Exhalation

Told in the first-person, Dorothea Morrell is a devout believer in God, and the author has structured the story as her prayers to the Lord. Dorothea is also an archaeologist whose work focuses on studying the rings of tree trunks. During a lecture, Dorothea demonstrates that by “Counting back from the present, the oldest growth ring was formed eight thousand nine hundred and twelve years ago. There are no growth rings before that […] because that is the year you created the world, Lord” (239). In this world, people use science to confirm the existence of a higher power.

Dorothea also points to “the absence of navels in the Atacama mummies” (239-40) as further proof of creationism. Dorothea is comforted believing the universe is only 8,000 years old, and the idea that the universe may be innumerably older is despairing to her. More than anything, Dorothea wants to use science to bring people closer to God.

Dorothea has dinner with her cousin, Rosemary, and Rosemary’s husband, Alfred. The couple show Dorothea a relic they bought: a unique deer femur. Examining it, Dorothea finds it “lacked an epiphyseal line,” meaning the deer “had never been a fawn” and must be “a primordial deer” (243) from God. Dorothea then heads to the museum, where Rosemary and Alfred bought the relic, hoping to see more. She watches visitors appreciating the mummies on display at the museum and is happy that seeing skeletons without navels brings people closer to God.

Dorothea goes to the gift shop and is particularly interested in studying the primordial abalone shells for sale. The shop owner, Mr. Dahl, tells Dorothea that a Mr. Martin Osborne donated the shells.  He “asked that the items be priced inexpensively so that everyday people could afford them” (248). Dorothea believes the abalone shells might have been stolen. Guiltily, Dorothea impersonates Mr. Dahl in a letter to coax Mr. Osborne to his P.O. Box.

Mr. Osborne turns out to actually be a young woman named Wilhelmina McCullough. Wilhelmina is the daughter of Nathan McCullough, the director of the University of Alta California’s Museum of Natural Philosophy in Oakland. Dorothea and Wilhelmina share the desire to help as many people as possible gain a deeper connection with God. Ominously, Wilhelmina says she started stealing relics because she learned from her father that “There’s a paper that’s about to be published; […] When people read it, a lot of them will lose their faith” (253). Wilhelmina says her own father has suffered this crisis of faith.

The article in question concerns astronomy and is titled “On the Relative Motion of the Sun and the Luminiferous Aether” (258). In Dorothea’s world the people believe they’ve catalogued “All five thousand eight hundred and seventy-two stars” (254), with most scientific inquiry focusing on Earth.

The next day, Dorothea goes to the McCullough house and talks to Wilhelmina’s parents, who let her see the article. In the article, the author, Arthur Lawson, details his findings while studying the velocity of stars. When observing the trajectory of the star 58 Eridani, Lawson discovers that Earth is not the center of creation, but that there is another planet that is “the sole object in the universe that is at absolute rest” (259). Lawson believes that if life exists on this other planet, “that [they] are the reason God created the universe” (259). Humans, despite what Dorothea has believed her whole life, might just be a side character in the grand scheme of creation.

We learn the McCullough’s lost a son years ago, Martin: the same name Wilhelmina used as her pseudonym when donating the abalone shells. Dorothea sees that Nathan’s loss of faith has also impacted his ability to find closure with the death of his child. By herself later, Dorothea confesses to God, “It frightens me to imagine that you have never been listening at all” (263).

In a letter to Rosemary (the only time the story doesn’t address God), Dorothea admits to her spiritual crisis. It affects her so deeply she takes time off from working at a dig site, thinking, “What does this matter? Everything we’re doing here is irrelevant” (264). Dorothea is unsure how people will respond when the article is released to the public. 

Later, Dorothea prays again, “for the first time in two months” (266). While the article makes her doubt God’s divine will, she still believes in miracles such as “the creation of the universe” and “Free will” (267-68). Boldly, she declares “humans are capable of creating meaning for our own lives” (269). She vows to return to work and hopes the McCulloughs can find closure with their lost son despite their crisis of faith.