This piece is a lie. Just like the failed cubist canvas that waits patiently on the easel. I will never finish it. It is not me. There is nothing about my life that’s two-dimensional. Or complete. Nothing makes sense.
Ama’s story blanket hangs precariously on the edge of the bed. The weave of the spider tangled hopelessly in the goose down, filled with fluff and promising warmth. I drop into the stale flannel twist of the bed sheets and rest my head on the comforter that cooled long ago. It’s hard to shake the chill in the air. It rises and settles among goose bumps. I closed the door against Sicheii’s fire. I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t pull it together, enough to…
Dig out.
Two inches of clay cling to the soles of my boots.
Toppled over.
And I…
Am paralyzed.
I’m pretty sure a picture of my room has just been featured in the dictionary under the word “mayhem.” The definition goes something like this: noun. A state of incomprehensible, three-dimensional disorder that threatens to inflict bodily or spiritual harm. It’s so out of control that even I can’t stand it. I can’t seem to control the mess I’m making of my life and the lives of everyone around me.
Here’s what I’m thinking. With each and every dirty piece of laundry and ancient scrap of food, I could build a stinking tower to block out the beauty of his kiss. And that maybe, just maybe, I could train my brain to associate that ecstatic moment with the sights, smells, and sounds (there is an unmistakable gnawing coming from under the bed) of my room, so that I’ll never do it again.
The problem is that Maverick’s kiss jolted every cell in my body back on the path—the Beauty Way, Ama called it. And to deny it and its power would send me back off the path. I know it sounds crazy, considering that I have been tutoring Cassie in the art of flirtation and that I am the author and originator of the “Top Ten Surefire Ways to Get Your Man,” but I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve been kissed. Except by Yas and Cassie. But that’s not on the lips, and it’s purely in a friend way. So, that doesn’t count. I’m still searching my memory and nope, zip, zero—nada.
What’s sure is the kiss itself—its ability to slow time, stir fire, and push me to raw desire—was potent, essential.
And then it comes, the pain. The blade, lodged chest-deep, twists along cold hard steel, stealing my breath, rendering me powerless. Hot tears stream down my face, as if they are fresh, as if this is new. Ama. Ama.
I have to do something.
Shooting sock after sock followed by underwear, mud-caked jeans, paint-spattered T-shirts, new and old, into the laundry basket brings no answers, no clarity whatsoever. The pain rises again. With my back pressed up against the wall, I sink down and wait for the waves building in their intensity, rippling across my chest, and seizing my breath to stop. Waves rushing, crashing against me. Rising, rising again, almost ceaselessly. I have learned that it does stop. I have to be strong and not let it take me. I have to… My throat tightens, straining against tears. The choking, no turning back now. No turning back. And just as if it seems that I can’t possibly choke anymore and survive, the tide turns, loosening its grip, one finger at a time. It starts where it ended from the top, working its way down, allowing more oxygen with each breath until I collapse in exhaustion.
I have to get up.
I can’t let it take me.
I rise. Tears swept aside. I can see my floor now. The rest of it, crumbs and something that can most accurately be described as rubble, require two sweepings and multiple trips to the trashcan that is now full to bursting. I tie the top of the bag closed and emerge from my room.
Sicheii looks up from his evening tea at the kitchen table and says, “You missed dinner.”
“Sorry,” I say, slinging the bag over my shoulder and heading for the front door. I turn the handle, and my stomach growls. The smell of mutton hangs heavy in the air.
“What was it?”
“Stew and squash,” he says. “Good.”
I finish taking out the trash and come sit with Sicheii at the table. It’s been a while.
“Want some tea?”
“Okay,” I say.
“There’s some in the pot.”
Then he says, “Stew’s outside in the cold box. If you want some.”
I look up at him. Stoic in a way I wish I could be. His steady breath and measured movements build calm. His cup of tea is the axis around which the world revolves. Here and now.
All of this makes sense. The pine-top, the mug of tea, and my Sicheii, strong, patient, reminding me that life is bigger than today. There is so much more.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Cassie called,” he says.
Whiteout.
“Sicheii, I can’t see.”
The cold dark has come
Wrapped around my shoulders—settling
Seeping into my bones
Its icy fringe grazing bare legs
I can feel his eyes
Unafraid
Standing in the light
Of Creator God
Unafraid of the darkness
Creator God
Sicheii says, “Pray.”
The words rise
Spirit woven
threaded in the eternal language of my ancestors
Fibers gathered and spun from starlight
Ama whispers, “Remember the Beauty Way.”
And so it begins,
“Our Father…”
(found hitched to the glittering cornstalks
in Grandma Alice’s garden)
Chapter 8
The cold pushes me out of bed. The frigid tiles are almost unbearable pressed against the soles of my feet. Sicheii’s chair is empty. The woodstove is silent. Where is Sicheii? This is not like him. I unlatch the front door and find myself shouldering the planks against the frozen white. Why can’t I wake up? A burst of cold air accompanies the stark light. Wind-driven snowflakes obliterate the line between earth and sky.
There is no protection from the bracing chill, this endless nightmare. A rope twists through the white, lashed to the eyehook Sicheii has anchored to the side of the house for moments like these. I take hold. The impression of Sicheii’s footsteps forms faint shadows in baby blue, trailing to the barn.
Yas pounds the dirt, leaning hard against the walls of his stall. It’s not his nature to cry out. But the sound of him straining against the boards tells me everything.
“Easy, boy,” I say, reaching the end of the rope. “Easy.”
I touch his flank. He startles, skin twitching. Then he warms. I reach up for the cowlick that is his star. His eyes tell me it’s not just the storm. It’s more than that.
I pull a blanket from the railing and draw it up on his back. I top him with a saddle and get ready to ride.
Yas takes the lead, ducking out from the barn. He emerges into the infinite glare. Cautious steps, one after the other. Yas makes his way. I lay a hand on his neck. He stands tall against the slanted flakes. I shiver. His nostrils flare. He breaks the dream-silence with a snort and peers out into oblivion, white on white. I look back, uncertain. I look back to find the house, an anchor in the storm, but it’s useless. All that remains is the jagged edge of the tin roofline.
The snow drives on, hitting the surface of the night-frozen drifts, swirling in crystal phantoms, then scattering. Frigid wisps twist through Yas’ legs. He pushes on, feeling his way. I sit tall with him, braving the cold silence. Please, Creator God, let me wake up…
At the county road, he picks up a scent. It’s faint at first, but then made real with each sunken drop of red. Snow on the road is churned underneath the fresh accumulation of flakes. And the blood that punctures the surface is unmistakable. No!
Yas nuzzles the crystals aside, inhaling the scent of the sanguine paint pots. He considers the distinct line, bloodshot, into the distance…
Ama and I didn’t talk much
About Sicheii and the bottles
And how
sometimes he couldn’t find his way home.
We didn’t talk about
How he’d stare into the fire
Tears streaming down his face
Until he slept in place
And woke in a cold sweat
As if saving himself from drowning.
Then there were meetings,
“Hello my name is…”
And the stories
Cups of tea,
Sweet and spicy,
Built the man
Who became my home.
(found crumpled under Ahzi’s bed, then unfolded and
pressed flat under the dictionary)
Chapter 9
At daybreak, I head out to Yas’ stall, shedding fading images painted in red and white.
“Morning, Boy.”
He gives me a sloppy wet nuzzle in response.
“Ew.” I laugh, turn him out in the corral, and start to muck out his stall. I lay the garden hose out in the sun and walk the line to get the ice moving. I crack through the layer of ice that has formed across his water trough in the night, scrub down the metal sides of the trough, and refill it. Then I set to work, mounding his manure in the compost pile outside with a mucking fork. I turn on the hose, let it spit broken ice crystals until the water flows, and hose down the inside of the trough.
Yas nickers a thank you as I put him back in his stall and toss out a flake of hay. I take my time grooming him, making sure that his winter coat is free of dirt and dust. He twitches under my steady hands, grateful for the attention.
I step out from the barn into the sun that melts the last of the snow from the shadowed places on the ground and make my way down to Cassie’s house. Instead of knocking, I take a seat on the front stoop in the full light of the day, grateful for the warmth on my skin. In my self-imposed time out I wait for Cassie to emerge and muck out Beau and Cinnamon’s stalls. It won’t be long now. I’ll sit here and enjoy the last moments of my childhood friendship and pray for my wayward soul. It sounds dramatic, but no matter how Cassie reacts, I will not think of myself the same way.
So what makes this different? How can a girl go from zero to sixty with a different boy four days in a row at the Gathering of Nations, year after year, and not think twice about it, but come home, kiss a guy, and know that her world is gonna end? The difference is he’s not just any guy. Rinse, lather, and repeat relationships of the Speed Dating kind are fantasies. When you know a guy your whole life, shared your Grandpa, best friend, horse, chores and countless adventures with him, he becomes a real, infinitely dimensional being—not a trophy boyfriend won at the Ring Toss. And when your best friend is head-over-heels, pitter-patter, nuclear meltdown over the guy, it’s ten times worse or better, or whatever. I’m lost now and exhausted by the whole thing. I’m ready to face my consequences. You can come out now, Cassie.
But she doesn’t.
I lean back against the adobe wall, close my eyes, feel the heat beginning to radiate off the plastered surface, and breathe deeply.
Then I hear a throaty ‘hey-you’ cluck from a raven with a school-bully attitude perched jauntily on the corral fence.
“What do you want?” I say, challenging him.
He stands tall, puffing out his feathers for warmth, the black bead of his eye barely perceptible. He clucks at me again. Same tone, same sound, and then stares. Then I remember a story Ama used to tell me about Raven. Raven is the one who flew out of the cosmos to bring light; he’s magic. But right now, with the stink-eye he’s giving me, he seems like he wants to scrap.
“I don’t blame you,” I say. “Hit me with your best shot.”
Then the knob turns, and Cassie throws open the door, practically tripping over me in the process.
“What are you doing here?” she says. But she doesn’t say enough for me to catch her tone.
“Scrapping with a raven,” I say, nodding at the bird.
“You’re weird,” she says.
“I know. But I’m tough. That’s why you love me.”
I look up at her and drop my humor mask.
“What?” she says.
You honestly don’t know? You don’t know that, in one act, I have singlehandedly brought ten years of friendship to its knees? There’s no denying it.
She lowers herself to sit next to me on the stoop and says, “I know.”
My heart sinks, not because I would ever keep a secret from her, but because I’ve done something secret-worthy. She gives me a side-glance, hugging her knees to her chest with her Double-Bubble baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. And then, because life is stuffed to the gills with the unexpected, Chad pushes open the screen door and joins us in silence—birds on a wire.
Long—awkward—pause.
Deep breath.
Chad breaks the stillness, looking at me, then at Cassie, and then back again. It’s not like I can launch into some kind of magical explanation that will make all of this go away. So because Cassie is Cassie, steadfast and true, she says, “Well, it’s time to muck out some stalls.”
Honestly, that’s the sweetest thing she could say to me.
“I’ll shovel,” I say, since it’s the least I can do.
Chad says, “Me, too.”
We set to work. Cassie shatters the ice in the water troughs, and Chad and I turn Cinnamon and Beau out. We mound manure with our pitchforks into a big steaming pile that is inarguably gross.
I lead Cinnamon back in to her stall and start grooming her. Chad follows. Now that the day has begun to warm and muddy her corral, Cinnamon’s hooves are a mess. I start there, digging out muck and gravel. Chad grabs a flake of hay, loosens it for her, and then sets it down to distract her from the hoof pick.
Then we both grab currycombs and tag team her, making her winter teddy bear coat shine. Cinnamon eats it up.
After a bit, Chad offers, “My coach says, ‘Mistakes are opportunities for improvement.’” He pauses and then says, “But he also says, ‘When it rains, don’t go outside. You’ll get wet.’ So, you know, it’s whatever.”
I laugh and say, “And he gets paid to teach you soccer?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Weird, hunh. But we are third in the state.”
“Can’t knock it,” I say.
Then after a while, he says, “Can I ask you a question?”
That’s never good. It usually means the question is excruciatingly personal, totally awkward or potentially damning, or all of the above, and I’m gonna ask it anyway, ’cause that’s what friends do.
“How did it happen?”
After a bit, I say, “Maverick was asking too many questions.”
Chad shrugs like I don’t get it. And then he shakes his head, more like he thinks I’m lying to him. I force myself to make it right. Only the truth can make it right. I think over the moment, and the best I can think of is, “And… I wanted him to shut up.”
“So, you kissed him?” he asks, incredulous.
Replaying the scene in my mind, I can’t deny it. I did jump him. I lost my cool. He pulled me down, but I pushed away. And then he… “No, he kissed me,” I finally say. But as the rest of the scene unfolds in my mind, I know that’s not the whole story. “But I kissed him back.”
The aftermath is hard to put into words because I don’t know why I kissed him back, and I don’t know how I feel about it. How do you explain that the kiss itself was the thing that shattered this ice castle I had worked to build around my heart for so many years, and yet… the meaning of it, the meaning of Maverick, the idea of being with someone I might give a damn about remains like a newborn foal, unsteady on its legs.
Chad breaks my vacant stare with a touch of his hand and says, “You don’t have to explain.”
I look back, and I know I do. If only I could explain it to myself.
Cassie comes in, and I pull my hand away, almost too quickly.
“Done? I’m ready to get outta here,” she says.
“Me, too,” I say.
“Water is lif
e,”
Ama said one day
Laughing with the butterflies
orange and brown
That tickled her fingers.
She braided her hair,
Long and winding.
And when she got to
the end,
the sections flowed together
body, mind, spirit.
She tied it tight
and pushed it behind her,
letting it trail down her bare back.
The sun, fading,
hit the riffled surface
And she was gone.
(found caught up in the elm tree holding a tattered
hummingbird nest and two hollowed eggs)
Chapter 10
Leaned up against the wall outside my front door, Maverick is bent over a ukulele plucking out the chords to “Blackbird.” My heart pounds. I push past it, wanting things between us to be like they were before.
Diamonds at Dawn Page 4