I set the alarm. I want to make sure we wake up early. I want to get to Lourdes as soon as possible. I want to be away from Paris, away from Hervé and that girl. Away from that sculpture of me, away from the place where my mother met my father.
“I’ll go ask the concierge if he can book us a room for tomorrow,” Mom says.
I grunt, my head turned away. I just want her to go away. After I listen to the door open and close, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Night has fallen on Paris. I’m suddenly exhausted. My body is tired from our wanderings, but it’s more than that. It’s as if my mind is so overwhelmed by the news of my father’s rejection that it wants to shut down for a while. I change into my pajamas and crawl under the covers. But I can’t sleep. I lie there listening to cars honking along the boulevard, laughter from a group passing under the window, someone thumping around in the room next to ours. I close my eyes and try to imagine a deserted beach with gently lapping waves, but what I get is a picture of my father.
Does he ever think about me? Has he ever tried to find us? Probably not. He has another family, a wife and a perfect son. I imagine my Japanese grandparents showering them with gifts, while my mother and I are forgotten, a dirty secret from long ago.
It seems like I spend all night thinking about my father, but then the alarm goes off and it feels as if I’m swimming, swimming to the surface, and I open my eyes to the dawn.
Mom is already awake and dressed. She’s sitting in the armchair, with the guidebook open on her lap.
“Good morning,” she says.
I haul myself out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans. “So what time’s the train?”
“In another hour.”
I notice a small bag by the door. We’ll be leaving most of our stuff in this hotel room.
I shuck off my pajama top and pull on a T-shirt. We go downstairs to the hotel restaurant for croissants and café au lait, and then it’s off to the Gare de Lyon. I can’t help thinking of Hervé, and wondering if he’ll notice I’m not around.
While Mom’s paying for our tickets, I buy a bar of chocolate and Paris Match. It’s not like I can read the magazine or anything, but I can look at the pictures: Princess Caroline de Monaco in a ball gown. Johnny Depp at a film festival.
“Quai 3,” Mom says. I follow her to the train, onto the car, and down the corridor. We slip into an empty compartment. I quickly flip open my magazine, but I can feel Mom’s eyes on me. I can feel that she wants to talk. Part of me wants to ignore her for the rest of the trip, but there is so much that I want to know. She is the only one who can tell me these things. The train starts to pull away from the station.
“Does my father have a picture of me?” I ask.
Mom nods, then looks out the window. The city is fading away. She dabs at the corner of her eye with her finger. “I have sent letters and photos for all these years, but he never writes back.”
That doesn’t make sense. She has that photo of my brother. “How did you get a photo of Junpei, then?” I ask.
She’s silent for a moment. “His mother—your father’s wife—sent it.”
I imagine this woman coming upon my photo, or a mysterious letter from abroad. Maybe she understood just enough to know that it was from her husband’s former lover, that he has a daughter somewhere. Maybe no one would tell her about the woman and the girl, but she was curious, so she took it upon herself to find out more. Or maybe she wanted to show my mother that we are part of the past, that he has a new family now, and that we should leave them alone.
I’m about to say more, but then the train slows to a stop and passengers get on. A trio of American backpackers crowd into our compartment. I don’t want them to hear our conversation. My questions will have to wait.
As we get closer to our destination, more and more passengers board with canes or wheelchairs. I see a mother carrying a child with leg braces and a blind man who boards with his dog. Some get on with nurses or nuns.
Finally, the Pyrenees Mountains loom into view. This is Bernadette’s territory. My heart begins to thud.
When the train pulls into Lourdes, we’re already standing at the door, ready to get off. Mom carries a bag holding clothes for both of us. She gives me a hand in stepping off the train, and then we flag down a cab. Mom tells the driver the name of the hotel that the concierge in Paris booked for us, and we’re off.
I look out the window, trying to find something familiar, something from the movie. I try to imagine Bernadette walking down these cobblestone streets, her mother buying meat at that butcher’s shop, she and her sisters running over that hill. I try to blot out the hordes of tourists, the advertisements pasted to every wall featuring Our Lady of Lourdes, the plastic bottles of holy water sitting in shop windows.
“This is it,” the driver says, stopping in front of a two-story brick building.
Mom hands him a few euros, and we check in to the hotel.
“The concierge says that this place is within walking distance of the grotto,” Mom says. “Why don’t we have lunch first, and then go check it out.”
I nod.
We find a cute little bistro around the corner and order ham and cheese sandwiches. I thought I was hungry, but butterflies are now flurrying in my stomach. This visit to the grotto is making me nervous. What if I really do experience a miracle? What if I don’t?
After lunch we take a look at the map and then start walking toward the site where Bernadette had her vision. We don’t really need a map, though. It’s just as easy to follow the group of pilgrims in wheelchairs in front of us.
Somehow I’m expecting a garbage dump and a cold stream, but it’s not like that at all. The site is dominated by a huge cathedral. Of course, this wasn’t in the film. It hadn’t been built yet. Everyone was still thinking that Bernadette’s vision was a hoax. The people who have gathered here obviously believe that she was telling the truth.
Mom and I fall in behind a long procession of pilgrims in white. Many hold candles. They are chanting. I don’t understand the words, but they raise goose bumps on my arms.
Mom touches me and guides me forward. I sneak a look at her face. She looks scared.
“It’ll be okay, Mom,” I say. She forces a smile.
We shuffle along, inhaling incense, our bodies buoyed by faith. Then the line stops. Up ahead, there is wailing. A woman has fallen to her knees. I try to get a good look, but all I can see are her hands, reaching for heaven. Some guys who look like orderlies rush up with a stretcher. I think they’re going to take her off to a waiting ambulance, but they don’t. Instead, they carry her alongside the column of pilgrims. I can hear someone crying behind me. We begin moving again.
Down near the grotto, there are rows of chairs. I motion for Mom to wait for me, and then I move down to the cave, to the place where Bernadette was cured.
When I step up to the railing, my heart starts to bang. I feel my knees begin to buckle and I hold myself upright with my arms until I can control my legs again. All of my senses are suddenly acute. I can hear every bird in every tree. The world is bright; the mountains are haloed. It’s just adrenaline, I tell myself. But fear grabs me by the throat. What if I do experience a miracle? What then? I’m old enough to know that everything has a price. You don’t get something for nothing in this world.
Bernadette may have been graced with a vision, but she was sent away to a convent. She died there, away from her family, from tuberculosis when she was just sixteen. Only a couple of years older than I am now.
I saw a movie on cable once about this Japanese woman with a brain-damaged daughter. She believed that if she made the tour of eighty-eight temples in Shikoku, her girl would be able to walk. Even when she was grown, the mother pushed her child from temple to temple in this wicker buggy, picking fruit along the way to earn money for food. Finally, at the last temple, the daughter got out of the buggy, stood up on her own, took one step, fell down, and died.
I take a deep breath. My heart starts to slow down. What a waste that would be.
I want to ride on the back of some boy’s scooter and feel the wind in my hair. I want to fall deeply in love, even if it hurts. I want to sprawl on Whitney’s bed and watch more movies and talk about our dreams of the future, and I want to draw and travel and even learn to dance. And maybe Mom is right about my dad. If he can’t accept me, his own flesh and blood, limp and claw and all, maybe he’s not worth getting to know.
I curl the fingers of my right hand around the railing and peer into the grotto. I try to conjure the lady in white. Some people said that she was a fairy. Bernadette never actually said that she was the Virgin, but that’s what the villagers wanted to believe. I don’t see a fairy or anything else. All I see is stone. I heave a sigh of relief and start to walk away.
That’s when I hear the voice.
“Forgive,” a woman whispers.
My skin goes all prickly. I veer back toward the cave, but there’s nothing there. Just stone, as before.
“Forgive,” the voice says again, a little louder this time. I turn to see an elderly woman, her eyes squeezed shut. Okay, so she’s not talking to me. She’s thinking about her own problems. Once again, relief whooshes through me, but this time it’s mixed with something else. I think of Mom and all the gifts that she has given me on this trip—the story about my father, the knowledge of my brother, Junpei, this moment at the shrine, even my friendship with Hervé.
I feel a sudden surge of love for my mother. I hurry as fast as I can to find her. When I do, I am as surprised as I’ve ever been. She’s behind all of the rows of chairs, kneeling. Her head is bowed and her hands are folded together. The sight of my mother praying is about as much of a miracle as anything.
“Mom,” I say. “Let’s go.”
She opens her eyes. They are rimmed with red. There are a few streaks on her face. “I’m sorry, Aiko. I’m so sorry about everything.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I forgive you.” I hold out her hand to help her up.
Instead, she opens her palm to me, offering a square of folded paper.
“What’s this?” I ask, plucking it from her hand.
“It’s your father’s address. Do with it what you like.”
I hold it for a moment without reading it, and then I put it in my pocket. It’s my father’s address, but this is also where my brother lives.