The Ballad of Ami Miles

by Kristy Dallas Alley

  “Damn, girl!” she said with a little laugh. “I was not expecting all of that!” She looked like she was thinking, making sense of everything I’d told her. “Why was the plan for you to run here, though, to Lake Point? I’m surprised they even knew about this place or knew that there were people here.” That was the last part, the only part I hadn’t told her. It was the hardest part for me to talk about.

  “She’s here. My mother. Or at least she’s supposed to be here, but she’s gone on a scavenging trip right now, so I haven’t seen her yet. But Miss Helen figured it out from this drawing I have, so it’s her.”

  “So you mean they knew she was here this whole time, and they didn’t tell you? She was here this whole time, and she didn’t go back for you?” She sounded angry. It felt good to have someone take my side and echo the way I felt about everything. And the fact that that someone was Jessie felt even better.

  “Yeah,” I said softly. “Ruth always told me that my mother had to leave because of the C-PAF men, and I always thought they had somehow kept her away from me or that something might have happened to her. I thought it must be really bad to keep her from coming back. But then the other day, before I met you that night, Hanna and her friends told me about the journals in the library and how there was no such thing as the C-PAF men.”

  “But, Ami,” Jessie said, “would your family have known that? It sounds like y’all were pretty isolated out there. Maybe they were still scared you’d both be taken.”

  “I know, I thought of that too,” I said, “and that’s probably true. But when she came here, when my mother got here and stayed here, she would have found out.” I felt the pain of that knowledge wash over me just as hard and rough as it had the first time. “So why didn’t she ever go back for me? Why didn’t she want me when hardly anyone was lucky enough to have a baby anymore? What’s wrong with me?” I wanted to stop there and not point out whatever it was that people saw when they looked at me, just in case she hadn’t seen it. But the sadness was spilling out of me, and there was no way to pull it all back in.

  “What’s wrong with me, Jessie? That man, Zeke Johnson, when he looked at me, it was like … like he saw something he didn’t like. And when I met Hanna and those other kids, they were nice and all, but Will looked at me kind of funny, too, like he was trying to figure something out. Do you see it? Please, don’t lie to save my feelings. Just tell me!” I locked my eyes onto hers, and she did not look away. The earlier anger was still there but also something else. I hoped it wasn’t pity. I couldn’t stand the thought of Jessie feeling sorry for me.

  “Ami Miles.” She reached across the table for my hands and grasped them in both of hers. “Now you listen to me. No, don’t look away, look at me and hear what I’m about to say. There is nothing wrong with you, girl, not a single solitary thing. You are beautiful. Don’t you know that?” I started to pull away, but she held my hands tight. She caught my eyes with hers as they tried to slide away. “I think it’s probably just hard for you to read people’s faces and body language since you’ve never had any practice at it, right? I don’t see anything bad or confusing when I look at you, Ami. I see your pretty face and your eyes so smart and curious, taking everything in. But it really doesn’t matter what I see or what that man saw, or Will, or anyone else. What do you see? How do you see yourself?”

  “I don’t know!” I said, pulling away and jumping to my feet. “I never even saw what I look like until I got here. I had a tiny pocket mirror that I kept hidden away, but mirrors weren’t allowed on the compound because vanity is a sin. And I never saw any other girls to know how they looked. I never thought about my face much at all, really.”

  “What did you think about, then? Before you came here, before they brought that man into your place, what did you think of when you thought of yourself?” I looked back at her, then over toward the garden beds and up at the sky. I thought about all the time I spent by myself growing up. It never crossed my mind back then to worry about how I looked, and there was no one to care anyway. Even when I peeked in my little round mirror, it was because I wanted to know what I looked like, not to judge it.

  “I guess I didn’t, really. I was just there. I just was. I was the only child and the only girl and the only Ami. I was at home in the woods and in the garden and with the animals. When you’re all alone, you don’t have to think about how you look or what people think of you. You’re just yourself.” Jessie stood up and came around the table toward me, smiling the big shiny smile.

  “But see, Ami, when you’re around other people, you still don’t have to care about none of that. You can still be just Ami. Just yourself.” She stood there giving me that big crazy smile, just beaming it in my face until I couldn’t help but smile back just as big. We might have stood there smiling like a couple of crazy fools for who knows how long, but right then her stomach rumbled louder than I had ever heard a stomach do, and we both busted up laughing. We laughed until we bent double and then stood back up wiping away tears.

  “Uh, Jessie, is it lunchtime, maybe?”

  “I might be just a touch peckish,” she said, and we cracked up all over again. Finally, we got ourselves collected and made our way to the lodge for lunch.

  Fourteen

  Lunch at the lodge was set up the same. There was a long line of freshly washed greens, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and other stuff that people could pile into bowls to make salad. Then there were things like squash, zucchini, eggplant, and more peppers that had been cut into chunks and skewered on long, thin sticks and grilled. Fish and other meat were saved for dinner. It felt good to look at all that food and know that I was helping to grow it and feed all these people. I grabbed a couple of skewers and a hunk of the delicious brown bread they baked every day in the big kitchen, then slathered the bread with some of the peanut butter they ground from the peanuts that grew almost wild in a big field near the raised beds. It was sweet with honey from the bees, and I saved it for last.

  I didn’t see Hanna and the other kids sitting anywhere in the big room, and I felt a little jolt of happiness that Jessie and I could eat together, just the two of us. I wanted to ask about Teenie and her baby, but I thought we had both had enough big serious talk for one day. Jessie entertained me with gossip about different people sitting at tables around the room. I think she made most of it up, but it kept me laughing and cheered me up. Sometimes she made up silly little songs about people. She took my empty skewers and stuck a wedge of red pepper at the end of each one like feet, then made them do a kicky dance while she sang. No one at Heavenly Shepherd had been too big on silliness and laughing, except sometimes my uncle Jacob if no one else was around. It felt good to laugh.

  Just as I was starting on my peanut butter bread, Will and Hanna came and sat down at the table with Jessie and me. I was glad to see them, but I also felt a little twinge of annoyance that it wasn’t just the two of us anymore. I told myself it was because I felt so comfortable around Jessie and I just hadn’t connected with anyone else the same way. For a second, her face looked like she felt the same way, but I thought I must have imagined that.

  “Hey,” said Hanna. I saw her eyes meet Will’s, and he smirked. “Lunch buddies already, huh?” The blood rushed into my face so hard I thought it might shoot out my eyes, which only made me feel even more embarrassed.

  “It’s a good thing she wasn’t waiting on y’all,” Jessie replied with a smirk of her own. “You two just about missed lunch. You musta been on the far edge of property check this mornin’.” Now it was Hanna’s turn to blush. I guessed I was right about the way Hanna always looked at Will when he talked. And as usual, Will didn’t seem to notice.

  “We went to see Teenie, actually,” he said. “She asked about you. What are you doing, Jessie? She needs you.” That’s Will, I thought, straight to the point. So much for keeping things light and easy. I looked across at Jessie to gauge her reaction, but she kept her face cool. I wished I could learn to do that.

>   “Well, it sounds like she’s got the two of you and everybody else around here looking after her, so I don’t know what she needs me for.” Jessie’s voice stayed even and her face was defiant, but her back was up and I could tell she didn’t like this conversation.

  “Jessie—” Hanna started, but again Will barged ahead.

  “You’re not just anyone to Teenie, and you know it. She’s scared.” Jessie’s brave face slipped a little then, and I could tell that Will saw it. Luckily Hanna could, too, and she stopped him from going in for the kill.

  “I get it, Jessie, I do,” Hanna said. “You know that I of all people understand why you’re so worried.” Jessie started to interrupt, but Hanna put up a hand and kept going. “But what’s done is done. Teenie already got pregnant again even though Margie told her not to. She already made her choice to keep it, and it’s too late to turn back now—you know that. Don’t you wait till it’s too late. You need to go see her.” Jessie started to say something, then shook her head and stood up to go.

  “Jessie!” Hanna shouted her name and stood up so fast she almost knocked her chair over. The two of them stood there for a second, their faces angry and eyes locked. Then Jessie turned and walked away. I stood up to follow her, but Hanna put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Let her go, Ami. She’ll be fine; you just have to leave her alone when she’s like this.” I felt a definite flash of irritation at the idea that Hanna knew Jessie better than I did, but of course she did. They’d known each other their whole lives, while I’d only spent a few hours with the girl. Why was I feeling so crazy when it came to Jessie? I had never had a real friend, so I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. Maybe this was all part of it. We both sat back down in our seats next to each other, with just Will left across the table from us now.

  “Why is she so upset?” I asked. “I don’t really understand what’s happening. Who is this Teenie person to Jessie? Why is Jessie mad that she’s having a baby?” Hanna puffed up her cheeks and then blew out a loud breath.

  “It’s not that she’s mad—it’s not that simple. Teenie is … was … Teenie and Jessie were best friends. Inseparable. When we were little, I thought they were sisters because they were just always together. After Jessie’s mama left—” She stopped like maybe she was telling things she shouldn’t.

  “I know about all that; Jessie told me,” I said. Hanna raised an eyebrow and glanced at Will, then kept going.

  “After Jessie’s mama left, she just ran wild. Teenie’s mama, Lurene, was the only one who could get her to act halfway civilized. She and Teenie made sure Jessie was fed and stayed on her about showing up for lessons at least some of the time. Her daddy didn’t really…”

  “Her daddy didn’t even deserve to be called that,” Will practically spat. Hanna looked at him with that moony-eyed look she seemed to save just for Will.

  “So anyway, Teenie was just a year older than Jessie, and all growing up, they were like two peas in a pod. But then about the time Teenie turned sixteen, things started to change.” Will gave a rough little laugh, but Hanna pressed on. “Teenie started to get interested in … other things. She started paying more attention to how she looked, wanting to spend more time on her sewing, wanting to act grown-up. Normal stuff, but it wasn’t like that for Jessie.”

  “Hell, it still ain’t,” Will interjected. “Jessie’s still half-wild, and I don’t see her settling down anytime soon.” If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was looking at me like that was a challenge. Just then, Ben and Nina came and sat down at the table.

  “That’s just because she wouldn’t settle for you,” Ben said as he slid into his seat. Nina nudged him roughly with her shoulder, and Hanna gave her brother a hurt look, but he just shrugged. “No sense pretending we don’t all know that’s true.” Will looked like he was about to shoot fire out of that sunny face of his, but then he laughed.

  “Yeah, well, maybe she won’t grow up, but I have. That was a long time ago. I’ve moved on.” He looked at Hanna then, and she gave him a big grateful smile. I guessed he noticed more than I thought.

  “Why are we talking about Jessie?” Nina asked.

  “She was here with Ami when we came in, but Will made her mad about Teenie and she left. We just went to see her this morning,” Hanna said.

  “I made her mad? Looked like it was you and her about to lock horns right over this table,” Will said.

  “Hanna was just telling me about how Jessie and Teenie used to be best friends, but I still don’t really understand what’s going on with them now,” I said.

  “I only got to the part where Teenie started acting more grown-up and Jessie didn’t,” said Hanna.

  “Ah,” Nina said, “well, it’s pretty simple, really. Matthew came along, Teenie fell in love and got pregnant, mostly in that order, and Jessie was jealous. She felt like he stole Teenie from her and that Teenie was too young for all that. Then the pregnancy went wrong, the baby came way too early and didn’t make it, and Teenie almost died. She needed Jessie then, and Jessie stepped up. She helped Lurene nurse Teenie back to health and got her through that awful grief. Lord, that girl was sad. Everybody was. Mama said having to take that little blue baby out of Teenie’s arms was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.” She froze suddenly, and I realized that everyone had gone still. I looked around and saw that they were all looking at Ben.

  “Ben, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thi—”

  “It’s fine,” he cut her off. He looked around the table and said, “Jesus! Stop looking at me like that.” I sucked in a breath; taking the Lord’s name in vain was a sin, but no one else seemed shocked by it. Ben started methodically shoveling food into his mouth, and everyone looked away. I wanted to ask what any of this had to do with Ben, but I knew I couldn’t. Not right then.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that,” Will said. “Let’s talk about something else. I was thinking this might be a good night for a swim.” He looked around at the group like he’d just made a big announcement.

  “Ooh, first night swim of the summer!” Hanna said. “I’m in!”

  “Me too,” said Nina. She looked at Ben, who seemed more relaxed now but was still focused on his plate. “Ben, wanna go swimming tonight?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno, maybe,” he said. But when he looked up and met her eyes, he smiled. “Yeah, probably.” Her face lit up. Hoo boy, I thought. Everybody around here is pairing up.

  “It’s official,” Will said. “First night swim of the summer, tonight, by the old dock. I’ll tell Melissa.”

  “You’ll come, won’t you, Ami?” Hanna asked.

  “Uh, I’m not … I don’t really know how to swim, but I guess I can stay in the shallows,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s not deep where we go, and we’ve got some old tire tubes that make good floats. You’ll love it!” Nina said. She was smiling at me, excited to bring me into the fun. It felt nice to be included like that, and I found myself returning her smile.

  “Maybe you can get Jessie to come. If you can find her,” Will said. He meant me. And just like that, whoosh! Red-hot face again. I suddenly felt like everyone was staring at me.

  “Me?” I stammered. “I don’t even—”

  “Don’t worry about Jessie,” Hanna said, kicking Will under the table. “I’ll find her. We’ll see you back here at dinner and head down to the dock together, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” I replied. I tried to get that warm, friendly feeling back, but I felt flustered, and when I managed to drag my eyes up from the table, I caught Will giving me that curious look again. I hurried away to the quiet emptiness of my room. Being around people was still wonderful, but sometimes it wore me out. I took a quick, cool shower to rinse off the sweat and dirt from that morning’s garden work and played my conversation with Jessie back in my head. I wondered if I would see her at dinner or the lake later. It was hard to believe this was the same day. I felt like more things could happen in an hour at Lake Point than ev
er happened in a week at Heavenly Shepherd. I suddenly felt like I needed to take a nap if I was going to get through dinner and night swimming with everyone, so that’s exactly what I did.

  Fifteen

  There was no sign of Jessie at dinner, and Hanna wasn’t there either until the rest of us had almost finished eating. We all looked at her expectantly, but she just shook her head. The rest of them told stories about other night swims from summers past, laughing about a time when Will got stuck knee-deep in the muddy lake bottom and didn’t want to admit it until he finally had to ask for help or stay stuck there all night. I tried to laugh along, but their stories of growing up together always made me feel a little sad. Watching Melissa and Will rib each other, I couldn’t help but wonder what it could have been like if my mama had stayed and had another baby. Hanna and Ben weren’t as easy with each other, though, so I guessed that having a sibling could go different ways. When everyone was done eating, we all headed down to the lake together.

  “You’re gonna love this, Ami!” Melissa said, dropping back to walk beside me.

  “Yeah? I’ve never done too much swimming, even in the daytime. I’m kinda nervous about tryin’ to do it in the dark.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, it’s not real deep or anything. And we’ve got an hour or so before the sun sets, so that’ll give you time to get your bearings,” she said.

  “Yeah, and no one’s seen that gator in years.” This was Will walking just ahead of us.

  “Gator?” I asked shakily.

  “Shut up, Will, gah!” Melissa laughed. “Don’t listen to him, Ami. There’s no gator. Those signs were just a joke.”

  “Signs?” I asked. “What signs?”

  “Those.” Ben pointed. We were drawing even with an old boat dock, the wood half-rotted along the waterline, and there beside it was an old hand-painted sign, faded and paint peeling. You could just make out the words BEWARE OF GATOR and a red circle with a line through it. It looked like there had been something inside the circle, but it was mostly gone now.