If You Need a Miracle

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1.
Fly to Greece. On the plane, finger your sister’s favorite charm, a red heart sacrificed from her Pandora bracelet, now tucked into your pocket. Avoid thinking of the last time you saw her, plucking out the final strands of her russet hair and sending them floating out the passenger window of your Cherokee.

2.
Land. Hop a ferryboat to Tinos. No, it can’t be a neighboring island. A party island like Mykonos, where another summer (a better summer) you have sunburned your breasts on Paradise Beach and messed around with the Swedish soccer team wearing nothing but bronzed peach fuzz. Tinos, only Tinos. The Lourdes of Greece.

3.
Disembark in port. Stare up at the Church of the Virgin Mary, a white confection crowning the hilltop of cubist houses with cobalt shutters.

4.
Crawl up to the church on all fours, because that’s what your mother once told you the ultra-pious do. In one hundred degree Mediterranean sun. (Only acceptable use for a fanny pack. Knee pads might be cheating.) Follow the industrial red carpet to the miracle-working icon of Mary, dug up in a local vineyard a century ago after being dreamed by the nun Pelagia. Orange cones protect you from car traffic, and four-legged pilgrim traffic sandwiches you ahead and behind. Pin your eyes on the bony ass of a widow in black headscarf who can no longer buy food, her husband’s pension slashed by austerity. Or the ripped biceps of two sailors in Cloroxed uniforms, one with a fiancé in a wheelchair, the other scheming to jump ship in Australia for better prospects. The widow makes nasal keening noises that embarrass you. Focus on the fit sailors, sweat dripping off their chins, and imagine them as an ad for your glossy gym.

5.
Drag your bruised knees through the archway into the blinding-white marble courtyard. Buy a beeswax candle from local hawkers. Your mother told you that for prayers to take, the candle must be fist-thick and as tall as you are (when you’re standing, which you’re not). Bargain in your infantile Greek to avoid gouging by peddlers who are shameless, even under the Virgin’s eyes. Hand your 5’6” torch to the attendant who will light it, then jam it into a sand pit of communal flame that could double as the Olympic cauldron.

6.
This is not your miracle yet. Haul yourself up the marble staircase, past the olives and oleanders in terracotta planters. Snake back and forth in a queue around the terrace, snatching up your fingers so they don’t get trounced by tourists. You’ll want to dive into the Aegean, the electric turquoise pool shimmering below, but instead sniff your armpits. Endure the stares of upright homo sapiens obviously not as desperate as you.

7.
Creep over the threshold. Feel like kissing the ground in relief. The sun is no longer scrambling your brain and your eyes adjust to the dark sanctuary. Check out the carved wooden altar, golden candelabras, censors dangling from rafters. The punch of frankincense makes you feel faint, and a hum fills your ears, the lips of the faithful mumbling in need.

8.
Approach the icon on all fours. The pilgrims ahead of you bow over its pedestel, kissing, crying, doing their cross. Your turn. Straggle to your feet. Mary’s face is difficult to make out under glass, her skin blackened with age or seriously olive skin. She holds a squirming Jesus on her lap, his arms strangling her neck, both drowned in gold bling and rainbow-colored gems. Your lips descend but stop shy of the glass, wary of germs, and then begin to move: You are the only one in your family who has not drawn the cancer card. You have lost your parents but refuse to surrender your sister. You slip her charm, the red-enameled heart her baby daughters gave her last birthday, into a box labeled Offerings. And promise the protectress a shitload of donations if she grants you this one favor.

9.
On the way out, grab it. The healing oil that will make your miracle happen. What you have crawled for. A pony-tailed priest in black robes dispenses the plastic dropper bottle with no label. And cotton balls to go with it. You kiss his hand.

10.
Exit on two legs, shirt plastered to your back, stupefied by the panoramic Aegean and one wayward cloud photoshopped into the sky. Let your shoulders go. Feel it oozing from the rock where your ancestors walked: Her presence, your miracle taking hold.

11.
Catch the ferryboat back to Athens. Decide to hop off in Mykonos at the last second, just before the hull slams shut. Squeeze in two days of sunkissed, boozy, techno vacation, because at heart you are an attention-challenged opportunist. Drown out the loop in your brain—why her and not you?—with table dancing at Remezzo and a college kid on the beach. Crook your finger at him after you’re already aroused, skinny dipping, the current rippling between your thighs.

12.
Fly to New York with a nasty hangover, the dropper bottle of holy oil ziplocked in your carry-on (less than three ounces). Zoom straight to the suburbs, to the MacMansion bathroom where your sister is lying on her porcelain floor, administering a coffee enema, rubber hose hanging out her rear. She hasn’t yet bothered with her thousand dollar wig and says something about looking like a monster. Sound convincing when you tell her she could never look like a monster. Lean on the granite counter pretending to study her lipsticks and moisturizers while she lurches to the enclosed toilet, detoxing her liver. Finally, stand beside her at the mirror, hushed, and anoint your sister’s forehead, then cheeks, then palms with the vial of would-be salad dressing. Stop the cotton ball in your hand from trembling, stop the eulogy in your head. Mimic her composure that says absolutely, this is the elixir that will make her cells behave.

13.
Say yes to the mall, her chosen therapist. Let your little sister boss you around, harass you into buying lavender eye shadow and, come on already, window treatments for your place. Eat lunch where she wants, when she wants, and before you run screaming to your ad agency and hook-up buddy and big city loft, wish you could do this for decades: waste all your time with her love.