by Amy Espeseth
‘Her monthly, that’s all,’ Mom whispers to me while unbraiding my hair and rubbing a towel through the length. ‘That’s all it was, all this fuss for nothing.’
Smiling and re-braiding my hair, my momma hums and sways and play-acts for me: that she always dresses me, as I stand trembling and dumb; that she always soothes Naomi with clucks and song so that the girl can still her fingers enough to button. I don’t know whether to be relieved or more worried; our secret can’t sleep forever.
But we are pretending that all is well. Forgetting about mother’s milk, we are pretending it was just blood.
We are pretending so it can be.
33
AT THE ALTAR, SAMUEL IS RECOMMITTING HIS LIFE TO JESUS and praying for the indwelling of the Lord.
When Naomi and I finally emerged from the wings at the front of the church, dressed again and dry, most of the congregation had already left. A few men, holding their feed caps and looking at their boots, lingered at the back of the sanctuary waiting for their women. A scattering of boys and girls ran laughing and bellowing in the fellowship hall, but most everybody was gone.
After our baptism, while the ladies rushed the stage, Uncle Ingwald had begun to pray. And then the ancient organist had begun to play, so the people had begun to sing. Once Samuel started moving, folks set to making their way out, grabbing Bibles and jackets as quiet as they could. Some elders stayed, but the rest left. Samuel had responded to his daddy’s call for sinners and walked the aisle all the way from the back of the church. The boy didn’t give a reason for coming forward, but he didn’t have to. He’s forgiven: his sins are as far from him as the east is from the west.
Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me. And that Thou bidst me come to Thee. O Lamb of God, I come! I come! Just as I am, and waiting not, to rid my soul of one dark blot. To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot. O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
And now Samuel’s breaking down, trying for baptism in the Holy Spirit. He wants a flame atop his head and he needs a prayer language; he needs the power. With his arms outstretched and a pinched look on his face, he waits at the front of the sanctuary with the elders of the church around him. They have laid their hands upon him and are praying in the Spirit as Samuel pleads with God. Uncle Ingwald stands behind him, eyes raised in prayer and voice lifted to heaven. He is ready to catch his son should the boy be slain in the Spirit and be overcome, just fall out. But Samuel merely sways with the men in time to their gibberish. Some of them spit as they speak. I believe I can see spittle on the tops of Samuel’s shoulders and some seeping into his clean white shirt.
Relieving the old lady, Mom is now playing the church organ. Her head is down, but she is singing ‘Just as I Am’ like we always sing. Daddy is in the wooden pew with Reuben and me. I am crumpling the bulletin, creasing it back and forth over the requests for prayers and notices of thanksgiving.
Aunt Gloria puts her arm stiff around Naomi in their pew, second from front. Naomi hasn’t had barely a minute alone since she coloured the baptism water. Her momma must be afraid that she will leak again if she isn’t there to hold her together. Outside of the midwife, no one has said much to me. I don’t think they want me to find out where babies come from yet. Truth be told, I don’t think they want to know either.
We’ve waited long enough: Samuel shakes and tears start flowing from his eyes to his cheeks. He’s got a ghost in him, alright. He is moving his lips in a mumble, and I can almost hear his new words under the church’s celebration.
‘Praise the Lord!’
‘Hallelujah, Father!’
‘Thank you, Jesus!’
It don’t matter who says what anymore. It is always the same voices saying the same words.
It is always the same: he has them in the palm of his hand.
My hair is still damp even though Naomi and I came out soaked and dripping probably four hours ago. No one will leave this place.
Our parents are swaying, arms raised in prayer, at the back of the church. Except my daddy keeps his arms low, like a fighter, hiding his head. Facing forward and only stealing glances, we can’t see clear as Reuben and me are in the second pew, and Samuel and Naomi sit in the front.
We can’t hear much either from this distance, only bits of ‘and sin could not wrestle control of our …’ and ‘return them to wholeness for Your …’ and the like. When Ingwald is most fervent in prayer, he forgets the ends. He don’t finish his sentences, but the Lord must know nonetheless.
Hunkered deep in the pew, Reuben is cutting his nails, paring them down like an apple, with his pocketknife. He’s already shaved bits of callus off his palm with the same blade and pulled out slivers with the tweezers. He’s sat still for about as long as he is able. Naomi sits motionless and forlorn; her braid trails a dark damp patch down the back of her robe. At the front of the church, Samuel looks straight ahead, trying not to crack his knuckles.
And I listen and I watch. And I know.
Our parents are praying — I can hear them — but I know without hearing.
The sins of the world are many. There is sin in our church. My family is stained by sin. With the travelling of my soul — into the fish and birds and trees — I blaspheme the Holy Spirit: this is the unforgivable sin. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. I don’t believe. I hate. These are the sins of my soul.
Samuel stands and stretches. At the sound of his father’s voice, he starts to walk to the back of the church and reaches out those arms for Naomi. The boy smells of sweat and piss.
‘Let’s get.’ He grabs her elbow rough and pulls. There is no change; he still wants to go home.
I don’t need him to say nothing to us, and I’m ready to hit him. But others are more ready.
Reuben beats me to it, holding Samuel down. Snarling and spitting, my brother halts his hard fist an inch from that squeezed face and halo hair. ‘Never again, you hear me? Leave her alone!’
Reuben is going to do it, hit Samuel and break him. Cowering, Samuel can’t push him off; his arms aren’t even pinned down, but he can’t break the hold. He can feel scared now, his breath struggling out and the weight on his chest. He can’t stop what he’s got coming. No one can. Samuel barely fights back, but he doesn’t have to.
He speaks soft, just loud enough for Reuben, Naomi and me to hear. ‘You ain’t so innocent.’
And it is enough. Reuben can’t hit Samuel: my brother’s afraid that the boy might split and the truth with spill out. He needs to keep those fires quiet; he traded me for Samuel’s silence. Reuben didn’t love me at all. Nobody did; nobody does.
Reuben’s fist is still frozen in the air. But the men are there before I let my breath out; my daddy tries to pull Reuben away. There is a rush of men and dragging apart and a noise like a tornado in my head. When I open my eyes, my brother’s shoulders shake as he is held by our father.
Samuel scrambles upright. There aren’t even marks on the floor.
Our family is going home; Daddy has both Reuben and me by the elbow. He steers us down the sanctuary aisle toward Mom, standing wide-eyed and crying at the door.
What Ingwald says don’t matter now. Calling to our backs — ‘broken vessels of clay’ — he can go hoarse all he likes. He can’t make us believe that Samuel is part of God’s plan, can’t make us forgive the boy and forget what happened. Ingwald’s ‘thirst no more and pouring out Christ’s side’ can’t follow us home. There’s enough blood — by family and the Lord — to cover the sin, but there ain’t enough to make us thankful for it.
Whatever it is, it is done. The blood and water flowed and the sin was forgiven. It is done — again — and we will speak of it no more.
34
SUNDAY LASTED FOREVER, WITH THE BAPTISM AND ALL THAT came after. We hardly got to sleep last night. And it is d
ark through the window, but it’s morning nonetheless. It is Monday, so it is school and all is well. Mom made us porridge, and we read scripture; she squeezed my hand extra hard at ‘amen’, sighed heavy, and passed me my scarf. Reuben and I went out the door and down the driveway. When I turned around, Mom wasn’t waving at the window.
Because we are the first ones on the school bus, Reuben and me always get our pick of the seats. Used to be, depending on my morning mood, I either sat at the front to watch the kindergarteners play or sat toward the back to listen to the bad boys curse. This cold morning, I no longer have that choice; there is only one seat for me.
Walking down our long driveway, with Reuben hanging behind cracking frozen mud puddles, I know that he wonders — about Naomi, about me, maybe about her — and that his gentle way won’t allow him to ask. There is nothing left to say, anyhow; not much is left in my mind or memory to speak. We must come together now to hold this secret, and keep it forever down deep in our hearts. If we are obliged to no longer sing, or laugh, or pray, we must stop our singing, laughing and praying. If I am obliged to sit on the stain for the rest of my life, I will sit on the stain; that is the least that I owe.
Snow has fallen overnight: white covers up the dirt and broken crops. As we drive by in the bus, the fields are still; sometimes the long, slipping tracks of a rabbit whisper across the flat snow. Snow piles in the corners of the roofs of the turkey barns. The metal looks frosted: cold, dull rectangles packed with murmuring birds; steam pours out the air holes punched high up on each side.
They aren’t beauties, the crop turkeys smushed together in the stinking sheds, with their white-yellow feathers dragging in the dust and crap. Nasty, beady eyes, thousands of them, peer out if you get close to their air holes. Their gobbles sound like they’re drowning as they stare up at their dim day lights and false moon nights, barely blinking. Workers on the farms must cut back their beaks, so the birds don’t pluck themselves to death or start on eating each other. I’ve heard tell that they’ll die from water down their throats if they are allowed outside in the rain; the clouds will catch their attention, and they won’t be able to drag away their eyes.
These are things I hear, though not things I’ve seen, and I’m beginning to appreciate the difference. I’m starting to wonder about some of the things I hear and have heard, and I might not believe anything anymore unless I’ve held it in my own hands. Even then, I might decide not to believe that it is true.
At the parsonage stop, Naomi and Samuel climb on the bus. She is pale and shivering, but she slides in next to me, by the window, like always. I meet her smile with a smile, just like always; she is a true friend to me.
Samuel slinks all slow into a seat across the way. His curls are squashed under a camouflage hunting cap. He is sucking on an orange, hurrying its thaw after it froze during the wait for the bus.
We drive on and pick up more regular kids at all the regular stops. Under a highway bridge, I feel the temperature drop in the shadow. No sun can sneak through and warm what is beneath a bridge; under a bridge, a river might never melt. A cold shudder snakes through my body, and I watch as Naomi melts the window frost with the side of her hand. She melts bear paws, dog tracks and baby feet.
Deep in the woods, in the bramble near the rivers without bridges, the beautiful wild turkeys are strutting and gobbling. Come spring, the hunters will be out, camouflaged head to toe, settled dead still in their blinds waiting. They lure the brown-black jakes and toms, clucking and purring, trying to call them in close enough to fire. Only their eyes show, the men lingering in the branches. They cover their clammy, white faces so the wild turkeys won’t spook; they cover their frozen, red hands so the wild turkey hunters won’t shoot. Turkeys can see colour, and folks fire quick at blue, red or white. More than one empty-handed hunter has come home, or didn’t ever come home, because of a shotgun blast straight into his face or chest.
We are what we are, and always will be. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Look and see and know: figs don’t come from thornbushes and grapes don’t come from briars. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. Good or evil, it is there in the tree; good or evil, it pushes out the same.
I want to be like the happy girls — the Indian girls with long black braids and the normal girls with stubby ponytails — holding hands and skipping toward the school. I want to sing, laugh and sometimes pray. Naomi, Reuben, Samuel and I could look the same as everyone else on the bus. We walk, talk and sleep like everyone else.
My boot catches on the edge of the bus’s stairs, and I fall onto the concrete and bite my lip. I am okay, but my lip is cracked. ‘Shit! Shit!’ I say as I spit blood into the snow.
Naomi looks at me with wild eyes, afraid of my cursing. Hear me now: I am just like everyone else. Samuel grins at me, and then walks away onto the playground with one of the little kids off the bus; he is always hunting.
We are always hunting when spring comes to Failing: we shoot songbirds, chukar partridge, Canada geese, wild turkey and whatever else is within reach of our shotguns. I hope we all go pheasant hunting this year and turkey hunting too. I pray we see one of the strange, white turkeys that are rumoured to be hiding in the wild. Folks say that they are escapees from the sheds, albinos or half-breed wild turkeys. But I know that the ghost turkeys are spirit birds with beady pink eyes and sharp claws who hunt the hunters. The pure-white wild turkeys wait for a boy with blood-red hands to stalk them through their woods. Then, the spirits will tell the other hunters to fire. We should be out in the woods; we need to be out amongst the good trees. Our hands might redden with cold, but we will be safe; we will be safe under the shadow of the Lord’s outstretched wings.
At recess, Naomi walks slow to our spot. Away from the regular kids, we hide near the elementary school playground. We’ve sat on these swings a thousand times, pushing back and forth, pumping our legs toward the sky. We’ve swung and sat and sung, day after day, racing our hymns into the sky. But today, she is dragging her boots along the ground, leaving a long trail behind her that looks like a limp. It is one of those bright sunshine days that make a body think it’s spring. The ice is shining and sparkling but dripping, trying to reflect light while it still can, while it can still keep itself together. But there is a darkness on her. Naomi finally makes it, slumps down on the leather seat farthest from me and holds tight to the chains. She keeps her feet on the mud and doesn’t swing.
When she waits like this, it makes me mad. She wants me to ask, but I won’t. Naomi can pink-lip pout and shoulder huff all she wants, but if she needs something she’ll have to say. I start swinging, moving my legs hard and making the chains clank. She is chewing her nails, down to the nub again; as the swing set sways, she gnaws the corner of her thumb.
‘Ruth.’
I slow my swinging but say nothing.
‘Ruth.’
That thumb of hers — all her nails, in fact — won’t look good in her Miss Failing princess wave.
‘Do you think I have a call?’ She moves her legs a little now, swaying in the muck.
I slow my pumping legs and just ride the swing natural, until it stops gentle on its own accord. I put my feet on icy snow. ‘It ain’t Grandma’s.’ And I look over at her to know that she gets my meaning.
If she’s got a calling from the Lord, it’s her own because she didn’t inherit it from Grandma. It isn’t lack of bloodline or the anointing: Naomi’s our blood because we chose her and the Holy Ghost power can fall on whomever He chooses. But Grandma’s mantle — what Ingwald calls down and claims for Samuel — her gifting is mine and mine alone.
This is what I used to pray against, ask the Lord to take from me. But now I know that I am an instrument in His plan, a tool for His way. I have tasted
of the tree of good and evil, and still I remain. I will walk the path, but my way may not be their way. The scales have fallen from my eyes.
But she isn’t claiming through Grandma.
‘I’ve healed myself.’ She looks over at me and nods toward her skirt. ‘It’s done.’
And I nod back. If she was closer, I’d take her hands in mine.
Across the swing set we stare in a hard look and agree together in prayer. The ice atop the swings is dripping water down the chains and onto my hands. It is new water, unfrozen just at this moment. It is ice that is moving for the first time. My hands are wet and shake with the cold.
Recess is over, so we head back inside.
Unless you are most near, any shadow brings cold. No comfort comes unless you push in close enough to touch. And the turkeys in the sheds can’t. In the sheds it is all unblinking eyes, low murmur of cackle, feed scramble, peck peck. There is always the gouge and the peck. With the wing dragging and the torn claw — injuries that never heal — the night-day-night is endless. The trucks move in the dark, when the turkeys are alone with their blue-bulb moon.
The birds will be herded toward the truck, and onto it, and we will move forward. All of this will happen without ever being touched. Endless until the end.
35
AFTER A WEEK OF COLD DURING A WEEK OF SCHOOL, LAST night the moon shone white and blue on the icy snow. But today like yesterday, the yellow sun is shining hot like spring; snow is melting into mud, ice is breaking up and the rivers have started to run. Even with the snow, March began like a lamb and is staying gentle. The sleeping animals have started their waking.
We who remain are still sitting around Grandma’s table like old times past: Ingwald and Gloria, Naomi and Samuel, Dad and Mom and me. But we aren’t playing cribbage or telling tales. We wait in silence. And Uncle Peter stands solid in the room.