by Amy Espeseth
Honeycomb ice, like that straddling the current, is not good ice. Neither is black ice: when the colour turns, that’s the sign to go. Ice is as living as I am. And it speaks. The ice moves on the river and lakes, making sound as it breaks up and floats away. Taste of snowmelt in the water is a sure signal of spring. But at this moment, right at this moment, spring could stop. As small as she is, just starting, this melting season could end. Winter still touches the trees and the shadowed river with cold hands. Beneath the bridges is the last place to thaw, or it should be.
But we are a people who are ever hearing but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving. Our hearts are callused and hard; our eyes and ears are closed. Otherwise — if our hearts were soft — we might open our eyes and ears. Otherwise, we might see and hear and understand with our hearts, and Jesus would heal us. But the ice is unmoved: it will stay or thaw according to the season. The ice will hold or shift according to time. Weather does not care to know our hearts.
This is what Reuben was looking for at daybreak in the mud along the river: stone arrowheads, bone fishhooks, lost tackle, early wildflowers. This is what he found snagged on a tree root: an impossibly tiny baby girl, wet and bloated, but held in near-perfection by weeks in the frozen, icy river.
Reuben didn’t bring it in the house. She needed to stay in the barn. And she is wrapped in my brother’s hunting coat: he came back freezing with the wind screaming through his bones and the snow slicking his skin. He found her and brought her home, and then he got someone to help.
Uncle Peter called us all to Grandma’s house, just told the grown-ups that it was ‘life or death’. Once we came, he took the adults one by one into the barn and showed them what the children didn’t need to see, what we already knew: black hair and lashes, tiny pink hands. Peter didn’t take Naomi or me, just stared at us with those hangdog eyes and then looked away. The women came back crying, and the men came back grim.
Peter hauled Samuel out there last, and they were out there a long time. When they came back, the boy’s lip was bleeding.
Peter put us in the kitchen and stood beside the door, halfway between the inside of the house and the porch. He didn’t take off his boots, but stood there with his big arms crossed and still wearing his cap. There is a tiny smear of blood on his forehead; he must have wiped his hand. All I was thinking was that the small things of this world are smaller — and mean more — than I would have ever thought possible.
Hummingbird eggs are like peas, and when the chicks hatch they buzz about like bumblebees. But their momma isn’t much bigger: she weighs only a penny, and her wings are black and shine metal green. She sucks her nectar and sap through her straight pointy bill and she’ll gobble bugs whether they’re flying through the air or climbing on leaves. We sit at the table waiting for God to tell us what to do. That momma will even grab insects from a spiderweb, and then go and steal the web itself to stick together her nest. Her eggs rest in a cup made from lichen, feather and dandelion thistle. She takes fur from dogs and hair from horses; she patches it together with spiderweb.
‘Ruth!’ Uncle Peter yells my name and stamps his hand against the doorframe.
And I look up from the table and see his eyes angry at me.
‘Tell them.’
And what would I tell? Who she is? They know she don’t belong to my skinny arms. Do they want to know how she flew away?
‘Ruth, you can’t just sit there forever.’
But there is nothing for me to say.
I think about the hummingbird and spiderweb glue holding moss and fur together. She sleeps deep and barely alive, almost frozen in the night. When she wakes, she bathes in leaves, fluttering her wings against whatever is wet and glossy and green. And she’ll die fighting — struggling against a frog or a giant spider — not sliding gentle along their killing throats. There is no proof of anything but spring, and that is beyond what I could say or understand.
Gloria’s hands are folded and resting on the table, and her eyes are shut. Ingwald stares at the door. Samuel is blank and still; his lip bleeds. Naomi’s head rests on the table; her braids lie limp atop the tablecloth.
My parents sit squashed together; Daddy’s arm wraps around Mom’s shoulders.
I look Peter straight in the face and do not speak a word.
Peter shakes his head at me and at all of them, and he turns his back on us. ‘This is what you want?’
We remain silent.
Peter will not stop. ‘You know, I saw it on that boy — a darkness — the day I met him.’
Uncle Ingwald looks up. ‘Which boy are you talking about?’
‘Your boy.’ Peter turns to face his brother. ‘There ain’t nothing wrong with Reuben.’
‘You sure about that?’ Ingwald’s voice is proud and mean.
Peter’s hands are fists, and his eyes are on fire. ‘Don’t speak against him again. You know what I meant.’
Ingwald pushes his chair back. ‘Last I remember, there were two baby boys you set naked in the snow.’
Aunt Gloria starts to speak. Out of the corner of my narrowed eye, I see Ingwald rising up. I think he might slap his wife — or maybe Naomi or maybe me — but my daddy stills his arm. All I hear is weeping: Gloria, Mom and Naomi. All I see is Samuel: mouth shut tight, icy-blue eyes staring straight ahead.
Ingwald shakes off my daddy’s hold. ‘You sure you didn’t see something in the other boy beside that fire?’ He points at Peter. ‘If a curse is being carried, it’s Reuben carrying your blood.’
There will be blood spilt, of this I am sure. But Peter says nothing. He tucks his fists under his arms and looks at the floor. He does not deny anything.
‘Reuben is my son.’ Daddy’s voice is hoarse, almost crying. He looks across the table at Ingwald. ‘And I’ll kill you if you ever say different again.’ And I believe him.
The wind outside the window screams against the glass. Stubborn snow clings to the cornfields, white holding fast tight to stubble and stalk. Golden sticks hang with broken elbows, waving in the wind, shaking in the cold; they linger in the field, stripped.
Ingwald sits back down. All the women wait in silence. My mother looks at her lap; Gloria touches her arm.
Peter isn’t angry, more sad, and he stays — almost waiting — at the doorway. I see my mother look long at my uncle’s back, and next at her hands clutching the tablecloth. Then Peter is on the porch and the kitchen door slams shut behind him, and there is no way ahead or back or any which way anymore.
But my brother’s big knees bump under the table, and his chair scratches back. Reuben gets up and follows Peter out the door. He’s done his time sitting and he’s finished with unspoken requests. As he leaves, I know he has made a choice forever. He’ll be freezing out there in the cold.
My daddy and Ingwald sit down again, flanking Samuel; Samuel stares at a water stain on the wall. There are men here who can only wait. But when God did not move, Reuben did. There is a frozen baby in our barn, and they don’t know how she got there. But my brother knows and he will wait no longer. I believe he’ll never call upon His name again.
And then they start asking.
They are asking and asking — and now demanding — but we aren’t telling. They believe I can’t hear them calling my name or asking me questions.
Naomi weeps and cannot speak. They know.
I fly out the window with my eyes. Mixed in the crystal powder and the left straw, blood smears into meandering crimson trails, tracing the path through the white of a tiny Trinity. It is a yearling deer with three whole legs, spindly brown, and one torn off at the knee. Sharp ice didn’t cut it off, as flesh wouldn’t have broke that clean. He must have caught a wayward bullet before winter set in. Here he is: a genuine miracle hopping through the field, right before our eyes. We only have to look to see. On he hops, picking through
and nosing for missed cobs. He’s nowhere near the edge of the field, yet he’s nowhere near done.
36
LONG DAY SINCE MORNING, SINCE REUBEN FOUND HER AND brought her home. We sat hours at that table; the stove went out and no one relit it. Shadows darkened Grandma’s kitchen, but no one switched on a light.
‘Burn it.’ That’s all Samuel said when his daddy asked him what we should do with the baby. ‘Burn it in the barrels behind the barn. Grandma’s barn will burn easy as the others. Ask Reuben.’
Ingwald grabbed Samuel by the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. We all sat and watched them struggle. Ingwald slapped Samuel’s face over and over, and the boy didn’t cry out or raise a hand to his father. The only sound was the slaps — over and over and again — until Gloria stood up straight and the weight of her coat sank her chair down onto the linoleum.
‘Enough.’ She barely raised her voice. ‘That’s enough.’ She bent over and pulled on her coat, buttoned Naomi into her own jacket, and left the kitchen.
Daddy stood and reached for my mother’s hand. She nodded at me and we wrapped up and left too. As I walked through the door onto the porch, I looked back into the kitchen. Ingwald still held Samuel by the shirtfront, and Samuel still looked straight ahead. The room was cold and quiet. It was mostly empty.
Outside, without a word, Gloria has gone to the barn and brought back Reuben’s coat and what it holds. She puts Naomi in the passenger seat and then, cradling the orange bundle, my aunt climbs into the backseat. Mom speaks to Daddy and he gets a shovel. Mom and I sit in the middle of the van. Daddy breaks off the top of a crabapple sapling out of the yard. After piling the tree and shovel in the farthest back of the vehicle, Daddy starts up the van and honks the horn. Ingwald walks from Grandma’s house with Samuel following, and they get into Daddy’s truck.
We drive in silence in the van; the wipers swipe snow from the windshield. Once past the driveway as we speed toward town, Gloria’s voice sings soft from the back of the van. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say: it is well, it is well, with my soul. Instead of a funeral organ, she is accompanied by the clicking of the wipers and the shovel knocking against the rear window. We all join her — even Naomi — in the final refrain. It is well, with my soul. It is well, with my soul. It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Making like we’re at the church to plant a tree in Grandma’s memory, our family gathers under the pines of Babylon. Planting a tree in March is like spitting into the wind, but here we are, scraping snow away from beneath a long-needled pine. Like an unspoken prayer request, we all knew without saying what had to happen next.
Ingwald has said the words and made the ground sacred. Gloria’s tears are watering it and making it holy. Naomi is nothing; she is not here except in body. She is the same as it. My daddy is holding on to my mom’s arm; she is white and shivering and her shoulders heave with sobbing. I am still and holding the sapling; I can feel its pulse in my hands. Face blank but eyes sour, Samuel has the shovel; his daddy makes him dig.
When the Lord shall come again, His second coming will be a time of great rejoicing for all those who remain. Enduring suffering beyond imagination — beasts with raping stingers, blood flowing like water, death the only release from tribulation’s torture — the faithful, both living and dead, will be caught up in the air with Jesus. For the graves will break forth, and we shall be redeemed.
The ground is frozen solid. This will take some time.
‘I didn’t do nothing,’ Samuel is whispering.
When a guy plants a tree, he wants to be careful. Reuben and I found it last year before I shot my deer: an oak, pin oak maybe, with a tie stretched taut around its centre. The looped label wouldn’t stretch, not anymore, so the orange plastic dug into the bark. That scar was worn deep. Reuben cut the bind off the tree. Seemed we both heard it breathe relief.
They finally get it under, beneath the snow, barely into the ground. The men lay the shovel atop the small dirt heap, beside the leaning sapling, and go into the church. The men enter the sanctuary.
Mom pulls us inside the church doors and into the fellowship hall. I wish I was hiding in the coats, but she settles me on a folding chair. She sits between us. She puts Naomi and Gloria side by side on folding chairs and touches the girl’s cheek for a moment.
She asks me. Mom asks me if she was mine. She knows better. She wants to ask more but she can’t. When I say no, she nods. Mom leaves me be. Then Gloria asks Naomi. When Naomi says no, she is looking at me with wavering eyes; her hands twist their purple mittens.
The hair tells, though. That wispy black hair matches, and it don’t match me. The women don’t leave Naomi. Mom sweeps her skirt underneath her legs, kneels down before Gloria and Naomi and takes their hands in hers. They are in a whispering circle.
We should always wear orange, then and now. For Daddy and Reuben, hunting gear is all the warm clothes they got, but my brother ain’t here and he don’t have a coat no more. The deer see the shapes moving through the pines, but their eyes can’t see orange. The danger is the other hunters. And wearing the colour, letting the others know you’re there, is the only way to stay safe in the woods.
They break the circle and I see the women’s eyes and I know Naomi told them, just like I saw that Reuben told Peter. Each eye holds a new darkness, a deep hole in colour that is wide and empty and more lonely than before. Naomi gave it away to them — Gloria and my momma know — and for that I will never forgive her. It is her hurt to share; I suppose I know that much. She can tell them about her brother and her belly and all about the blood. But the tiny elbows and ankles, that part is mine; that moment of no weight that I gave to that child — no matter what Naomi said — is mine forever.
Mom opens her mouth to speak, but Gloria is quivering and mumbling loud. ‘No one can know,’ she says.
And my mom says, ‘Of course no one can, no one will.’
‘About the baby.’ Gloria’s hands are holding tight to the folding chair.
‘About the baby.’ Mom is an echo. And then her face changes; this isn’t about the baby in the blanket. ‘About Samuel?’
Yes, about Samuel. Gloria only nods. No one knew what Samuel was doing, but no one knew what he was, what he was made of. My mother’s eyes move from Gloria to me and I can see her mind travelling too. Back to California, when there was a miracle born.
Gloria speaks. ‘Samuel wasn’t early.’ I hear the words, but then there is silence and there is a bright spot inside my mind, like a star exploding. ‘We sinned, Ingwald and me. We weren’t married yet. We fell, and Samuel is our shame. What you must think of me.’
‘I think I knew that anyway.’ Mom gently sweeps the tears from my aunt’s cheeks. ‘And it doesn’t matter. You are still my Glory, and we can still pray.’
But they cannot pray because Gloria does not stop.
‘My false miracle is Naomi’s curse.’
‘Glory, the Lord gave Samuel to you.’ Mom is almost holding her breath.
My aunt is a ghost, so pale she looks like she is going to vomit.
‘And the Lord used him to stop the bleeding,’ Mom adds.
‘And did the Lord use him again?’ There is sweat across Gloria’s forehead and she holds her stomach in pain. She is groaning and squirming on the metal seat. Her dress is soaked through.
My mother cannot answer. She gets up. ‘Alright, Glory. Let’s get you to the bathroom.’
My aunt stands and my mom holds her; they move slowly to the ladies. Naomi waits alone on the chair. Swinging her legs, she sits next to the metal chair stained with her mother’s blood.
There is an end to miracles. Naomi sees me, and it is like she has just realised I am here and her eyes are the same as they always were. They never were like mine. She sees me and she call
s me nearer, pleading, but I don’t come to her. The space between us is an undying shadow.
She is still mine — always will be — but I will never trust her or Reuben again. For all that Samuel is, at least he never told — not about nothing. And for all that I am, I never will either.
37
INSIDE THE SANCTUARY, HIS SHOULDERS STILL DAMP FROM snow, Samuel is kneeling at the front of the church. Ingwald is weeping. He and Daddy wait together in the last wooden pew. Both sit straight and tall like schoolboys, and my uncle’s hands grip his knees. After she helped Gloria in the bathroom, Mom settled her in the nursery. Then Mom told Daddy about Naomi, and Daddy told his brother. Ingwald hasn’t spoken since; he cries without sound, tears sliding along the scars on his face. All of them could see me if they were looking; I’m standing right before them.
Ingwald rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘I need your help, Eric.’
Daddy looks straight ahead.
Ingwald pushes up from the pew, bracing his body on his brother’s shoulder. ‘First, I need your forgiveness. Your son is yours. Sometimes, we choose our burdens.’
And my daddy moves his mouth to speak but says nothing. He swallows it down.
After nothing changes and no one moves, Ingwald says, ‘Call them.’
Because he does as he is told, my daddy calls together the elders of the church. Ingwald is seeking direction and comfort. He is seeking healing for Samuel. We must examine ourselves as to whether we are in the faith. We must test ourselves; this is just a test. Come now, let us settle the matter … Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. The request don’t go out on the prayer chain; this is a private matter before the Lord.
While we wait for the elders to arrive — old men leaving their suppers cooling on kitchen tables, young men rushing through the evening milking — I walk like a ghost through the church. Gloria grieves in the nursery. She can’t send out the call for help; she can’t even stand, let alone speak. Mom rocks my aunt like she is a newborn lamb. I put my hands to my ears and peek out the nursery door. In the church kitchen, my daddy leans by the phone. He stood and made the calls for help, but even he looks small and lost.