “We're here for you.”

I took a deep breath, put down the tea, and made myself look up, face them head-on. “All right. So. It started when a man showed up at our front door, almost two weeks ago now. He asked for my mom, but he called her by a different name.
Mina
. Mina Dietrich.”

“But why . . .” Ethan started, but I held my hand up, waving his question off for now.

“I tried telling him he had the wrong address, but he was persistent, and when I got my mom . . . she was instantly upset. She recognized the name. I've never seen her so scared about anything in my life. So I eavesdropped from the window when she went out front to talk to him, and it was all super strange and confusing. He was from her old town in Pennsylvania, and he talked about the baby that she'd supposedly lost, and how he'd tracked her down here in Brooklyn because one of his kids had been killed at Disney, and he has another who . . . Anyway, he said he needed her help, and he thought she and this baby could somehow be the answer.”

I could see hundreds of questions in their squinting eyes and their furrowed brows, but to their credit, they stayed silent—even Ari, which was its own special kind of miracle.

“So, very long story short, my mom and dad called me into her office later that day. And they told me the most outrageously ridiculous story I've ever heard, and I know already that you'll think it's equally outrageously ridiculous—maybe even more so because they're not your parents—but the most ridiculous part about it is that I actually believe it's true. They told me . . . they told me that when my mom was seventeen, she got pregnant. And I don't mean she had an accident with a boyfriend or had a crazy night at a party. She was a virgin. As in—
had never
had sex
. At all. With anyone.” I paused, sucking in a big gulp of air. “But a strange old lady came to her one night, or descended unto her, or whatever she did exactly, I don't know—but she asked my mom if she would carry this baby. Told her that the world needed it. My mom freaked out, said
yes
, ran away. A few months later . . . she realized she was pregnant. Her boyfriend dumped her; my grandfather stopped speaking to her. Aunt Izzy abandoned her. Word got out eventually, and it became this whole big thing with the media—”