There’s an arm attached to the hand, and that arm, in turn, connects to the rest of her, under the blankets, improbable as it seems. Her mouth gapes. Her eyelids lie sunken over her eyes. Her fingernails are yellowed. Worst of all, her hair is cut close, her naked scalp visible in patches. I fill with fury at Ben for letting them hack off her braids. I make myself step toward her. I make myself take that hand.
Death, so close, reminds me of you, getting back to you, getting Ben to make that happen.
“You can’t imagine,” I say, “how hard it’s been to be away.” I expected to startle the sleeping thing in the bed with the scratch of my voice. But not even a finger twitches. “From all of you. I won’t make excuses. But I will say that we each have our own way of coping, and I suppose that’s mine.”
Ben crosses his arms. “What’s mine?”
I should bite my tongue. “You bury yourself in your work, your dogs. Sex. To avoid being alone with what you’ve done.”
“Is that what you’re doing down there in your Connecticut mansion? Being alone with what you’ve done?” The mention of sex has infuriated him.
“You like to pretend I don’t know you. It makes you sleep better. But you do know me, Ben. You know what I’m capable of.”
He swallows. Good. He’s still a little afraid.
“And the others?” He crosses his arms in challenge. “What do you know about them?”
“Issy won’t put down roots because even though she thinks she hates Home, it shaped every part of who she is. When Gabby died, she had to make her own Unthinged World, even got herself a child to Unthing with, but she’s discovering that being a mother is…” I’ve expected to say that she’s finding motherhood lonely and awful, the fact that she can’t protect her child from the horrors of the world, but all at once, I think of her collapsing into a fit of giggles on the floor of the living room because Sekou had a crayon hanging out of his nose, and then I think I must be wrong. Ben’s waiting for my answer. I lamely add, “Different than she expected.”
“Do Cornelia.”
“Cornelia strives to be the perfect mother because her mother was supremely imperfect.”
“And Xavier?”
“Xavier buys happiness. He has come to discover that money makes things seem okay. Or if not okay, then better, at least.”
“You think he’s superficial?”
“I think he’s made a life that seems safe.” I suppose this could be said for all of us.
“So you don’t like Billy.”
“I think Billy adores Xavier and no one can know what’s going on inside a marriage besides the people in it. And before you say I’ve got judgment for everyone but myself, let me remind you that I haven’t gone outside in sixteen years. Not because of guilt, or a broken heart—not only that—but because I’m afraid of what I could do to hurt you all. I love you too much for that.”
Our eyes have found each other. I feel it thundering through me. I forgot how something that doesn’t make any sense can still be too much.
“What a saint.” Bitterness laces his voice. “What a fucking saint you are. Jesus. I forgot how manipulative—”
The fingers beneath mine flutter, the wings of a bird trying to break free. Sarah yawns. Her mouth gapes open, then shut. Open, then shut. Her eyes cast around. She lifts her neck from the pillow. Ben reaches toward me. I think for a moment that he’s going to touch me. But he’s fiddling with the button to raise the bed up. “Hey, Ma.”
94
The first dusting of snow came in October. We knew, by then, that we weren’t going back to school. There had been no word from Philip. Xavier finally got through to Jane in Bali, on the JimBob’s pay phone. “You want me to say I’m surprised?” she said, son number two babbling on her lap. She had no plans to return to the States, said she’d send money, was glad he was having a good time with friends.
The snow melted off in one day. Then there were weeks of capacious skies, the air fresh and cool. The deciduous leaves on the opposite shore were every shade of gold, rust, crimson. But we didn’t have time to leaf-peep. All day, for many days, Issy and Cornelia and I chopped firewood, growing sweaty under our Goodwill sweaters, while the boys put the garden to sleep. As soon as the sun cut behind the ridgeline, night came on. The bell rang for supper.
It was a special treat to put on fresh clothes at the end of those days. I was covered in sap, hands blackened, lips chapped. I padded to the cabin, kicked the pine needles from the soles of my boots, and slipped my filthy clothes off. The smell of my sweat hit me when I lifted my arms. Between the undressing and the dressing—a sound, maybe, but more like a sense—made me realize I wasn’t alone.
“Iss?”
A moment passed.
“Knock knock.” I jumped at the closeness of Jim’s voice. He was already inside.
I put on a smile and squared my shoulders. “I think it’s dinnertime.” He was in the front area, on the armchair, beside the hatchet. The screen door was just beyond him, and the freedom of the golden light.
He kicked his legs out, blocking my way. He stunk like booze but it was the stench of his need that made me recoil. His hand was a tarantula on my arm. He looked alarmed at the sight of that tufted bit of himself on my bare wrist, but our mutual distress only tightened his grip. “I like you.”
“Where’s Teresa?”
“I don’t give a fuck about Teresa.” He looked up at me. I could see into the tunnel of his sorrow. Under my fear, I felt a drop of pity. The last drop. I didn’t know what he was going to do next, but I already knew it was going to wring my pity out.
“I think…” He swayed a little. Then his eyes popped into focus, and he started to rear up. He stood. His fingers formed a noose around my freedom. “I think I’d like to talk about what happened to your brother.”
I was powerful then. More powerful than Jim’s hands. I didn’t need the hatchet. I only needed my knee, right into the corner of his groin. In the breath of his letting go, I ran.
95
Sarah’s sketches line her walls. A few of them I recognize, although they’re now framed: a moose; a chickadee; the Home dock. But there are also faces—Amos, Gabby, Abraham—perfectly proportioned as though they walked right onto the page. Marta. I haven’t seen any of those faces since I last saw them in the flesh, not even a snapshot. A few of Philip’s smaller color studies are interspersed: the summer sky at dusk; the lake on a still morning. I wonder if Ben knows how much they’re worth. There’s a turquoise wonder by Philip in there, too, eight inches square: little Nora, eyes wide in surprise, mouth mischievous, as though she’s just flipped someone off. Framed beside it is a photograph from when I no longer knew her: a teenager, with a nose ring and a lost smile, a hazy look in her eyes. She has her arm slung around Ben. My chest aches.
The being that is supposed to be Sarah lets out a burp.
“Ma,” says Ben. “I brought you a friend.” It moves me, this word, “friend.” I know, I know—but it moves me.
She looks my way.
“Sarah,” I say. “It’s Saskia.” I force tenderness from my tongue. “You taught me how to make bread. At Home.” I hold the bag of sourdough up. It waggles, stupidly, side to side.
A smile pulls from one corner of her mouth to the other. I recognize her: steadiness, strength, patience. “You love my son.”
Ben knocks over the small, carved loon resting on the windowsill. “Ma, you’re talking nonsense.”
“And he loves you,” she tells me, “body and soul.”
He tries to pick the loon up. It falls, again.
“The night before he married that girl, he told me he should be marrying you. And I said, ‘See? You should have listened to the prophecy. You could have made each other happy.’”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” He smashes the loon back onto the window sill.
“I don’t think happiness was in the cards.” My voice goes gritty.
“Yes, I do.” She sounds in
dignant. “You said you wished you’d never heard that prophecy, and I said, all Abraham ever wanted was to help, and you said—”
“Abraham was the bad guy, remember, Sarah?” A voice from the doorway. A wheelchair blocks our way out. Sal.
96
At the chicken coop, I started yelling. Jim was following me, sure, but drunk enough to stumble. By the time I was at the door to the Main Lodge, tears were striping my face, and my shirt was ripped. It wasn’t a lie; it was just a few steps beyond where he’d gotten. With another girl, and less whiskey in his belly, he would have gotten plenty far.
The screen door howled open, into the fug of pea soup. “Help,” I screamed. It was funny to use this word, as if I hadn’t helped myself. The Homesteaders lifted their heads, one by one. “Help, he attacked me.”
I made my way to Sarah, at the back of the kitchen. Her arms wrapped around my body, which was shaking then, really shaking. I could see over the top of her head. The men rushed to the door. They thought it was a stranger, a fisherman, the sheriff. But Jim appeared before them, and I lifted my finger to point.
The room grew still. Then the men spilled out of the lodge, led by Ephraim. They brought Jim, spitting and kicking and cursing, to the ground.
Issy came toward me, and Butterfly. Cornelia. Little Nora slipped her hand into mine. The women made a barricade.
Gabby made her way past the men to Abraham’s door. She pounded until it cracked open. Dog bounded out and barked. It was horrible. It was easy.
97
“Hey there, Sheriff.” Ben rises. “Who’s watching the lobby?”
Sal stays in the shadow of the doorway.
“I was wondering,” says Sal, “when you’d come back.”
Ben’s laugh tightens the air in the room. “Now come on, you’re making it sound like I never visit.”
I don’t have to see the old man’s eyes to know he’s addressing me. How funny if this is how we’re caught, by an ancient man in an old folks’ home, the police surrounding every exit. Some part of me is rooting for him. Some part of me believes he deserves this.
Sarah’s hand pulls me back, insistent. “I want bread.”
In my years alone, I’ve learned to mold time by focusing on every step of a given task. Open the bag. Unfold a slice of sourdough from the kitchen towel. Pull out the stainless steel butter knife. Unscrew the mason jar of butter. Spread the yellow cream along the top of the bread so it covers every centimeter.
Sarah licks her lips. I hold up the bread: does she want me to feed her? Her hand flies to catch it. While she chews, I tell a gentle tale like the kind I’d give Sekou, of the bread’s making. Stir the leaven, let it sit overnight, mix it with flour and water in the morning, let it rise, pour the saltwater over it, then begin the kneads, every half hour for two and a half hours—one, two, three, four, five, six—then split the dough, and let it sit again, and shape before lifting into the banneton baskets. Then the long rise begins. Sarah knows this story better than I. She leans back on her pillow. She closes her eyes, the movement of her jaw the only sign that she’s still of this world.
I keep my eyes on Sarah, but I can feel the men: Sal, behind me; Ben, moving toward him. If the law has truly come, there is no way out.
When she finishes, I turn to meet my fate.
Out in the hallway, Ben’s talking up that pretty young nurse. She’s got her hands on the back of Sal’s wheelchair. He’s putting up a commotion, and she’s soothing him, and Ben is saying, “I have no idea what got him so worked up.”
She replies, “Sal’s got a great imagination. Don’t you, Sal?”
I turn back to Sarah. The fresh sight of her reminds me why I made Ben bring me here in the first place. You’re up on that land, waiting. I can’t get back up there without her son.
“Sarah.” I hunker over her. “Someone broke you out of here. Tomas—you remember? You knew him when he was a boy. He and Teresa took you up to where Home used to be. And then you said that Abraham is back.” My breath sputters out. “Sarah. Is he? Is Abraham back?” My mouth grows dry as I lean over her, wondering why it matters so much if he’s come back for us after all. How will knowing change the way I convince Ben? But it will, I know, without knowing how.
She opens her mouth: hope.
She closes it: despair.
When her voice finally comes, it’s steady. “When I was a little girl, I knew my daddy was up to something. I couldn’t imagine what it was—I was just a little girl, after all. If you’d asked me to explain, I couldn’t. It was more of a feeling.”
It seems I’ve come all this way just to share my bread, and see her face, and hear some ancient story about her horrible father. Surely that should be enough, to be a witness. Why can’t that be enough?
She holds up one scrawny finger. “I waited until dark. I pretended to go to sleep. I crept outside, up to the window of my daddy’s shed, and I peeked right in.” She raises her shoulders up to her ears. She shudders. “It was terrible, what I saw.”
“Sorry, Ma.” Ben stalks into the room again. He presses his hand on my back. “Saskia would love to stay all day, but we can’t have her exhausting you.” He puts his lips on her papery forehead. Sarah shuts her eyes like an obedient child.
98
It was warm in the front room of Abraham’s cabin, with a mug of one of Sarah’s herbal brews in my hand, and Dog’s head heavy at my feet. There were books and a typewriter, a Persian rug, two sturdy armchairs upholstered in tapestry. A fire flickered in the wood stove.
Butterfly’s voice, muffled, came from outside the door: “He said to leave them alone.”
“He asked me to get this for her.” Gabby.
Gabby, then, opening the door. The need of Butterfly’s face as she peered in, before the door shut her out again. Farther out, the men had Jim. I imagined him pacing, cursing, begging, calling me the worst names there were.
Gabby had the hatchet, but her hands held it close: “You don’t need this, you know. We’ll keep you safe.”
“Why should she believe that?” Abraham said. “We haven’t done a good job of keeping her safe.” He held out his hand. She looked at the tool carefully before giving it over.
“I also brought this.” Gabby pulled Topsy from her pocket and held him out. His little head cocked to the side, as if he was asking a question.
“You don’t need that anymore,” Abraham said. “It’s a Thing.” Gabby held the fuzzy being out a little longer, but when I didn’t take him, she pocketed him. Abraham lay the hatchet on the couch between us. “I loathe what Jim did to you so. It makes me sick.” His eyes closed, as though he had to look deep within himself. “I always knew you were brave, but truly, now I see you’re the warrior your father said you were.”
“My father?” My insides twisted.
“Maybe I’m getting the story wrong. I heard it from Philip—your father, didn’t he used to call you a warrior?”
Did he? I breathed in, and out. I had gotten rid of Jim. I didn’t need to worry anymore. I remembered his hand on my arm. The twist of it. Maybe something had happened, after all. Maybe I hadn’t made up a story.
“I want him gone,” Abraham said.
Gabby bounded to her feet. She was already out the door.
Abraham’s hand rested over his heart. “Has Jim tried to hurt you before today?”
I shook my head.
“Were you afraid of him? You could have told me. You can always tell me. I will always protect you.” Abraham took my face into his warm hands. His eyes began to spill tears. “Please,” he said. “No secrets. Anything you are keeping inside, you can tell me. I am here to keep you safe.” He was so close then, his breath, my breath, and I thought—Oh. Maybe it really is as simple as one body meeting another. Maybe it really has been this all along.
“Marta told me to come up to her place,” I blurted. “It was morning, before anyone was awake. She didn’t want anyone to know. She said I shouldn’t believe what you say. She said the sh
eriff is a good guy. That all I have to do is say so, and he’ll come take me.”
“He’ll never take you. Never. I swear it.” Daddy was gone. Mother was gone. Jane was gone. Philip was gone. And Grandmother, and before them all, you. But Abraham was with me.
99
Ben roars the van to life. An old woman’s hair poufs as we pull out of the parking lot.
“Ma’s out of her mind.” He gains speed on the two-lane road.
“Why did you chop off her hair?”
“That old fucker knew exactly who you are.” He slams the wheel. “I never should have brought you.”
The speed limit says forty-five. We blast past it.
I decide not to remind Ben of his swagger when we first walked in. How he told me to relax. “It did seem like he’s been waiting for me.”
“Exactly! Exactly. I told you all to get the fuck out of here but no one ever fucking listens.” The van groans as it takes a curve going sixty. A couple hundred yards ahead, a sedan turns in to our lane. More than Sal’s suspicions—which scare Ben plenty—I know that what’s got him blasting through the countryside is his mother saying he loves me.
We are on a crash course with the sedan, which is going at a country pace. “Can you slow down?”
Moments from ramming into the back of the other car, he pulls us into the approaching lane. The van groans as we gain speed. We’d be at an advantage if the sedan braked, but the driver has taken Ben’s acceleration as a challenge. Now we are two cars, side by side, on a two-lane road, rocketing up a hill—toward, I’m sure we’ll soon discover, an oncoming car.
“Ben.”
He’s as focused as his mother was eating the sourdough. He clenches his jaw. He leans forward. What I want to say, if I could put it in words, is that only someone deranged by the truth could act this way.
The sedan starts honking. It’s teenagers in there. They whoop. They flip us off. They flash their lights. They’re too young to know this is not a cause for celebration.
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