Beauty of the Broken

by Tawni Waters

  Iggy drops to one knee, and I can’t believe what I am seeing. He raises his rifle and closes one eye, the way he does when he’s shooting soup cans. I can see the rabbit watching him, quivering, praying not to die, even though Reverend Winchell says animals can’t pray. Maybe the rabbit’s not praying to God. Maybe he’s praying to Iggy, begging not to be killed, like the chickens always do.

  But if the rabbit’s praying, Iggy’s not listening. He can’t hear anything over “son” booming in his brain.

  The rabbit lifts his ears, twitches his nose. He can smell his death on the breeze, the smell of his orphaned babies dying alone in their nest.

  Iggy moves his finger.

  Funny how Daddy’s gun was so loud and now all I hear is quiet. Half the rabbit’s head disappears in a cloud of red, and Daddy’s saying something, though I can’t hear what it is for the life of me. I can see his lips moving, his big, brown teeth showing when he smiles, dust devils rising from his pant leg as he slaps his knee with delight. Iggy grins at Daddy.

  This is like the part in the Bible when the prodigal son finds his father. And I’m happy. Even though rabbit brains are sprayed over the tender dead grass, thick joy is rushing through my veins, warming my cheeks and hands. Daddy loves Iggy. Everything’s all right. It’s all been a bad dream.

  Iggy walks toward the rabbit, as if to take it by one foot and hold it in the air. His first kill. I think that maybe the three of us will walk home hand in hand, that tonight we’ll toast with our glasses of milk in Iggy’s honor, and Daddy will tell Momma to bake Iggy a special cake, just like on his birthday, and write Congratulations, Iggy!!!! on the top with red icing.

  But as Iggy gets closer to the rabbit, his steps slow, until he’s stumbling more than walking. He falls on his knees by the twitching body. My heart bangs against my windpipe. I wait for him to lift his kill. Even though I can see his shoulders sagging, I’m waiting.

  He doesn’t touch the rabbit.

  Daddy watches him, the fire in his eyes melting to ice. We’re both hoping against hope that Iggy will lift that rabbit and whoop and holler the way a boy should when he draws his first blood.

  “Go on, Iggy,” I say. “Show us.”

  Iggy doesn’t move.

  Daddy walks toward him, his steps measured and slow.

  I break into a run. I’ll lift the rabbit myself. I’ll wave its body in the air and kick Iggy until he whoops and hollers so Daddy will still love him. I reach him before Daddy, but Iggy’s face stops me short. His eyes are wide and empty. Tears spill over his freckles, and he sobs, slobber dripping from the corners of his lips.

  “God, no,” he chokes, staring down at the mangled rabbit. “I’m sorry.”

  The rabbit jerks, as if in answer to Iggy’s apology. Hot blood spurts onto the ground.

  It’s never until something dies that you see how truly beautiful it was. That’s the way it is for me and Iggy, staring down at that dead rabbit. We see two billion little hairs, tawny brown, tipped with white, blowing gently in the breeze. We see the exquisite pads on the bottom of its twitching feet, like pink rubber, and the perfect circle of its eye, already turning a milky white. We see its ear that isn’t shot off, the tiny hairs around the edges, the soft red insides. We see the small nose, no bigger than the tip of a child’s thumb. We say to ourselves, this is the greatest work of art ever made. This is better than a Michelangelo or Botticelli or Rembrandt. This is God’s best masterpiece, and we just blew its brains all over the grass.

  We try to tell ourselves that it was quick and painless, but it doesn’t help. We saw the way he smelled his death on the breeze, the way he thought of his babies and prayed to Iggy to let him live. We saw him die, and a quick death is still a death, no matter what the hunting books say.

  Daddy’s with us now. He’s not thinking of art. He’s looking at Iggy the way he looked at the mouse our cat threw up on the doorstep. His eyes are bulging with rage, his jaw tight and pulsing. He’s ugly again, and I don’t know how I ever thought I loved him, even for a minute.

  “You make me sick,” he tells Iggy, and kicks him lightly in the gut, as if his disgust is so heavy, he can barely lift his foot off the ground.

  Iggy falls over. He catches himself with his hands, and his fingers slide in the rabbit’s blood. His sobs aren’t muffled now. He’s screaming and blubbering like a first grader, rubbing his eyes with his fists, smearing blood and tears and snot everywhere.

  Slowly Daddy picks the rabbit up by a perfect foot and turns to go.

  “Daddy!” Iggy screams at his back, his broken voice shattering like shards of a windowpane.

  Blue jays squawk in a nearby tree. Yellow-orange sun dips behind dancing clouds. Rabbit’s blood clots on the yellow grass. Daddy heads into the darkness of the woods.

  “I’ll never be like you,” screams Iggy. “Never!”

  “And you’ll never be my fucking son!” Daddy yells back. I guess he keeps on walking.

  CHAPTER 11

  WE LIE ON OUR BELLIES by the river, Iggy and me, watching brassy ants dance. It’s cool out, but above us the sun hangs heavy. Our shoulders grow pink, then red. The sting of sunburn travels into our muscles. Still, we don’t move. Here in this place of moss and cattails, we pack sweet-smelling mud around our broken hearts and heal them, the way Indians used to heal their broken bones.

  Though we’ve washed our hands a hundred times, the rabbit’s blood is still hot on our fingertips. Last night we fell asleep to the memory of his pleading eyes and were wakened by his squealing in our dreams. Daddy’s gone hunting again and will not be home until tomorrow morning, so we’ve told Momma we’re staying by the river today. We whisper about never going home again, but our ham sandwiches have been gone for hours, and soon hunger will drive us home, whether we like it or not. The rabbit’s dead. Not much we can do about that. And Daddy’s meaner than Satan himself. Not much we can do about that, either.

  Iggy turns over on his back, still as a lump of clay, staring up at the sky. I listen to the sound of his breathing, heavy and slow. Since the rabbit, Iggy’s eyes are hazy and dark. I can’t sit by and watch him die slowly on the inside. I’ve brought him something.

  Carefully I pull her from my pocket, feeling the smooth wood of her face. She’s my masterpiece. I love her so much, I almost don’t want to let her go. I thought about Xylia when I made her. Maybe Xylia is the reason she’s so beautiful. She has lips and cheekbones and ears, this angel. She has fingers and toes with dainty nails. She’s the color of sand in travel brochures and smells sweet and sharp like freshly hewn pine. She’s perfect.

  “Iggy.” He doesn’t move. “I got something for you.”

  He sits up slowly, as if the effort’s killing him. He looks old. I press the angel into his hands. He stares at her, turns her over in his muddy fingers. I notice the scabs on the backs of his knuckles. I want to kiss them, the way Momma used to kiss our broken places, but I don’t. Just when I think he’s not going to say anything, he breathes, long and low.

  “She looks for real.” He runs his thumbs over the wrinkles in her gown, the tiny dip in her throat, the individual feathers that make up her wings. He keeps rolling the angel over and over, studying her.

  “I made her because I wanted you to know,” I say.

  He looks up, his face all wrinkled with questions.

  “I wanted you to know that I love you, Iggy.”

  Iggy stares at the angel, then at the ground. A fish jumps in the river in front of us. When Iggy looks up, he has water on his face. At first I think the fish splashed him. Then I see he’s crying. Wiping at the tears with the back of one hand, he pulls me to him with the other. I bury my face in his chest, breathe in scents of sweat and river mud and the ham sandwiches we ate for lunch.

  “She’s the prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says.

  I smile into his shoulder blade.

  “She reminds me of God.”

  I pull away.

  He stares into the water with this
dreamy look in his eyes. The river rushes along, and crows laugh somewhere far away. “Pretty like God.” He says it like he means it.

  I’m almost sure he’s not playing games with me, but I still giggle. “How would you know?”

  Those see-clear-through-you eyes of his connect with mine. “I saw God.”

  “What? Like in a book? Those pictures on the walls in Sunday school?”

  “No, for real. I never told anyone, but remember the day when we were hiding from Daddy under the porch?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. A chill ripples along my skin that has nothing to do with the time of year. I want Iggy to unlock the secrets of the world for me, tell me things I’ve always wondered about, answer all my questions about God and life and love, leave me stunned, but I’m pretty sure he’s finally lost it for good and is going to be taken off to a hospital in a padded wagon.

  He goes on talking, staring into the water, seeing the way things were that day, with the sun and the gold dust and Daddy’s angry eyes. “Daddy was mad. So I said, ‘God, help.’ Daddy hit me with that big board. I saw you standing there crying. Then I was somewhere else. There was light everywhere. I wasn’t scared anymore. I was all quiet inside.”

  Iggy stops there, as if I can wait for what he’s about to say, as if I’m not dying to know what God himself said to my brother. And he picks his nose. Right in the middle of all of this, my brother picks his nose.

  “Oh for mercy’s sake, Iggy!” I say, “Knock that off.”

  “I can’t help it,” he says. “It’s stuffed up.”

  “Use a tissue then.”

  “I don’t have one.” Iggy wipes his finger on his jeans and stares into the water for a long time. “I came back, Mara,” he says. He looks at the angel in his hand. “I was scared I’d miss you.”

  My throat gets tight. I want to believe that my brother has seen God, who is a warm light and not a lightning bolt ready to strike. I weigh Iggy’s words against my good sense. I glance over into the water. My face and Iggy’s stare back at me. I’m surprised, because after all of this God talk, I figure we should be glowing and perfect, like the pictures of heavenly hosts on Christmas cards, but we’re still two grubby teenagers. Iggy’s hair is sticking up on one side, and his face is red and swollen from the crying. His freckles are faded, the way they always are after they’ve been washed with tears. My hair dances around my scalp in a tangled jumble of short, choppy curls, and my lips are bigger than usual, which means they’re practically watermelon slices. My cheeks are smeared with river mud. Daddy says I’m near as pretty as a poster-calendar girl, but looking at my shabby reflection, I don’t know where he comes up with that crap.

  It seems like I should say something important, but I’m not quite sure what it is. “You hungry?”

  Iggy nods.

  “Guess we should be getting home.”

  “Guess so,” Iggy says, but neither one of us moves. The light around us turns to gray. The fishes’ feeding frenzy slows to an occasional plop. The river runs smooth and quiet, its only sound the tinkle of water over stone. The bushes behind us flutter in the breeze. It’s all perfect, the way the world should be, like Eden. We don’t say a word. We’re afraid that if we move, the spell will be broken. We’re Cinderella at midnight. Maybe we’ll never go home after all. But then we hear footsteps behind us, the bushes swishing apart as someone moves through them.

  Iggy jumps up, afraid that Daddy’s back from his hunting trip and has come to box his ears. Grabbing his hand, I remind him with a squeeze that Daddy doesn’t know about this place. It’s ours, always has been. Still, my heart beats a little faster as I wait for what’s about to come through those trees. We watch. The rustling gets louder, and a soft, white face attached to a scrawny body bursts from the bushes. Xylia’s eyes are wide when she sees us. She seems to know she’s interrupting something important. Xylia always knows things. I’d told her about this spot, about the way the light falls through the trees just perfect, the way the rocks around it stand like walls, making it feel secret and sacred, but I never in a million years thought she’d care enough about me to find it.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know anyone was here. I didn’t hear anyone.”

  My heart pounds the way it always does when she’s around. “You’re not interrupting anything.” Trying to sound casual, I wipe at the mud on my face with the backs of my hands.

  Iggy’s watching Xylia like she’s one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. His mouth’s even hanging open a little, wearing a big, dopey grin.

  “Look, Sis. It’s your angel,” he says.

  “Shut up,” I snap.

  “It is!” He pushes the angel into my face. “See?”

  My cheeks burn. “Please, Iggy,” I whisper, pushing his hand down. “Put it away.”

  His face falls, and so does his hand. Watching the angel descend, I can’t help but think about Christmas, “Lo, unto you a child is born,” and all that.

  I glance at Xylia. “You can come sit with us.”

  “All right,” she says. “I have a while before dinner. If you’re sure I’m not interrupting.”

  “You’re not,” Iggy and I say unison.

  She walks toward us, so graceful it seems she must be gliding. Carefully she winds her way around rocks and sticks, protecting her sandaled feet. She sits on a log next to Iggy. When she has adjusted her bottom, she pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her slender arms around them.

  Iggy watches Xylia, not saying a word. I try to talk, but my mouth is dry. We all sit there with our mouths shut. The quiet isn’t beautiful anymore. It feels like a slab of concrete sitting on our heads. Xylia shuffles her feet, and Iggy plays with his angel.

  “You make that?” Xylia asks.

  “Nah,” says Iggy. He looks at me, not sure if he’s allowed to tell her.

  A trout jumps just in front of us.

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “I made it.” I thrust my hands into my pockets.

  Xylia reaches for the angel’s wing, caressing it with her long, elegant fingers. “She’s incredible.” She sighs, bending her face toward the angel and inhaling the fragrance of the wood. “She’s way better than the ones in your room. I mean, those are good, but I think this is a bazillion times better. You blow my mind.”

  “Thanks.” I don’t know what else to say. Words aren’t big enough. Every time Xylia compliments me, the air around me gets quiet, like the moment is holy. I know that I will remember what she said forever.

  “Can I hold her?” she asks.

  “Yeah, sure.” I yank the angel away from Iggy and thrust it into Xylia’s hands.

  She lifts the angel and studies it in the fading day. “My dad’s an artist too,” she says. “Like you. I mean the mediums are different, but the spirit is the same. Words. Wood. Same difference.”

  “Your dad sounds nice.” I toss a rock into the river.

  “He was,” she says. “Is, I mean. I don’t see him much. Not since the divorce. It’s expensive to get back to San Francisco.”

  I don’t know what to say. I want to feel sorry for her, but I’m jealous instead. I wish I never had to see my daddy.

  “That’s why me and my mom moved here. To get a fresh start. Plus, she could buy a house for cheap.” I don’t know why she’s telling me this now. Maybe to make us even, since I told her my secret about Momma and Daddy being drunks? Or maybe because she can tell how sad Iggy and me are. Maybe she wants us to know we aren’t the only ones.

  I want to say exactly the right thing, but I don’t know what that is, so I slap an imaginary mosquito on my knee.

  “Yeah,” says Xylia. “Dad’s a writer. Did I tell you that?”

  She did, but I don’t want to make her feel bad for repeating herself, so I ask, “What kind of stuff does he write?”

  “Everything. Novels. Poems. There’s nothing he can’t write.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I love poems. I memorized ‘The Highwayman’ in sixth grade just for fun.�
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  “That’s a great one,” she says. She’s the only other person I’ve ever met who loves “The Highwayman.”

  That’s when Iggy decides to go for a swim. He doesn’t take off his clothes, just jumps right in, shrieking, splashing everything within a mile. The water is like ice.

  “Iggy!” I leap up. “You got us all wet.”

  Xylia stands, starting to laugh. She puts a hand on my arm. “He didn’t mean any harm.”

  “Wanna swim?” Iggy calls.

  She looks at me. “Wanna?”

  I get all tingly. “Sure. But it’s freezing.”

  “So?” Xylia says. Before I can say anything else, the angel is on the bank, and Xylia is in the water, shrieking about how cold it is and laughing with Iggy.

  “Wait for me,” I yell, and in I go, with my best cannonball ever. The icy water makes me stop breathing for a second, but I won’t get out, can’t get out of the river, because this is where Xylia is. I go under, squinting to watch Xylia’s legs in slow motion under the green water.

  Gasping, I think crazy things about Persephone and Hades. Maybe Persephone went to hell every winter because she had to be with him no matter how much it hurt. I think about other great love stories too, and then I realize that I’m writing my own. This is a chapter in my love story with Xylia. I don’t know how it ends, and I can’t even begin to imagine it, because nobody writes love stories about people like me. Still, Xylia, Iggy, and me write our own story, swimming there until we can’t take the cold anymore. We drag ourselves, dripping and shivering, from the river. A slice of moon starts to show, and the eye of the night’s first star blinks open. Xylia says she should be going. “Shall we sit and dry off?” I ask, not wanting this day to end. I point to a rock where I tossed my sweatshirt this morning.

  Xylia smiles. “I wish. Mom’ll kill me if I stay out past dark.” When I say nothing, she adds, “My mom worries.”

  “Our mom too,” Iggy says. “Our mom worries too, huh, Mara?”

  “Yeah, Iggy.” I watch Xylia wringing the water out of her hair, looking even more perfect in the twilight than she did earlier. Her clothes are plastered to her body, and I can see the outline of her shape, the dent of her collarbones, the soft swell of her belly. She’s shivering. I get my sweatshirt, wrap it around Xylia’s shoulders.