Sydney
My mother, her eyes focused on the stage where she’s being introduced, wiggles her fingers and rolls her thin shoulders. She licks her lips and circles her jaw.
Mom’s tailored suit speaks of professionalism and feminism with a touch of fashion—certainly not too much, though. This is a woman of God—not a politician. She’s not applying for a job, she was chosen for it.
The crowd noise swells. Thousands of people all here for her…for Her.
A big breath, chest expanding, smile growing, and Mom steps out into the lights. I move out of the shadows, my dogs trailing close, stepping to the edge of the stage. She approaches the podium, her hair glowing in the lights. It’s shorter than the last time I saw her. She’s gained some weight, and the circles under her eyes are diminished. She is healthy, recovered from the bullet wounds inflicted by a shooter—a men’s rights activist who considered my mother a threat to his way of life—a threat to all men.
And maybe she is…
“Good evening,” Mom says, her voice booming over the crowd. They cheer and clap. Mom releases the microphone from its stand and paces away from the podium. “Thank you for coming, for listening.” She sounds genuine.
“I want to tell you a story.” A hush falls over the theater. “Last year I spent several months in ISIS-controlled territory in northern Syria. There I witnessed unspeakable horrors.” My mind flashes to that land where I almost died…where I hoped to die. Blue nuzzles my hand as if he can read my mind. He helped keep me alive, his plaintive whining holding me here.
Mom raises a hand toward the roof and closes it into a fist, letting her head bow, chin toward her chest, mouth close to the microphone. “But let me start with this message: Women have an equal place in this world.” She lifts her gaze to the crowd. “And we must fight for it. Release the wolf!”
Clapping and cheers echo beyond the lights.
They are selling T-shirts in the lobby with the silhouette of woman’s face set into the snarling profile of a wolf. It’s Blue and me…the miracle woman come back from the dead. Proof of the Her prophet’s divinity. The story is so much more twisted than that…so much more complicated.
Raja, the woman who they now call the Her prophet…#IAmHer, found me bleeding to death. She took me back to her cave. A skilled surgeon caught behind ISIS lines, Raja fled her family’s village with her dogs, a herd of goats, and all the medical supplies she could carry. Was it God who sent her to help me or a random event spun out of nothingness in an unknowing, chaotic universe?
“You’ve all heard the words of our prophet.” Mom paces back toward the podium. “Have seen evidence of her divinity—the videos of her bringing people back from the dead.”
I cringe at her words. Those videos were my idea…I wasn’t myself. For months I remembered nothing from my recovery. I went from dying on a mountaintop to racing into a battle, Blue by my side, Raja’s mastiffs, giant, fearless, and terrifying, backing me up.
The video of my rampage that day has over twenty million views. That’s why I’m wearing brown contact lenses, glasses, and a wig of curly red hair. It’s my Orphan-Annie-grown-up-to-become-a-librarian look.
Robert says it’s sexy. I say it’s ridiculous. Everyone is entitled to their opinions in this world. And my mother’s opinion—though I’m sure she’d call it a belief—is that Raja is a divine prophet who brought me back from the dead to prove the equality of women.
Mom’s sermon lasts over an hour and a half. There is a chorus who joins her, and they sway and swing, moved by the spirit. After her final exhortation to follow the prophet in the fight for female equality, I head back to her dressing room and close the door behind me. The applause as she leaves the stage is still booming when the door opens and she walks in.
She is smiling, sweat shining her face. Her head cocks in confusion when she catches sight of me and then recognition blooms. “Joy,” she whispers.
An assistant tries to follow Mom into the room, but she turns quickly and dismisses her, closing the door behind the woman and slowly turning to face me.
I clear my throat and try on a smile—it feels forced and uncomfortable. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, taking a half step toward me and then stopping, her movements unsure. She doesn’t want to scare me off.
“I…” Words fail me. I don’t know how to do this.
Her eyes dart around the room, as if looking for a way to make this not awkward. She lands on Blue and takes a deep breath, giving him a weak smile before looking at me again. “Do you want something to eat or drink?” she asks, gesturing to a table laden with options.
Hunger roars to life and I stare at the bowl of M&M’s as if they may be my salvation. “Okay, thanks,” I approach the table. She steps up next to me. I take a handful of M&M’s while eyeing the fruit basket.
“How are you?” she asks, standing to my left, both of us staring at the bounty before us.
“I’m pregnant,” I say, the words garbled by the massive amount of candy in my mouth.
Mom stills. “Pregnant,” she whispers.
I nod, still staring at the bananas, but I can feel her looking at me. Feel the force of her emotions. I swallow and take a breath before meeting her gaze. Her eyes are filled with tears, and a smile splits her face. It makes her look younger, reminding me of the woman my father loved…that I loved with the fierce innocence of a child.
“That’s so wonderful,” she says.
A little laugh eeks past the lump in my throat. She’s the first person to have that reaction. Robert freaked and left the room; Mulberry questioned his parentage…I experienced fear like I’ve never known. But my mom—she’s happy. She thinks it’s wonderful. A thought blooms, unleashed by her joy…maybe it is wonderful.
“I’m scared, Mom.” I sound like a child. Maybe I still am one.
“Oh honey.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, and it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Of course you are,” she smiles. “All moms are scared.”
“They are?”
She laughs. “Terrified.”
“But I have good reasons to be scared. My life…”
“It’s a miracle. It’s important.” Her hand squeezes my shoulder. “You’re a very special person. And your child will be too. You were gravely injured.” Her voice dips on the word gravely, just like a preacher’s should. “The fact that you can even get pregnant is a miracle.”
“Mom, can we not talk about miracles?”
“How can we talk about new life without talking about miracles?” She sounds genuinely confused.
“Let’s try.”
“Okay.” She moves her hand from my shoulder around to my back, pulling me into a hug. “I’m so glad you came to see me.”
“Me too.” And I actually mean it.
Frank takes that moment to press between us, his whole body wagging. Mom laughs and steps back. “He’s grown,” she says, bending down to pet him.
An impulse throbs through me. “Do you want him?” I ask.
She looks up. “What?”
“He’s so sweet,” I say. “And I’m afraid if he stays with me, he’ll get ruined.” Frank wriggles onto her foot, leaning the length of his body against her leg. “He likes you.”
“I bet he likes everyone,” she says with a smile.
“True,” I admit.
Her eyes find Nila behind me. “But she is not so quick to trust.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“No,” Mom agrees with a nod.
Blue lets out a low growl moments before a knock at the door. “Just a minute,” Mom says, disrupting Frank from his perch as she moves toward the door. She opens it a crack, shielding the room with her body.
“You’ve got that meeting with the Fellowship of the Blood,” a woman’s voice reminds my mother.
“Oh, right. Give me a few minutes. Please apologize for me.”
She closes the door and turns back to me. “The Fellowship of the Blood?” I ask. The group Declan asked about.
“Yes, they are a wonderful new church that is bringing the word of the Her Prophet to this area. I’m meeting with their pastor and several members to discuss putting together a text.”
“A text?”
“Yes, a written document for followers to refer back to.” She clasps her hands in front of her, twining the fingers.
“Like a bible?”
“No, no.” She shakes her head. “The Bible is the word of God. This is the word of a prophet. It’s different.”
“This is another subject I’m thinking we should avoid.”
“If you want.” She steps away from the door. “Can you stay?”
“I didn’t plan on it.”
“Where are you headed?”
“That’s probably another topic to avoid.” I give her a sad smile.
She chews on her lip for a moment. “I’ll cancel with the Fellowship. I want to spend as much time with you as I can.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“But we have so much to discuss,” Mom steps forward, grabbing up my hands in hers. “When is your due date? Where are you going to have the baby? And”—she clears her throat—“if you wouldn’t mind sharing who the father is?” My brain is stuck back on my due date…and stuttering toward where I’m going to have the baby. “Joy?”
I blink my mom into focus. “I don’t know.”
Her lips pinch with disapproval but she nods. “Well, how many men is it between?”
I cough out a laugh. “No, Mom, I know who the father is.”
She lets out a breath, a blush spreading over her cheeks. “And it would be fine if you didn’t. It’s your body.” She pats my hand.
I laugh, taken aback. “Wow. I never expected to hear that from you.”
“I’ve given up a lot of my old beliefs, Joy.”
But still define your morals from an outside source. Add that to the list of topics not to discuss. “I don’t know my due date. I haven’t been to a doctor.”
“Oh.” She glances down at my flat stomach. “How far along do you think you are?”
“Almost two months.”
“How have you been feeling?” She squeezes my hands. “I had the worse morning sickness with your brother.” Her words steal my breath. James. Are we talking about him now? Is this a safe topic? “He was an easy baby, not like you.” She shakes her head, eyes unfocused, obviously seeing that long ago time when she was a young mother…and my brother a new life. A miracle. “James was always smiling. And boy could he make you laugh.”
Tears well in her eyes and she sucks in a breath, shaking her head and closing her eyes. Her baby is gone. It’s a fresh stab wound in my heart. I’ve mourned my brother’s loss and resented my mother for the way she acted after his death—as if his life was wrong, a sin, as if his love for another man made him evil. My hand covers my stomach as the reality of her loss sinks into me, touching some deep place in me…a new place.
“I miss him,” I say, grief welling. James won’t meet my child. Another dagger of pain. My grief has dulled over the years, worn by time as sharp glass is smoothed by the sea. This is a new pain, a fresh wound. A loss I never recognized before.
“Me too,” Mom says, her eyes meeting mine—magnetic gray, the silver of mercury and the slate of a brewing storm, the same as mine. For so long I’ve thought we were such different people.
But I didn’t always feel that way—when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be just like her. Since my father’s death, I’ve believed her to be weak. But maybe it was the strength of the love she had for him that made her so weak. Love can destroy us as easily as it lifts us.
I pull back, but her grip tightens on my hands. “Let me help you, please.”
Tears escape, warm and slow, easing down my cheeks. “Okay,” I whisper.
She embraces me, her smell saturating me, pulling me back to my childhood, the girl I was and the woman she was and all the fierce love that we shared seems to blossom anew between us.