The Ballad of Ami Miles

by Kristy Dallas Alley

  Will barked out a laugh. “You don’t still believe all that, do you?” Now he did turn and look at me. “About God making everything happen like some big puppet master in the sky? You know that’s just a story, right?” This was so shocking to me that I thought I must be misunderstanding what he was saying. The look on my face must have said as much, because he shook his head and laughed again. “Ami, God’s not any more real than the C-PAF men. That’s just a story people made up a long, long time ago to try to figure things out. Didn’t you ever read about the evolution of species or how the universe was really formed? Scientists figured most of it out a long time ago. They went into space, and they sent satellites and telescopes up there to take pictures and measure things. The universe is infinite! It goes on and on with no end. The earth is just one of billions of planets, just like the sun is just one of billions of stars with their own solar systems. People used to claim that God made us special, but by the time the Break happened, hardly anyone believed that anymore.”

  “Then why are there all those books in the library here about world religions and understanding the Bible? And what about the Bible, do you think it’s all just lies?” I felt light-headed.

  “Well,” he said, kicking at the dirt, “of course there are holdouts. Some people can’t handle the idea that we’re on our own and it’s all up to us. And, you know, religion was a big part of the history of the world. We can’t really understand history or art or music or anything without understanding the people who made all that stuff happen and what all they believed in. Religion is still something people can study just like we study history or science, but that don’t mean we have to believe in it. Shoot, the more you learn about religion, the more you start to see that hardly anybody ever agreed on anything about it from the very first. Most of the wars that were ever fought in this world were about religion; did you know that? People used to kill each other to try to prove they understood God better than the other guy, if you can believe it.” I could believe it. Papa Solomon loved the Old Testament stories, which were full of the word slew.

  “But still,” I said, “you don’t really know that God isn’t real, right? That’s just what you think.” I felt defensive and wrong-footed. I wished I had studied all that stuff Will knew about science and space and that other thing he’d said about “species.” How could I argue with him when I didn’t know what he knew? Papa and Ruth had tried to keep my faith strong by hiding things from me, but all that ended up doing was making me feel doubtful and weak. I wanted to go back to the library right that minute and start reading all those books on the shelves. I needed more information. Until then, I needed to change the subject.

  “You said these trees are Miss Hillie’s babies. Is that because she couldn’t have any real babies of her own, or did she have some and they’re just grown up now?” Will gave me a confused look and then laughed.

  “Well, I don’t know, Ami. I reckon Hillie never knew if she was able or not, seeing as how Sam couldn’t exactly get her pregnant.” He raised one eyebrow and watched my face like he wasn’t sure how I would react. Mostly I felt like I was missing something.

  “What?” I said stupidly. “Sam?”

  “Sam and Hillie are married. We just threw them a big thirtieth anniversary party a few months ago. Far as I know, neither one of them ever tried out being with a man. They fell in love pretty young.” Now it was my turn to laugh. I was sure Will was pulling my leg.

  “Riiight,” I said. “Sam and Hillie are married. Are you and Ben married too? No, I know, you and Melissa are getting married, since anybody can marry anybody! I think I’ll marry that peach tree right there!” I realized I was moving around a lot, like I do when I get agitated, but Will was just standing still, watching me with that eyebrow cocked. He didn’t look so amused anymore.

  “Ami, do you really not think that Sam and Hillie can be married? Gay people have been gettin’ married for, hell, at least a hundred years. And before that, really, it just might not’ve been strictly legal. Where is it you come from, Ami Miles?” But I couldn’t answer him. My mind was a whirl, and I had to sit down right there where I stood.

  “But,” I asked, my mind grasping at one of the million thoughts that were flying around in there, “but why? Why would they want to do that? I thought the whole point of getting married was to try to have babies.”

  Will sat down next to me. We were looking out at the lake now. I couldn’t have this kind of talk with him looking right at me. “Now who in the world told you that? That’s the kind of backward thinkin’ that made people give up on life during the Break, Ami.”

  “But people gave up because babies are the whole point!” I said. “There was nothing left for them to live for…”

  “They ain’t, though,” he said. “Not everybody chose to have them even back when they could, you know? But some gay couples did adopt.” This sounded like some of the things Ruth had hinted at, about people not wanting to follow the natural way and follow God’s plan, and not wanting to keep some of the babies they had. It was still hard for me to wrap my mind around. I wasn’t ready to ask Will about the mechanics of it all, though.

  “Gay, that means women who love other women and … men too?” Out of the hornet’s nest of thoughts in my head, one little thought was breaking free and flying straight toward my heart: There was a word for what had happened, was happening, between Jessie and me. It was a thing that was done. Miss Hillie and Sam were not sisters; they were a couple, and they had once been young like Jessie and me. They had fallen in love and gotten married. And other people like them had been doing the same thing for a hundred years. And even before that, maybe not out in the open, but in secret. Probably ashamed and scared like I had felt just a few hours before, after that kiss. Ruth had known about this; I was sure of it now. My family had kept secrets from me about something as big as this.

  “Well, not everybody fits into neat categories like men and women, but—” he started.

  “Thanks, Will. I gotta go,” I said, jumping up and heading back the way we’d come. He called after me, but I just waved and said I’d see him later. I couldn’t take any more talk just then. I needed to think, but I needed not to think too. This was all too much, and I needed a break from it. I made for the cool quiet of the woods on the other side of the lake. I had to round the point that curved in front of the lodge, but no one was down that close to the water, and I kept my head down and tried to look unwelcoming to company. Soon I was on the path, under the green-lit canopy of leaves and branches. I forced myself to slow my footsteps. I realized I was breathing heavy and fast, so I took a few slow, deep breaths. Slowing my mind was a lot harder.

  All those talks about the way of things, about finding a partner and carrying out God’s plan and hopefully making a baby, and not once, not once had Ruth ever mentioned that sometimes it happens in a different way. Not once had she ever told me that those feelings I was supposed to feel for a man might end up being for a woman instead. I guess if I had grown up in a more normal way, around other kids my own age, I would have figured it out on my own. My only ideas about courting had come from Laura Ingalls and her Almanzo. No wonder those were the only books Ruth let me read. There must be books with gay love stories all over the place. Everybody knew about this but me! There was so much I didn’t know, and I felt my foundations cracking. Papa Solomon loved to preach about how the man who has faith builds his house on a rock and everything else was shifting sand, but what happened when it was faith itself that was built on sand? I needed a rock to carry me through all this, not half-truths and secrets and outright lies!

  My footsteps had sped up again to match my racing thoughts, and soon I was coming out of the woods to the place where I could see the gardens off in the middle distance. There were the shapes of Hillie and Sam. They were not like any of the other women I knew, but they were somehow like each other, and that had made me think they were sisters. But now that I knew, I could see it; the easy way they had together,
the way they barely needed more than a nod or gesture to know what the other meant. I wondered if they both wore their hair short because it was cooler and easier for the hot outdoor work they did or if they just didn’t care about any of that stuff at all. What had Will said right before I left? Not everyone fits into neat categories. I wished I could ask them, but I felt too shy and afraid. What if I said the wrong thing? What I needed was information, and I thought I knew where I could get it.

  Eighteen

  When I got to the library, I saw a few people reading in some of the rooms, but I didn’t see Miss Jean. Jessie wasn’t there either, and even though I knew we needed to talk, I was a little bit relieved. I needed time to figure out what I wanted to say to her, and I needed to understand some things better. I found the religion section again and read the titles, wondering at how many books there were. Each one of those books showed that there was a person who had spent enough time thinking about this stuff to at least feel like they had figured a little piece of it out. They must have studied a lot of these other books before they felt ready to write their own. I had never really thought about the idea that people might live their lives that way, studying and thinking over ideas until they had something that seemed new enough to want to write it down for other people to read.

  “Hello?” I turned around to see a woman standing behind me. I figured she must be Miss Jean’s sister, Evelyn. It was hard for me to guess her age because her dark curly hair hung loose past her shoulders like a girl’s, but it was sprinkled with gray. She had only a few lines at the corners of her eyes, and somehow I knew that smiling had made them.

  “You must be the new girl Jessie told me about. I’m Evi. My sister and I are the librarians here.” Jessie talked to her about me? The thought made me smile, but I needed to focus.

  “I’m Ami.” I wasn’t sure what else to say, but Evi seemed willing to wait. She looked at me expectantly, then smiled as the wait stretched into an uncomfortable silence. Finally, she decided to take the lead.

  “Well, Ami, is there something I can help you with? I see you’re in the religion section. Is there something specific you want to look up?” She smiled.

  “I … well, uh, I’m not sure. I just, I was talking to Will? And he said, well, he told me that … some things that were … different. From what I was taught.” I looked at the floor, my cheeks burning. I was still bad at talking to people. Evi probably thought I was some kind of fool.

  “Ah, I see. Will!” She gave a low little laugh. “Yes, he has a lot of opinions about these things. And I’m guessing that maybe where you come from, there was only one opinion. Am I right?” I looked up and saw her friendly smile, and I burst into tears. Don’t be nice to me! I thought, but I didn’t say it. I needed my anger as something hard to push against. I wished the earth would open up and swallow me whole.

  “Oh boy, okay, hey, Ami? It’s okay. Here, let’s go over here and sit down for a minute. It’s going to be all right.” She led me through a doorway into a nook near some windows that contained a few squishy-looking chairs, handed me a clean handkerchief out of her pocket, and told me she’d be right back. I sat there trying to get ahold of myself, but the embarrassment just piled on top of everything else and made me feel even worse. I couldn’t stop crying. Pretty soon, she came back with two cups of hot tea and a plate of butter cookies.

  “I know a nice cup of tea can’t fix every problem, but it sure never makes one worse, does it?” The tea was milky and sweet, and I did feel a little better after a couple of sips. We never drank it that way back home, but I liked it.

  “That’s honey from my bees making it sweet. It’s all the clover around here that keeps the bees so happy.” She watched approvingly as I took a bite out of one of the cookies and made an involuntary mmm sound. “That’s right, you eat up. I just baked those last night. Baking relaxes me, and it gives me something to do when I can’t sleep. I’m a little bit of a night owl, myself. How about you?”

  “Me? Um … I guess not too much. I like to get up real early before everyone else. That way I can get my chores done before the heat of the day sets in, too. I guess it’s cooler at night for baking, though?” She smiled and nodded.

  “That’s right. Doesn’t heat up the house as much. So, who is ‘everybody else’ back at home?” Something about Evi made me feel comfortable, and before I knew it, I was telling her everything. She reacted to the story of my family and Zeke Johnson about the same way that Jessie had. When I told her about waiting for my mother, I saw a look pass over her face like pieces fitting together, and she frowned. And then I told her about Jessie and the kiss, even though I felt my face burning and couldn’t look at her while I said the words. I told her about how Will explained about gay people and told me about Hillie and Sam, and how that made me feel a little better but also a lot worse in some ways because it just made the whole mess even more complicated. And then about what he said about God just being a story that people had outgrown and how I didn’t know about any of the science and history things he talked about.

  “And you think that maybe if you could figure that part out, then you would know what you should do?” I nodded, feeling miserable again and looking down into my empty cup.

  “Did you know that some people used to think that looking at the tea leaves after you drank a cup of tea could tell the future?” she asked. I shook my head no. “Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it? Other people tried using a special deck of cards called the tarot or throwing different versions of dice or bones or sticks. I tend to think of all those different things as prayer. It’s all just asking, isn’t it? For answers, for guidance, for help deciding what to do?”

  “I guess that makes sense. But then, how can we ever know which is the right way? Is the answer in some of these books?”

  She gave me a sad little smile and shook her head slowly. “I wish it were that simple, Ami. The truth is, we really can’t know, not for sure. Of course, I think it’s wonderful to read about the different ideas and religions and ways that people have come up with all over the world since the beginning of time. I’ve done quite a bit of that myself, as you can imagine. But after all that, I think what I’ve decided is that it must not matter what we believe. If we can’t know the truth, how can that be our fault? Maybe God is real and maybe He’s not, but I have to think that if He is, or if She is, because that’s a possibility too, you know, then such a God wouldn’t hold a little thing like being wrong against us poor, confused human beings.”

  “But then … what’s the point? If it doesn’t matter what I do, then what’s to keep me from just doing whatever I want?”

  “Well, what if you did? Why would that be a bad thing?” Her grin was a little mischievous now.

  “Well, what if I wanted to do bad things? Why should I stop myself, if it’s not because God will punish me?”

  “Is that the only reason you don’t do bad things to people now? Are you thinking about conking me over the head right now and stealing my books?”

  “Well … no. But, but what if I was?” I felt like I needed to get up and pace, but I made myself sit still.

  “Well, then I guess I’d be in trouble. But mostly, I think people don’t really need to be threatened with punishment or bribed with rewards to behave reasonably well. And even having those threats and bribes has never really kept the truly bad people from doing their bad things, has it? Maybe we just like feeling like we have some control in spite of all evidence to the contrary. And then, plenty of people who didn’t believe in all that stuff have done wonderful, beautiful things.”

  “So how am I supposed to know if I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and choosing what I’m supposed to choose?” I asked. I felt more frustrated and confused than ever. I wished that someone could just tell me the right answers to all of my questions.

  “Maybe the real question is this: Why do you think there is something you’re supposed to do or choose? Supposed to according to what? If there’s some big divine plan laid
out for you, Ami, then do you really have any choices to make?” She waited a few seconds to let that sink in. “What if there is no supposed to? What if we all just have to live our lives and make our choices and make the best of wherever those choices take us? Would that be so terrible?”

  “But what if I make a mistake? What if I choose wrong?”

  “What if you do, Ami?” She smiled and shook her head. “Do you really think anyone has ever made it all the way through life without making a mistake? Mistakes are in the eye of the beholder, if you ask me. Sometimes we make choices and things don’t work out; that’s true. And then do you know what happens? We just move on. We survive. There are plenty of people here at Lake Point who could tell you some stories about surviving if you need proof. Sometimes it’s other people’s bad choices we have to survive. Your friend Jessie knows something about that. And based on what you told me about your family, you know something about that yourself. It’s just that you haven’t come out on the other side of it yet. You still don’t know that you’ve survived.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just sat and thought about it.

  “You know, I do have a book for you, Ami, but it’s not what you came looking for. Let me go get it.” I ate another cookie and let my eyes wander to the window, where I could see what was left of that morning’s rain dripping from the trees. The sun had come all the way out now, and the world looked washed and bright. I felt like my brain was shutting down from having too many things to figure out, and it felt good to focus on the world outside. Pretty soon, Evi was back, holding one of the flat, wide children’s books I’d noticed on my first visit. Instead of being bright and colorful, though, this one was mostly brown like old paper bags and boxes.