by Amy Espeseth
The lights in the sanctuary buzz, and the seats are hard and rough beneath us. Naomi is crying, but I am at peace for I already knew: it is well with my soul.
Keeping silent, my heart knows how I move inside the living things: I bring wholeness. And come spring, there is no matching the beauty of the trillium. Three white petals of sweet flower, they push up along the banks and in the meadow. Each petal is like clean milk in a pail: in some light it leans toward blue, but it smells pure and white and white alone. I look down deep inside where the three parts swirl into one: Mom, Daddy and Peter made me. My spirit is the very breath of God.
‘We all have our sorrows, our brokenness.’ Gloria is waving her tiny hands. ‘Eric is a man of faith. Ingwald is a man of faith.’ She breathes out. I can see her chest rise and fall. ‘And Peter would never let harm come to us.’ The light is pushing but fading against the windows of the sanctuary.
When Samuel sat here before, the elders weighing him down, he seemed to wear a halo. It shimmered about his head. But now, I slant my eyes and see it was just the angle of the light; it was just the dying light all along.
The change has come in her heart; Gloria is quivering and she takes ahold of Naomi’s shoulders to still her hands. My aunt will bury her sin — Samuel — deep again. My momma will do the same. Each woman will breathe it in and keep it down in her bottomless soul.
‘Our husbands’ faith can overcome any unbelief.’ Gloria stretches out one quaking hand to my momma. Their hands tie together.
Whatever happened before must remain unsaid: whoever has loved, whoever hasn’t. Both babies — Gloria’s and Naomi’s — just confused the time. And my momma just found too much love. Even I can see as much: a man could give it to the Lord and that sin would be forgotten, struck from the mind; but if a woman told, she would be pressed down all the rest of her days. So she’s got to hold it tight and hold it herself. Her burden is her own.
I’m sure that love was good once, what comfort or tenderness or plain slow-down rest there was. I believed them when they said so, even if I don’t anymore.
And now we come together in prayer, and they say it again. We four, who are women and can still speak to heaven, make the sounds together. I say it for them. My soul to take, we still have the words. We are praying for the second coming: the sea will give up her dead and the land will follow likewise. We want the world to break open. It will. And when it does, we will fly away. We will fly away, swiftly home.
39
A SNOWSTORM IN THE MORNING CONTAINED ME, BUT THIS afternoon I couldn’t stop walking. After all day yesterday in Grandma’s house and all night in the church, I can’t be trapped today. Once I could see my hand in front of my face, I was out the door, skirting the woods and up over the hill to Uncle Peter’s place. The same trees and paths, the same snow. It wasn’t blowing anymore, but I could hear the snow nonetheless: not falling, but swirling, closer to wings beating. Past the woods, with snow piled on the evergreens, coating each needle and clumping them fat. The branches hang heavy and low. The birds rest somewhere within the shadows, at least the ones that are left.
I slide open the door and Uncle Peter looks up; he is sitting on the base of an upturned ten-gallon bucket. And in his eyes, I see my eyes.
And I see — as if in a dream — a young man weeping behind the milk shed, building an altar, collecting the wood for a burnt offering. He asks the sky, ‘Where is the offering? Where is the lamb?’ There is no reply from the sky. Instead, inside Peter, the Lord’s voice speaks in his blood: there is evil in this child — evil in Samuel. But as Peter stretches forth his hand and takes the knife to slay the child, an angel of the Lord calls unto him out of heaven. The angel of the Lord — Reuben — cries, ‘Here am I. I am the sacrifice.’
And I see behind what is not a dream. When Peter took two babies behind the shed, he did so because he saw evil in one and love in the other: Samuel was destruction and Reuben was life. One boy would one day divide us and one boy would keep us together. When Peter chose not to slay Samuel, he also chose not to slay Reuben — even though it meant my mother would never be his. Peter’s sacrifice was both evil and good. For the first time in my life, I believe I finally know what it means to love. And for the first time in my life, I know I am looking at my true father.
My dreaming and my awake, my time spent inside trees and fish: these are not burdens, they are gifts. And these are gifts straight from God through Grandma — straight from Grandma through Peter to me.
‘Didn’t see you there.’ Peter gets back to sharpening the blade of his axe with the diamond stone he rubs slow and perfect along the edge.
Even from inside Peter’s shed, I can smell the snow in the air — like the change between noon to midnight, or winter and summer, or wind from stillness — and I can feel it melt on my mittens, dripping. The man slides the stone along the arc, and then he burnishes the edge with his callused palm. As sharp as it is, the blade just bites his skin. And it is dead skin anyway, thick and unfeeling.
‘What you need, Ruth?’
And I can tell it is time now, like when the bucks sniff the air. I’m afraid, with my mouth not making sounds. His old, rusty shotguns are laid out on the workbench, a butcher’s block scarred by knives hacking bone or missing. A small pile of plastic shavings is gathered neat beneath the vice secured to the bench; he’s already trimmed the shotgun shell.
The wind picks up outside the shed. The snow might have stopped or not. I can’t hear it or smell it now; the weather goes on without me outside, and I have no say.
Sacks of birdseed are stacked by his knee, just enough to get the little ones through what remains of these cold seasons. He’s remembered the oily black seed is their favourite. Peter remembers more than I know. But I do know that biting early into an apple discolours the white. It ruins both what is and what was to be. Things must wait to change natural; bite early into an apple — stain it with blood from the bite — and it browns.
Even still, I place my mitten on Peter’s shoulder and then I bend down and put my lips on his crooked mouth. My eyes are shut, like a kitten’s, but I feel his warmth in my mouth. My lips are soft, and his are hard, chapped from wind and snow. He smells of chewing tobacco and cider; I breathe deep. I feel his flat teeth. When it stops, I know it is my first one, the only time I’ve chosen a kiss. And it possesses me.
His arms push my shoulders back, but light, and he rises up still holding the axe.
‘You’re a beautiful woman, Ruth.’ Big shoulders moving beneath his quilted flannel, he looks me square in the face. ‘You look so much like your momma.’
There is a sway and a creak in the shed, and my blood pushes against my skin.
His finger traces the edge of the axe, feeling the smooth and feeling the sharp. Then he puts the leather cover on the blade, turns his back and walks out the door.
The Lord hears us when we talk to each other; He listens and hears. There is a scroll of remembrance that was written in the Lord’s presence describing those who feared Him and honoured His name. The Lord speaks and calls us His: they will be Mine. We are His treasured possessions, His jewels. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.
The shotguns are ready, and it is still snowing. Now is the time. Whatever birds remain will have seed. The door swings open and brings the weather inside.
Now Peter stands at the door. ‘Fetch Samuel.’
I wrap my hands around the carved stock of the oldest shotgun; it was my Grampa’s gun and will someday make a good companion for me. The gun feels warm and ready. My body can tell the time.
‘Fetch Samuel.’ Peter is done waiting.
So am I. And I will.
They are looking for him everywhere, in the woods and along the river, but I know where he is even without looking. Samuel is sulking, and he sulks in Grandma’s barn. I heard the old tractor spu
tter to a start, and I can hear it running still. He is always poking around that damn tractor, always messing with what he don’t understand. Quietly, I sneak across the farmyard toward the barn. Be sure, I’ll find him out; he can’t hide forever.
As I fling open the barn door, Samuel startles and looks up frightened from the back of the coughing tractor. But when he sees that it is only me, he smiles, but now I see those teeth as a sneer.
‘Get, girl.’ And his heart says we got enough that’s used and broken-down in here. He jerks his head and sweeps his arm toward the door. He wants me gone.
With a roar, the tractor’s power take-off grabs the dangling sleeve of his barn coat and wraps it around and around until Samuel’s arm is tangled into the metal. He is screaming as the machine whirls him around and smashes him against the wall. He grabs at his entangled arm. In an instant, his left arm is torn off almost completely. The other stump is still being chewed. Both Samuel and the tractor are screaming, but the only sound I hear is the barn creaking in the wind. He is meat, bone and sinew; he is white fat and red membrane. He is stuck.
He looks up at me and begs me with his eyes, like a coyote with his foot caught in a trap; he wants mercy. ‘Ruth. Ruth. Help me.’
I don’t know if the Lord is saying yes or no, but I know He needs to start speaking louder now. Samuel must be bleeding heavy, because he is slumped in the midst of a dark, red stain on the oily floor. In the middle of the pain, he keeps saying that God hears him and He is answering his prayer. I know that He hears, and I believe that He answers; I just think I’m having a hard time hearing His voice over the sound of Samuel.
He’s really panting now and keeping up a stream of prayer. ‘Oh God, oh Lord, oh Lord.’
He is scared, and he is hurting. He is crying out. ‘Oh God. Oh my God.’
And he sure ain’t cursing; he is praying and praying hard. He is praying. ‘Help me, Lord. Give me help.’
I guess that I’m the closest thing to an answer to prayer that he’s going to get.
‘I’m so cold. Oh Lord.’
I don’t know what to do. Even though I want to leave, I feel like I can’t just go and let him suffer so. I run out of the barn and look around the farmyard for anything that might help us through. I don’t know if what I bring is better than what I leave behind; I can’t even see clearly for the tears in my eyes. Following the fence lines, I run across the fields. I bring Peter.
By the time we make it back and into the barn, Samuel is laying flat on the floor, blood soaked through his shirt and pants. The boy must have slept for a while: a red snow angel is traced around his body. He sees us and barely raises his eyes; he cannot speak.
Peter moves quickly, dropping the first-aid kit between Samuel’s legs and kneeling down before him. He pulls out the thick bandages and begins tying tight around the meat that used to be Samuel’s right arm. ‘Hold on, boy. Hold on.’ He ties that rope hard.
Samuel is screaming again, but not aloud. I hear the screaming inside my head.
Peter reaches across to tie the left arm — less remains here. ‘You’ll live through this, Samuel.’ The man keeps wrapping and tying. ‘I’ve seen worse.’
And I see that Uncle Peter is saving this life. I see he never would have done it; he never did what needed to be done. He couldn’t sacrifice a child that he knew was evil, and he couldn’t sacrifice an infant that kept him from love. He has been out of the hunt too long.
I back away from the man and boy. Tangled together, from above, they must look like the stamen of a heart-red flower. Samuel deserves to die. I know what to do. I run outside and into Grandma’s house. I can see clearly; there are no tears in my eyes. I bring Ingwald.
We run across the farmyard and into the barn. When Ingwald sees his prodigal, Samuel’s flesh tangled through and mixed with bloody metal, he cries out, ‘Jesus!’
Peter scrambles up and raises his hands toward his brother. ‘If we take him in, the boy will make it. He has more than a chance.’
Ingwald rushes toward Samuel and looks at Peter’s face. Then, calmness enters the father’s eyes, and his face goes white as Ingwald realises he has His answer. He speaks the Word: ‘The axe is already at the root of the trees.’
Samuel starts screaming again. Ingwald’s cheek is mapped with scars.
I stand and watch. ‘Pastor?’
Ingwald sways with his hands raised toward heaven. He closes his eyes and shakes his head.
Samuel is a voice above the wind.
Peter wipes a bloody smear across his forehead. ‘Brother, I don’t know if this is the answer.’ He walks toward the door. ‘But it’s your God.’
‘We already have His answer,’ Ingwald is screaming over his son as his brother walks into the wind. He finishes, ‘And every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’ Ingwald’s knees clunk when they hit the floor.
He places his pale hand on Samuel’s back and weeps and prays over him. He watches the life drain out of his only son as they sit, both tangled around the tractor, together on the bloody floor. As he holds Samuel’s head like a jewel, Ingwald waits with one foot dangling in the manure gutter and one foot standing steady on the floor. It is cold, as it often is, even in this thawing time. There is ice and there is snow, and the wind blows constant outside the door.
While Samuel bleeds below, red seeping into the pitted concrete, I climb the ladder into the haymow once more. The light is fading, and I stumble and hardly recognise the place. I walk toward the hay chute and struggle to slide open the heavy door. It is windy and cold; snowflakes swirl around me as I stand high above the farmyard, looking out into the deepening night.
I look out toward the woods. These are our trees.
I look out toward the farmstead. This is our home.
I look out toward the river. This is our water.
Finally, I look out toward the heavens, to the snow and the dark; there is a glow from the farmyard light, glowing bigger than the moon. I hold myself against the chute. I keep holding tight.
Wrapped in Grandma’s coat, still stained with Naomi’s blood, I open her worn, leather Bible to the passage marked with a crimson ribbon. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.
40
HE COMES, SNOWMOBILE SMEARING A BLACK STAIN ACROSS the white snow of the farmyard. He comes first — like I knew he would — Reuben. He moves big-boned and strong, quicker than he ought to be, pulling his long legs through the snow bank and galloping into the gaping barn door to see the end of it all. I hear the tractor cut off and then only the low moaning of the father. In my mind’s eye I see Samuel, wet, being held tight. I know Reuben waits with Peter, apart from the dying, watching.
Now there is an angel who stands in the sun; he cries to the birds in mid-flight, he calls them to eat the flesh of the mighty and the small, all men and every living thing. Even the beast is slain and eaten. He is slain with the sword from the mouth of the rider, the angel that rides the horse. The angel stands in the sun and watches the birds gorge themselves on all flesh.
Next, Daddy comes, the rusty pick-up bringing dirty tyre tracks and boot marks. He stays inside those tracks.
And then the women come. That barn phone works, and the women come. Gloria and Naomi come quick, my momma driving the truck. Gloria runs to the barn and Mom is close behind her, pulling on her coat. Naomi stays in the truck, pressing her hand to melt the window frost.
Gloria almost makes the barn door when they catch her. Peter and Mom hold Glory’s arms and block her way. The birds are swirling, making the air black with their wings. They
swoop and cry with their high, screaming voices.
And now, up here in the haymow, there is no place to go, no fish or bird or animal to slip inside and slide away. There is nothing but my skin and my eyes, no coming time of fear or dread. Except that final reckoning, it comes still; I have no choice in that.
Dust and chaff and old, old dirt has been falling into my eyes. Outside, the clouds must have shifted; when I look up through the door again, shafts of sunlight stream down at me. Dust mites float in the air. As they turn and swirl, they are beautiful and glint in the light like tiny pieces of gold. There is beauty in this world too, even in this haymow — even, and at last, in this place.
My brother kneels before me. Reuben is wiping my face, wetting his hanky by pouring water from his hunting flask, rubbing blood and dirt from my cheeks. And Naomi is here too, holding out her hands like a cup. She’s come to find me. Eyes blinking, she rests on a hay bale with empty hands.
I’m mostly tired and not yet scared, not yet at all. But it is still on my heart, and he is at rest in front of me. So I ask him, and he answers.
‘She was ours, Ruth. I couldn’t leave her there, out in the cold. I couldn’t just leave her all alone.’
And this is why Reuben finally moved.
March will not die quietly. There is a blizzard coming — even after the early thaw, the sky aims to snow again. All that mud and muck lining the roadsides, sticking to our boots, will soon be layered with sparkling icy white. The blood was revealed, but the snow will cover. It will all be beautiful again.
41
WE COULDN’T HAVE AN OPEN CASKET; SAMUEL WAS TOO torn up. Daddy kept saying, ‘He’s in there alright; don’t you worry.’ But I wasn’t worried; last time I saw Samuel, he was pale and empty on the floor. It’d take more than a miracle to live through that, and I don’t think we get many miracles around here anymore.