Godshot
Page 29
Lately, I don’t have many secrets, though there is one. One I come back to on these long stretches of days, after I’m home from work at the diner and I sit on the rocker on the porch and read my romances. I pause and look at the sky and I crave. I crave the way it felt to grow another, the strangeness of the expanse. My human heart misses the weight of my belly the most on these damp summer days when the trees stretch long into the sky and I can see nothing around. I wish for the far-spread flatness of the valley. The blankness of brown for miles and that muted blue of a smog-filled sky. I look to the fog of the rain and try my best to remember the deep heat stretching from my heels to my hair. I try to remember Grampa Jackie in his fields and I try, but cannot for the life of me, remember the burst of a sun-warmed California grape against the roof of my mouth.
I tell Lyle in dreams, because there’s no other way: I named her Peach Agnes. One for the past, one for the future.
“When you gonna tell me who my daddy is?” Peach asks about once a year. I look into her eyes. I say nothing. I’ll let her feel her own way. The truth does not always set us free.
AND MY MOTHER?
I call her once a year on Peach’s birthday. She is still with the Turquoise Cowboy. I can hear him barking at her in the background sometimes, but we don’t talk about that. We talk of Cherry’s scones, of my mother’s past beauty, her pageants and organza gowns, of Grampa Jackie’s orchards. We talk of how when I was seven years old she held my hand on Old Canal Road waiting to cross the street and the sky opened above us and let down a beautiful rain. The way she arched her neck to it as if she had never been more grateful for life, for the earth, and where we stood on it in just that moment. How lucky we were to be together, the rain stilling us. When the talk starts to turn sad, we say goodbye. It is not nothing.
I don’t tell her I’ll always crave her embrace. I’ll always wish she was with me, hand through my hair at night, voice vibrating through the same rooms. But I’m old enough to know it was never really her I wanted. It was the eternal mother. The mother I had dreamed up. The mother I was never meant to have. The mother, instead, I was meant to be.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Samantha Shea who rooted for Lacey May from the very, very start. My endless gratitude to you—for every read, for every conversation, for every ounce of your belief in me.
To the best team in the world at Catapult: Jonathan Lee, sharp, encouraging, and funny as hell; your edits have made me a better writer, and have made Godshot a much better book. To Andy Hunter for reading my work and championing it. To Megan Fishmann, thank you for your enthusiasm, your tireless work getting this book into readers’ hands, and, above all, your friendship. To Nicole Caputo for seeing my work so clearly and creating the golden cover of my dreams. To Katie Boland, Jenn Abel Kovitz, Elizabeth Ireland, Alicia Kroell, Wah-Ming Chang, and Jordan Koluch: my deepest gratitude for the time you spent on this book. And to everyone else, you are the most dedicated and kind and intelligent group I could have ever wished for.
Thank you to everyone at Georges Borchardt, and thank you also to Kristina Moore at Anonymous Content for your intelligence and vigor, the way you envision this story, and your gold sweater.
A very special thank you to the Rona Jaffe Foundation for your generous support and your support of women writers, and to the MacDowell Colony, who hosted me as I wrote the fledgling first draft of this book and offered me a lifelong writing community.
My deepest thanks and appreciation to the Portland State University MFA program, and to my teachers and mentors who helped light the path: Leni Zumas for the experiments, to Charles D’Ambrosio for telling me that first workshop to “wake mom up,” and to Tom Bissell for always making me feel understood and well served. Special thanks also to Rachel Kushner at the Tin House Writers’ Workshop; Todd James Pierce, Kevin Clark, and Teresa Allen at Cal Poly; and to Pat Walsh, Navdeep Dhillon, and Diane Honda for the early encouragement and vital book recommendations.
To the writers I have met along the way who became the dearest friends, who inspire me daily, who supported this book by reading early drafts and offering endless encouragement, you all are the greatest gift to come from this pursuit—my soul twin, T Kira Madden, you see me. To Anna Weatherford, for being there at 3 a.m.; Lauren Hilger, for the poems; Annabel Graham, for the astrology; Sarah Marshall, for the western vampires. Kimberly King Parsons, Leah Dietrich, Patrick McGinty, Teddy Wayne, Sophia Shalmiyev, Laura Lampton Scott, Kristen Arnett, and Lindsay Hunter—I’m so lucky to read your work and know you.
To Genevieve Hudson especially, wife and confidante, I’ll meet you at the 24-hour Church of Elvis, any day, any time. Thank you for being my family, for having the same spiraling conversations again and again, for the long walks, for teaching me those years ago about grocery stores. I’m so glad we both showed up here.
To the F4: Carly, Katie, and Jaime, for the lifetime of magic and sisterhood. Let’s never stop reuniting. To Amber, for your lovely friendship, and to Helen, my oldest friend, thank you for being there.
A big thank you to New Seasons on Woodstock for offering space to write and endless kindness, especially Lynn.
A heartfelt thank you to anyone who spent time reading this book, and to independent booksellers for all you do.
And finally, this book would not have been written without the inspiration of my family:
To my father, Flip Bieker: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Thank you for your enduring belief in me, thank you for the stories. Thank you to Mary Glim, my mother, the first artist I ever knew, for the many lives we’ve already traveled together and the ones yet to come. I love you both so much.
To my grandfather, thank you for the raisins, for allowing me to see California through your eyes. To Putz, what did we do in life to be lucky enough to have each other? I am forever grateful for you. To my sister, Wendi. We’re in it together, thank God. To Geraldine, thank you for teaching us to ride on. To Rachel, for the book mail. To my aunts, for loving books and sharing that love with me. To the dear family, friends, and teachers too many to name, who have nurtured my children so I could write, especially Honey, your time, love, and skill is immeasurably appreciated.
Most of all, this book is for my brightest rebel wolf-girl, Harper “Roo” Jewel, you are the queen of my world. I’m in awe of you every day. To Finn Ocean, your sweet spirit has opened up new places in my heart. You’ve both made me the luckiest woman. To Brenon, you punk: you set the show up, you take the show down. Thank you for always listening to me read, for the laughs, for showing our children what an equal partnership looks like. It’s always sunny when I’m with you. I love you and I’m grateful for it all. When we were teenagers I told you I’d write a book. See.
And to the little girl in the Lakes: this one’s for you.
© Jessica Keaveny
CHELSEA BIEKER is from California’s Central Valley. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and her fiction and essays have been published in Granta, McSweeney’s, Catapult magazine, Electric Literature, and Joyland, among other publications. She has been awarded a MacDowell Colony fellowship, and holds an MFA in creative writing from Portland State University. Godshot is her first novel.