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.