Jory understood that it was her job not to ask any questions, but to keep Frances occupied and out of the way until whatever it was that was happening to her family had finished happening. It was a state of emergency, but one that revealed itself through suspended animation: the four females drifting slowly past each other in the house like apologetic ghosts. Each day someone was in her bedroom crying, except for Jory, who had nothing to cry about. They didn’t go to church or anywhere. Their mother finally sent Jory to the grocery store for plastic plates and cups and silverware because she said she wasn’t washing dishes. She wasn’t cooking either, and they were going to have to fend for themselves for once in their lives, which meant Rice Krispies for breakfast and hot dogs for lunch and dinner. Jory made Kool-Aid popsicles for Frances and Grace, who said the smell of hot dogs made her sick. No one said anything about buying school shoes, or about the fact that school started in nine days.
At night, it was almost the worst. Everyone went to bed early, even their mother, who spent most of the day lying on her bed anyway. Jory would toss and turn, flipping from one side of the sheet to the other, trying to find a cool spot. She could hear the scritching of the nighttime insects and car tires kicking up gravel on the road, and far, far away the faintest sound of tinkly carnival music. It didn’t matter, though. She couldn’t leave. Her father would never forgive her if she slipped out and left the others alone. Although what her presence in the house would do to prevent anything, she didn’t know. And what could possibly happen that hadn’t already? As the night grew on, she could see the beams from car headlights shifting shapes on her ceiling. They moved across the ceiling like searchlights, looking and looking.
And then her father came back. He drove their green Buick home from the airport and parked in his usual spot in their driveway. Jory watched from inside the front window, as if she weren’t allowed to go outside and greet him. “Well, hello,” he said, and set his old black suitcase down on the hardwood floor.
“Hello,” Jory said, and hugged him hard around the waist—something she hadn’t done since she was little.
“Where is everyone?” Her father gazed around the living room as if the brown couch and upholstered rocker and birchwood coffee table were all new to him.
“Oh, you know.” Jory shrugged and they looked at each other.
Her father walked toward his bedroom and Jory trailed behind. He stopped in front of the closed bedroom door and then knocked once, something Jory had never seen him do before, ever. Nothing happened, so he turned the door handle and went in. Before the door shut behind him, Jory caught a glimpse of her mother lying on the bed in her faded blue bathrobe, a wet washrag across her eyes.
Jory went into her bedroom and opened her closet door and squeezed inside. She parted blouses and skirts and sat down underneath them on the closet floor. The closet wall was the same as her parents’ bedroom wall. She had occasionally done this before, listened in on her parents’ private conversations, but only when they had been about her, when she had been in trouble and needed to know the extent of her disgrace and punishment. This was different—this was about someone else. She put her ear against the wall and listened. Her father was telling her mother how much he had missed her and that he had come back as soon as he could. Jory knew he would be rubbing her mother’s foot as he said this, stroking her instep in the way that she said helped her headaches. What happened? her mother asked in a voice that meant, Dispense with the niceties. Who was it? she asked. Where is he? Well, her father said, that’s the problem. There doesn’t seem to be anyone. What do you mean, there isn’t anyone? Jory could tell her mother was sitting up now, the washrag cast aside. There has to be someone. Some person . . . some man is responsible for this. Completely and utterly responsible. And that man should be in jail! Jory could hear the bedsprings give a sudden sharp creak. It’s criminal, Oren, and I just can’t stand it. I mean it, I can’t. I agree, I agree, her father said, but if she won’t tell us who it was, how are we to know? Pastor Ron has no clue—no one there does. They never saw her with anyone. They never knew that she was out alone, ever. I searched high and low. I talked to everyone, even the police. No one seems to know anything about it. Her father’s voice dropped in pitch. I lost my temper more than once. So? So? her mother said. You should have done a lot more than lose your temper. There was a pause, and Jory held perfectly still. I just don’t know what to do, Esther. Her father sounded tired. I’m at a loss here, he said. Her mother was crying now, in a bitter, broken way that seemed to contain within it a large element of blame. No one said anything for a long moment, which meant no doubt that her father was now rubbing her mother’s back. Jory lifted her head until her face was covered by the scratchy material of Frances’s winter coat. She breathed in the smell of wool and dust and forgotten pennies in pockets: the smell of Frances and of their closet—of this house, this home.
That night at dinner, the five of them sat around the maple table in the way they always had, as if nothing had happened, as if they had just imagined the past three weeks and their strange in-house vacation. Their father fixed his gaze on each of them in turn and smiled. “Here are my three lovely daughters,” he said.
“Here we are,” said Jory.
Their mother was rubbing her temples with both hands.
“Well,” said their father. “What are we all doing after dinner? Frances, what do you have planned for the evening?”
“I’m riding my bike,” said Frances.
“Very good, very good,” said their father. “Jory, what about you?”
Jory shrugged. “I don’t know. Reading, I guess.”
“All right. How about you two ladies?” Their father smiled brightly at Grace and their mother. “How does a walk down to Albertsons for some ice cream sound to you two?”
Grace pushed her mashed potatoes from one side of her plate to the other. “I’m afraid ice cream makes me sick.”
“That’s it!” Their mother threw her napkin onto the table and screeched her chair back from the table. She stood looking at all of them. “I can’t do this. I can’t!” She turned and looked at Grace. “Just tell me who it was, Grace. Just tell me who it was so we can do something. Who was it, who was it, WHO WAS IT?”
“Esther.” Their father stretched his hand out toward their mother, but she stepped out of his reach. “Esther,” he said again.
“It was an angel,” said Grace, looking up for the first time. “An angel with dark hair.”
No one said anything.
Frances switched her gaze from her mother to Grace. “Angels have yellow hair,” she said. “Like curled taffy.”
Their mother sank back down in her chair.
“He said that you wouldn’t understand.” Grace’s eyes seemed to come alive for the first time since she’d been home. “He said I shouldn’t tell anyone because no one would believe it. No one ever believes—Jesus, John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Mary—no one ever believed them at first, did they? Even Jesus’s own parents didn’t recognize him. There’s no point in discussing this because you couldn’t possibly understand what has happened to me—it’s beyond your ability to comprehend.” Grace leaned forward, the skin of her face ablaze as if radiating some kind of internal heat. Jory had never seen her look like this, except for the time years ago when she had come home from Junior Church and said that now she was saved.
“Grace.” Their father’s voice was quiet. “We very much want to understand.”
Their mother had her eyes closed tight and her hand over her mouth.
“Help us to understand this,” her father said in the same quiet voice. Jory recognized it as the voice he used on dogs he wasn’t sure wouldn’t bite.
Grace folded her hands and rested them on the table. “I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “It was given to me. It was a thing that was given to me alone, and I alone am to bear it.”
Their mother made a soft
gasping noise behind her hand.
Grace seemed not to notice their mother. She smoothed the tablecloth where it wasn’t lying flat. “I said yes to Jesus long ago, so how could I possibly say no now?” She looked up. “Aren’t we always supposed to say yes to God? Dad?”
“Well,” said her father. He picked up his fork and put it down again. He cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, we should say yes to God. But first we have to be sure that it is indeed God who is making the request.” He spoke quite slowly and seemed to be considering each of the words before he let them out of his mouth. “Wouldn’t God always have our best interests at heart?”
Grace leaned forward. “Did it seem like He had Abraham’s best interests at heart when He asked him to sacrifice Isaac? Or how about Jesus? Do you think it seemed like God always had His best interests at heart?”
“This isn’t a theological discussion.” Their mother raised her voice. “You are having . . . a . . . baby. And it isn’t God’s.”
Frances put her glass of milk back down. “Grace is having a baby?” Her entire face lit up. “Is it a girl?”
“None of you have any idea what you are saying.” Grace’s voice was shaking. “I knew it would be like this. I never even wanted to come home from Mexico. At least there I felt good about my calling, about what I’ve been called to do. Here, I’m surrounded by people whose minds are too small to accept anything other than what the newspaper or the television or, excuse me, the science books tell them.”
“What?” their mother said.
“Grace,” their father said.
“You went to Mexico to spy on me.” Grace’s mouth grew tight. “You went to see what I had been up to, but what you didn’t realize is that you wouldn’t find anything because what you were looking for is from man, and what you see in front of you is from God.” For a moment Grace seemed about to say something more. Instead, she closed her mouth, pushed her chair back, stood up, and walked out of the room.
Their mother had both of her hands over her eyes as if to blind herself to the situation. She shook her head back and forth. “No,” she said. “No, no, no. This isn’t happening.”
“Now let’s stay calm.” Their father ran his hand through his hair. “Let’s just stay calm and think for a minute.”
Their mother made a horrible, animal-like sound deep in her chest and sank back down in her chair. She seemed to slowly deflate and grow small, her shoulders rounding and hunching forward until her head was hanging just above her plate of uneaten food. She began to sob in an unguarded way that Jory had never heard before.
Their father’s eyes shifted around the table. His glance fell on Jory. “You two go outside and play. Now.”
“Mom,” said Jory.
Her father gave her a look. “I mean it, Jory. Just do what I tell you to.”
Jory got up from the table. “For Pete’s sake,” she said. “For Pete’s sake.” Even now, it was the worst thing she was allowed to say.
Outside, it was almost dark. The days were already starting to get shorter. Jory and Frances sat on the curb and gazed out into the street. “But how can Grace have a baby?” Frances whispered, squinting up at Jory. “She’s not married.”
“Just be quiet, Frances.” Jory picked up a bottle cap and twisted it back and forth between her fingers. The bottle cap read IT HASTA BE SHASTA. Jory tried to spin the bottle cap off her fingers the way she had seen the boys at school do. It skidded off her finger and fell into the gutter.
“Where will it live?”
“With us, I guess.” This was a new thought to Jory. An actual baby that took up space and needed things. She had lain in her bed at night and thought about how the baby had gotten there—she had thought about that quite a bit—but she had never thought about what would happen after.
“I want it to sleep with me.” Frances turned and put her hand on Jory’s thigh. “Can it?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Jory. Across the street, a light winked on above the porch at Mr. Garmendia’s house. Soon he would come out and take his nightly stroll around the neighborhood, his three cats trailing single file behind him. “Maybe she’ll give it up for adoption.” As soon as she said this thought, Jory realized it was a possibility.
“No,” said Frances mildly. “We’ll keep it.”
Mr. Garmendia opened his front door and made the soft clucking sound he used to call his cats. Two of them scurried out from under the bridal wreath bush. The third sauntered slowly up from behind the garage.
“An angel’s baby,” Jory said. She ran her bare feet across the thin layer of dirt in the gutter. It was soft and slightly warm even though the sun had already gone down.
“Look,” said Frances, pointing up. “It’s the first star.”
“I know,” said Jory. “I saw it.”
“Make a wish.”
“No.” Jory squinched the dirt between her toes. “You make one.”
Frances gazed upward and began, “Star bright, star light, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” Frances closed her eyes and moved her lips silently. “There,” she said, opening her eyes.
“What’d you wish?” Jory took a twig and made a large swirling letter G in the dirt.
“I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”
Jory nodded.
“But I’ll give you a clue—it’s about Grace,” Frances leaned closer and whispered. “It’s about the color of the baby’s hair.”
Jory sat on the curb long after Frances had fallen asleep in the grass. No one seemed to remember that they were even out here. Her father had been running around the backyard for quite some time now. Inside the house it was dark. She watched the moths as they fluttered around the cone of light that swirled below the corner streetlamp. The moths flitted up to the bulb as near as they dared and then dashed or fell away, scorched or filled with incandescent joy, Jory couldn’t tell which. A lawn mower droned on somewhere down the block. Who would be mowing their lawn in the dark? Someone was riding a bicycle down the street toward her; she could see its faint outlines and hear tiny pieces of gravel pinging out from under the bike tires as it came on. The bicycle moved closer and then stopped right at her feet. She looked up and, even in the darkness, she knew him.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said, her face filling warm with blood.
He got off the bike and leaned it against their largest evergreen. “Nice night,” he said. He sat down on the curb next to her. She could smell the odor that he gave off: burned sugar and cigarette smoke and something sharp, like pepper. “The forecast said something about rain, but I don’t think so.” He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles and then stretched his legs out in front of him. “What’s new?” he said.
“My sister’s having a baby,” she said.
He tilted his head. “I kind of thought that was old news.”
“It’s God’s baby.”
“Wow,” he said. “That is new.” Grip whistled softly through his teeth. “What do your parents have to say about that?”
“They’re having a nervous breakdown.”
“I suppose so, I suppose so.” He pulled a crumpled cigarette out of his shirt pocket and began bending it back and forth. “You know, my mother used to think she could communicate with angels. Or hear them or something.”
Jory wondered what had happened to his mother, and then realized she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She watched as pieces of tobacco dropped onto Grip’s pant leg. “Where’s your ice cream truck?”
“Home. I think the clutch is going out, but I’m too lazy to do anything about it. Hey,” he said suddenly, “want to go for a ride?” He made pedaling motions with his hands. “Around and around?” He tilted his head at her. “C’mon,” he said, “it’s a beautiful night.”
Jory sat sideways on the front of
the bike’s metal crossbar while he pedaled and steered and leaned around her shoulder looking for cars. They rode all the way down Ninth Avenue, veering around parked cars and cats and potholes. They rode faster, whizzing past people in bathrobes watering their lawns or putting out their garbage cans. The night air blew her hair back behind her and he kept having to spit wayward strands of it out of his mouth. Jory felt like laughing and screaming at the same time. Did you ever see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? he yelled into her ear. Is it a movie? she asked. Yep, he said. Then I didn’t, she said. That’s too bad, he said. You’re Katharine Ross and I’m Paul Newman, stealing Robert Redford’s girlfriend away for a little two-wheel rendezvous. He pedaled furiously up the long incline of Deer Flat Hill, standing up on the pedals and leaning forward and making the bike wobble. She screamed and clutched his arm and then they reached the top, and then just as suddenly they were flying downhill. Jory was all feeling. The rush of the wind past her ears and the black road forever unzipping beneath the bicycle’s wheel left almost no room for thought. If she died like this, she would just have to die. We have to slow down now, he yelled, but not too quick or we’ll wreck. He turned the handlebars and they began to loop crazily from one side of the road to the other. Now it felt more like swimming than flying. The bottom of the hill was coming up, she knew. There was a stop sign at the very bottom. We’ll have to run it, he said. Hang on. But she already was. There was nothing more to hang on to. They flew past the stop sign and through the cross street. He had just started to brake when they hit the patch of gravel. She knew then that they were in trouble, but there was nothing to be done. The bike tilted and skidded sideways in a way that no bike should, the back tire sliding clear around toward the front. Jory flew off the bike, sliding flat and hard against the graveled pavement, her palms and hip burning like fire.
She could hear Grip swearing now in the dark, and the sound of a bicycle tire spinning all on its own in the air. “Where are you?” he said. “Shit.”
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