In one of the broken bits of story—oh this story I am sick to death of, the one I wish would go away—in this bit my father’s wife screeches, “She would steal my baby!”
My father: “She meant no harm.”
My father’s wife: “She took the baby into the cold! She tried to make her catch her death!”
In this bit of the story there is nothing much to see. I am hiding behind my mother’s skirt. I squeeze fistfuls of her skirt. I squeeze my eyes shut. Every bit of my body is trying to vanish.
My father: “She meant only to soothe.”
My father’s wife: “She meant to kill my baby!”
Pressing my mother’s skirt against my mouth, I think a silent confession. Many times I have wished it: If only we could carry the squalling baby into the snow and leave her there, we would have peace and I would have my mother to myself again.
My father’s wife: “Let go of me! She must be punished!”
Her voice is the rough redness of flesh; it’s the mess my mother removes from a grouse she has plucked and laid open. Her voice is branding irons; her voice is flame.
Everything is upside down. The door is open to the cold, yet we are in danger of being singed. My father’s wife never comes here, yet she is standing on our threshold, straining to cross it. Never before has my father’s wife acknowledged that I exist, yet here she is, telling everyone the story that I tried to kill her baby.
I bite the wool of my mother’s skirt, trembling. I am trembling because I can feel my mother trembling. My mother, who pitches hay from frozen bales, who puts her arm into the body of a sheep who is lambing, who hauls water and wood in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. My mother, who has made milk come into her breasts for the baby who is not her own. My mother, who is never afraid, is trembling. Every bit of myself begs to hurry up and be burned by this fire so we may be released as sparks to leap into the sky.
In a voice like an animal being put through a mangle: “Get them out!”
In the story that plays in my head, there is a struggle, the sound of boots slipping over stones, the sound of skin slapped and slapped again, and then my father manages to force his wife away from the door and my mother manages to lean against the door and bolt the lock. My father’s wife’s screeches can be heard all the way back to the main house. My mother and I say nothing. As if our tongues have become ash. As if I have done something unspeakable. We go to bed without words.