Fierce Little Thing

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

  “I am Love. You are Love.” I longed for Abraham to look my way. There was a prophecy, after all. “We are Love. Sounds good, right?” He opened his eyes then. His laugh was contagious. Happiness flushed through me, in spite of my jealousies. I was alive again, after nine months in the underworld. You were out there, in the woods, waiting. A feather would fall, or your breath would whisper into my ear. It was only a matter of time before we found each other again. I wiggled my toes. I wiggled my fingers. I met Gabby’s eye and Amos’s eye and Sarah’s eye and Philip’s eye. We filled the air with laughter. Abraham was right; those sentences he had uttered about Love had sounded good. We were so lucky that Abraham would explain why they were false.

  “These statements make us feel safe. I am Love. You are Love. We are Love. The idea of I and You and We. The idea of Love. But what if we Unthing ourselves? What if I and You and We are just Things?” The dog’s tongue flourished over his nose.

  “What if we said, there is no I. There is no You. There is no We.” Abraham jerked his head to look at the sky, and suddenly his voice was yelling: “What if we said there is no Love?” Abraham’s voice ricocheted across the lake. Tomas jerked awake with a cry. Teresa pulled out her breast to suckle him, and held out her hand to Jim, who removed his jacket and lay it over the drowsy boy. Sneaking another glance at Cornelia, I noticed a scuttle of movement far off in the woods. It took me a moment to decipher that it was Marta back there, picking silently through the trees away from us.

  “What if?” Abraham’s voice boomed. He was smiling now, as if we were all in on a beautiful joke. He waved his hand. “What if Love is a Thing, what if it isn’t a Thing. What if I am, what if I am not. What if you are, what if you are not.” He ran his head along the dog’s head. “Rhetoric is only a path. We only have words to say what we feel. This, too, is a Thing—but don’t get me started on that. I am talking about Love.”

  The mist was gone. Butterfly’s arms found their way into the air. She was swaying as a sapling does in the wind. Even Tomas was eyeing her from Teresa’s breast, and Jim’s eyes flitted back, too, until he caught me looking and looked right back, his gaze a sticky, urgent need. We were all knit together, holding each other in place.

  “I am talking about Love on this glorious morning as it blooms on earth, and what I want to say is that Love is the master. Love is not a Thing. Love is the answer. Love is the breath. Do not let yourself think of Love as a Thing. That is what I mean when I say Love is not a Thing. I mean Love should never be made small by turning it into a Thing. I mean you should never make yourself small by turning yourself into a Thing. I am Love. You are Love. We are Love.”

  Abraham stopped abruptly, looking left, then right, as though he’d remembered something silly. He stretched his arms wide. He fell backwards, into the water. The dog leapt into the lake, too, a splash of legs and torso, joining Abraham with a volley of barks. We shrieked. We clapped. Abraham waved to us.

  We threw off our blankets. We, too, jumped in. The liquid shivered over our limbs. It drenched our hair. We were filled with water and Love and Abraham and I and You and We, Unthinged. Home.

  59

  The world. Everything skipping past. Halfway down the driveway we’re already going too fast. Organs shift. Eyeballs ache. Red smudge of Cardinalis cardinalis. The crown of Acer rubrum blurring green in the gloaming. The Devil’s Ramble, a purple goodbye.

  The back seat, in the middle, safely buckled between Sekou’s bulky car seat and Issy, seemed just the thing—but the SUV is too big. Wide leather chairs, cup holders, headrests, and legroom, three rows of humans and still plenty of space in the back for our bags and the Mother and all her accoutrements, and a baby elephant, if we happened to have one. The best seating arrangement we could muster is Xavier at the wheel; Cornelia, his navigator; me in the next aisle, beside Sekou; and in the back, Issy, who can put one hand on me and, with the other, make a plastic giraffe tap-dance atop the seat for her rear-facing son.

  We brake. The gate. “What’s the code?” Cornelia asks.

  “There is no code.” Xavier punches a red button. The gate swings open. All this time, I thought one had to enter a password to leave. He might pause at the last bit of my land, check me in the rearview mirror and ask if I’m ready. But Xavier’s eyes are on the road.

  Issy’s fingers stay sure at the nape of my neck.

  Xavier presses the accelerator. The SUV purrs to life. Then we are hurtling. The world flames toward darkness. We are out in it like we belong.

  60

  Nora passed around Sarah’s zucchini sourdough muffins when we were done swimming. The sun was getting hot. Xavier finished his muffin in one bite. I gave him mine. He turned toward Ben. It might have been wiser to share with Issy, because in the meantime she had folded into Cornelia, who had a freckle-dusted nose and narrow wrists.

  The dog stalked the promise of crumbs into our huddle. His head was the size of Tomas’s torso. The swagger of his hips, the alert perking of his ears, the solid snap of his lips awoke any part of me still sleeping. He yawned, the band of his jaws elastic, pink tongue stretching back, revealing his teeth. Issy lifted a bite of muffin to her mouth. The dog gingered forward. Issy pulled the food away. He snarled. She shrank, a sight I’d never seen—Issy, scared.

  But Cornelia wasn’t. She snapped her fingers, pointing off, away. The dog eyed her, then slunk along toward Tomas, who squealed and lunged at the sight of him. Teresa swept the boy up just as the dog got close. She handed him off to Jim like a sack of potatoes. The boy kicked, but Jim held him firm as he and Ephraim discussed the day’s repairs.

  “Where’d the dog come from?” I asked.

  “A meditation retreat,” Cornelia said. “Someone important gave him to Abraham.” I heard in her answer everything she knew and I didn’t. Meanwhile, her mother was spinning in the light.

  “Does he have a name?” The dog moved like Butterfly: wildness, power, the element of surprise.

  “Nora calls him Fucking Dog.” This was Ben. He was sitting close to me now, as if it was nothing to have plopped down into the pine needles beside someone he’d only ever disdained or ignored.

  I laughed and hated myself for laughing. I couldn’t look at him. I wouldn’t. “What does everybody else call him? What do you call him, Iss?” But Issy was whispering something to Cornelia. “Is he dangerous?”

  “Probably.” For some reason, Ben was eager to answer. He wasn’t any taller, and he was still wearing those ridiculous clothes, and I officially hated him. But I couldn’t help thinking of what Gabby had said—how he’d urged her and Issy to come to New York. Why?

  The dog had come back, and was licking Ben’s face. Ben squirmed away, wiping at the slobber.

  “You have to be in command,” Cornelia said. She snapped a finger at the dog, who jumped off Ben.

  “You don’t think I’m in command?” His grin was easy.

  The dog’s tongue slickened up the side of Ben’s cheek, from his chin to his forehead. Cornelia giggled. “Totally,” she said. “Totally in command.”

  Cornelia pointed to the muffin Xavier had scored. “Thanks for sharing.” Xavier divided the crumbling muffin into fourths. Nora wandered over, basket finally empty. Cornelia patted her own lap and the girl found a spot there, and Issy braided her hair. They all made it look easy: to eat, to laugh.

  At the front of the congregation, Abraham held up his hands to silence us. “I forgot something.” He smiled as everyone gave him back their attention. “I forgot to mention that today is a special day.”

  Since overhearing Gabby talk about the prophecy, I’d known, for certain, that Abraham found me special. But he hadn’t given me any notice since we drove up—in fact, I’d only glimpsed him for a moment in the Main Lodge before bed, when he’d greeted Philip with a handshake. But now he would celebrate my return. I sat tall. I waited for him to claim me.

  He held out his hand toward our group of children. I lifted my head.

  He said, “Have
any of you heard this girl sing?”

  Sing? I opened my mouth to offer a playful protest—what would I sing if he made me?—but Nora was scrambling off Cornelia’s lap, and then, already, Cornelia was standing. Abraham nodded in approval as his open hand turned into a summons. He meant her.

  “I was passing the bathing lodge the other day. I was lost in thought, and then I realized I was humming, and then I realized I was humming along with someone who was already singing—singing a song I have sung a million times and never thought of as even remotely beautiful.” A titter swept the group. “But from this singer’s mouth, the song was just that—a revelation.”

  Cornelia was walking to him now, too, the dog sniffing and wagging beside her. “Go, Cornelia!” Issy shouted, clapping riotously.

  Butterfly whooped. “That’s my girl!”

  Ben’s gaze was positively rapturous as it followed Cornelia as she made her way to the front of the group. It took all I had not to channel my inner Nora and throw a clod of dirt.

  Abraham placed one hand on Cornelia’s shoulder. “Won’t you do us the honor?” He used the same private voice he’d used with me, on my first day at Home, on the day he’d named my sadness.

  Cornelia looked nothing like Butterfly—she was short, brunette, and small-breasted. But I saw, for just that moment, all the ways they were alike, as the girl’s long lashes swept down over her cheeks. She knew to hold on to her modesty as the Homesteaders’ applause rose from encouragement to fervent desire. Only then did she nod, once, as if to say, well, if I must.

  “While you listen to this child sing, ask yourself, what is your hidden gift? What is the piece of you that you keep back, bridled, because you are afraid of how it might change your life? What would it mean to Unthing yourself of the idea that it will hurt you to let this part into the light? What would it give the rest of us to share it, freely?”

  Cornelia closed her eyes. She lifted her face to the day. The melody unfurled from her delicate, pink mouth. The song was “A Horse Named Bill.” Abraham was right: usually it was jolly and jiglike, reserved for giddy celebrations or campfire sing-alongs, but on Cornelia’s tongue, it was the story of misfits who can’t get things right, a mournful, melancholy tale.

  Abraham gestured for her to keep going, and he made his way into the congregation as she rounded into the second verse. He crouched beside Jim, whispered something to him, and Jim said, out loud, “What, now? While she’s singing?”

  Abraham nodded.

  Jim cleared his voice. “Um, I guess I’m good at carrying stuff?”

  Abraham tipped his head back and forth as if to say “so-so job,” then went to crouch beside Ephraim. Cornelia’s voice remained steady.

  Ephraim nodded at Abraham’s prompting. “I could find more pleasure in my duties.”

  Abraham shot us all a comic look and said, “Maybe third time’s the charm.” He moved on to Butterfly. She was waiting for him. She smiled as though they were alone, her nipples hard against her T-shirt, her hips moving just a bit, side to side. Truth be told, it was hard not to imagine him lying against her. Cornelia faltered in her song—she started in on the wrong verse, and had to circle back to get it right.

  Abraham didn’t have to prompt Butterfly to share her hidden gift. She lifted her voice to the sky. “I’m afraid of working hard. My husband made me believe I was only good for these”—she grabbed her breasts—“and these”—she grabbed her hips—“but why not these?” She lifted her hands into the air. “Why can’t I find pleasure in the work these offer?”

  Abraham did not touch her, but his eyes were everywhere. All of ours were, even Sarah’s, especially Jim’s, especially Philip’s. Abraham turned, then, and moved toward us children. Dog yawned and stood as Abraham crouched before us. Cornelia was still singing, rounding to the end of the song.

  “Xavier?” Abraham said.

  Xavier’s grin was crooked and glancing. I startled to see he felt as shy as I did in the face of Abraham’s attention. Maybe there was a reason he’d come back, besides the rejection he’d suffered at his mother’s hands.

  “What is it?” Abraham said. “What is that specialness inside you that you could let fly free?”

  Xavier shook his head and looked at his feet.

  Abraham leaned forward. “Say it.”

  Xavier shrugged, but he was laughing, as if he did have a wonderful secret.

  Abraham turned to the rest of the group. “Tell him, tell him we want to know him,” and then everyone was clapping, whispering encouragement. Butterfly shouted, “Say your truth,” and Amos nodded as he worked at his whittling, which was the most you got out of Amos. Xavier opened his mouth to speak, and the whole sound of us stopped to receive his words. Even Cornelia paused her singing.

  “I’m…” Xavier glanced at Philip. Philip looked as though he might cry, too, a look of love and pride. Envy burst inside my chest. “Well, I’m … I think I might be … gay?”

  The Homesteaders erupted. Dog jollied and jumped and barked. Ephraim turned away—the only Homesteader who didn’t look thrilled. Abraham pulled Xavier to his feet, clapped him on the back, took his face in his hands, said, “Yes! Yes! You are you! You are wonderful you!” He pulled Xavier into his arms. Before Issy and Nora and Teresa piled on, Xavier’s eyes met mine. So that was why Jane had kicked him out. It was selfish and childish, I knew, to care more about the fact that he hadn’t told me than that he’d been through what he had, so I made myself smile.

  Abraham clapped his hands toward Cornelia: “Finish! Finish!” The girl took up the final verse, sweet and soaring. The Homesteaders joined her for the final bars.

  61

  “Oh, Xavier. What a heartbreak.” Cornelia whispers her reply to some story Xavier just told, which I’ve missed because I fell asleep. Her voice is just one degree louder than the humming tires. The sky’s that hazy orange of suburban nights and my forehead aches against the window. I missed the burgers and fries that left their stink behind. I close my eyes before Cornelia and Xavier notice me and shut up.

  “Billy is beside himself,” he says. “I’ve never seen him like this, Cor. He’s been crying for six weeks straight. And abandoning him like this certainly isn’t—”

  “You’re saving him.”

  “He’s furious that I wouldn’t tell him why I had to go.”

  “I didn’t tell Eric.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Something about Saskia and a nervous breakdown. Not entirely a lie. Oh, but the baby, Xav. You must be devastated.”

  “No, I…” He sounds shaken. “Cor, I think there’s something wrong with me.”

  “There’s nothing—”

  “The whole time we were filling out the paperwork, and paying for everything—adoption is not cheap, you know—I kept telling myself, you don’t want it now, but you are going to want it. Months of waiting, all the while Billy’s decorating the nursery and cooing over tiny socks and registering at Buy Way Too Much Shit for Your Baby Dot Com. The promise of it! We were going to make a family. But I wasn’t excited or happy or any of the things you’re supposed to be. Who wants to bring a child into this awful world, if you stop to think about it? No offense.”

  “None taken.” Dutiful, but curt.

  “When the adoption fell apart, Billy did, too. I understood how it destroyed him. I admired it, even. But Cor, I was fine. I felt nothing. No—even worse. I felt relieved.”

  Xavier was going to have a baby?

  “Every couple has a rock,” Cornelia says, after a moment. “You’re the rock.” The highway roars. Sekou and Issy’s tidal breaths move the air as they sleep.

  “I’m sorry, Cor. I didn’t mean—”

  “How do you think Saskia’s doing?”

  Xavier clears his throat. “I think she handled the news well.”

  “It’s going to be a disaster, putting her in the same room as Ben.”

  “I meant the news about Abraham.”

  “The more I think abou
t it, I’m positive it’s just a practical joke. I don’t know why I got so upset. It was shock, more than anything. But now I’m a hundred percent sure we’re going to get up there and it’s going to be, I don’t know, a bunch of teenagers who heard there was a cult up there once, messing with us.”

  “Maybe.” He thinks it’s more serious than that. Well, of course he does. He’s making us go north. “What do you think’s the worst-case scenario?”

  “Jail.”

  “Really?”

  “You’re eager to go to jail?”

  Xavier sighs. “Iss and I were talking about it. I don’t think they’d be able to prove anything, you know? I mean, what do I know, but they thought it was an accident, didn’t even investigate it as a murder, and the sheriff’s probably dead by now. It was so long ago. Even if someone went to, I don’t know, the authorities or whatever, they’d have to come up with evidence, exhume the body, and—”

  “I get it. But what’s worse than jail?”

  “Billy.” His voice quavers. “I can’t hide it from Billy. I mean, all this time, obviously I hid it, but only because it’s never occurred to him to ask if I’ve murdered someone. But if he came up to me one day and said, ‘Did you kill someone?’ I don’t think I could lie. If news of this got out … well, every single person in our lives would be asking. Wondering. Your daughters.”

  Cornelia visibly shudders, puts her hands over her ears. Does some breath work. Then: “Did you see your father’s painting in the living room?” I catch the sneer there at her jaw, before she turns back toward the passenger window. The SUV swerves right, then left, jostling my forehead on the window. Something in the road.

  “Philip and Saskia have a relationship independent from me,” Xavier says, when we’re zooming straight ahead again.

  “Doesn’t it annoy you—your father choosing her?”

  “He abandoned both of us. She’s just more forgiving.”

  “Isn’t her real father alive?”

  “That monster gave up his right to be a father the moment he murdered his child.”