The Ballad of Ami Miles

by Kristy Dallas Alley

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say, but she shook her head.

  “It’s not your fault. I just wanted to make sure you knew. That she missed you and talked about you and mourned all that time she lost with you. But we never stopped hoping you’d come. And I know you never stopped hoping she’d come back. So now that you’re here, I really hope this can work. That’s all.” It felt good to hear her say that, and without thinking I reached out and took both of her hands in mine.

  “I hope so too,” I said. “I’ll try.” She squeezed my hands and nodded, and then we went inside. My mother was standing at a table, sorting through pieces of cloth and old clothes she’d collected on her trip.

  “There’s someone here to see you, Mama,” Penny said. She looked up and gave me a shaky smile.

  “Ami!” she said happily. “I wasn’t sure—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, cutting her off. “I shouldn’t have acted like I did. It was just a lot to take in, and so different than I thought.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said, stepping toward me. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I know it was. I think maybe … well, maybe there was no way for it to go different than that. But I hope we can move past all that now.” She reached up and brushed a stray curl back from my forehead. “I’ve missed so much time with you, and no matter how much I wish I could, I can’t get it back. But we have now, don’t we?” I could only nod, tears running down my face, and step into her arms. We stayed like that for a minute, then broke apart. I wasn’t sure what to say after that, but Penny broke the silence.

  “I told Mama we had to be on special lookout for anything red, white, or blue on this trip, and we brought back all kinds of stuff! There’s plenty for you to use too, Ami,” she said, moving toward the table covered with scraps of fabric. “Nina said you’re going to be on the float with us. What were you planning to wear?”

  “Uh,” I said, looking down at the clothes I had on. “I don’t really…”

  “I was thinking maybe a sundress out of this for you, Ami,” my mother said, pulling out a big folded piece of light blue material covered with tiny white and red flowers. “There’s enough for both you girls, if you don’t mind matching.” I looked at Penny and she shrugged her shoulders, but I could see all over her face that she hoped I’d say yes. I guessed maybe matching dresses was a sisters kind of thing.

  “Sure,” I said, wondering what a sundress was. They both smiled like I’d said the right thing.

  “Mama is real good with designs. Everyone asks her to help them when there’s something special they want to dress up for or when they want to learn a new quilt pattern. Don’t they, Mama?” Our mother looked embarrassed. Pride is a sin. It might as well have been stamped across her face, but I could see her determination not to pass that on to Penny. Better never to learn some lessons than have to try to unlearn them.

  “I think that’s great,” I said, giving my mother a smile. “You should be proud of your talents and hard work.” She looked at me, surprised, but then nodded and gave a shy smile.

  “Thank you,” she said, “but we won’t have much to be proud of if we don’t get to work. Too much talking and not enough sewing, I’d say.” She sounded just like Ruth but in a good way. I still missed my grandmother, even knowing everything she’d done. Or hadn’t done. “I’ll just need to take some measurements,” she said, holding up a well-worn yellow measuring tape and taking a tentative step toward me. I felt suddenly shy.

  “Oh! Um, okay. Just … what do you need me to do?” Penny looked down like she was trying not to laugh, but our mama was all business as she had me stand with my arms down, then straight out to the sides. I felt my face turn red when she measured my chest, but she acted like it was nothing.

  “Just be glad she doesn’t have anything to compare those numbers to,” Penny said, smirking. “Otherwise you’d get to hear how you’re turning into a woman right before her very eyes!” She laughed, and Mama rolled her eyes.

  “Well, you are!” she said. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but I tamped it down. I was here, I reminded myself, I was part of this. After the measurements, I watched Mama take big sheets of old, crinkled paper and cut a pattern, then lay out the pieces on top of the bits of material she planned to use and pin them before cutting. Her hands were swift and sure. Not everything we learned at Heavenly Shepherd was wrong and useless, I thought. But she’d gone beyond that same old pattern we’d been taught and learned to put her own shape to the things she made.

  “I can help sew once you get it all cut out. If you want,” I said. “I don’t know that I’m much of a designer like you, but I can sew. Do you have one of those old machines like we had at home?”

  Mama nodded. “We do, and thank you, Ami. But this light isn’t the best for detail work, and Marcus should be home soon. He’s been over at the lodge doing repairs for Helen. Why don’t we stop for now and pick up sewing in the morning when the sun shines right in this window behind me? I’ve got some of Evi’s cookies; we can have a little snack now and wait for him to get home. I know he’d like to see you.” For some reason, my instinct was to run away again, but I stayed. This was my family, I reminded myself. We needed to get to know each other. I’d never have a chance to know my own father, but maybe Marcus and I could figure out a way to be family to each other.

  “That sounds nice,” I said, and she smiled again. We settled in the front room with cups of mint tea from a mix my mother grew and dried herself in her little kitchen garden behind the house. I wondered if she missed the white sugar she had growing up or if she’d gotten used to using honey or nothing at all.

  “So you’re going to be on the float with the other teenagers. I guess that means you’ve made some friends?” she asked. I nodded, and she went on. “That’s good. I’ve watched most of those kids grow up since they were little bitty things. I’d see Hanna and Melissa getting taller, seemed like a few inches every time I saw them, and think about how you must be growing too. Sometimes it helped; sometimes it made it worse. But I never stopped missing you, Ami. I hope you believe that. I know it must be hard for you to understand.”

  “I know,” I said, looking down into my cup. “I believe you. It’s just … it’s still a little bit hard for me. I’m trying.” She just nodded and looked down into her own cup.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you told us, about how you ran away and your aunts and uncles helped you. I knew Amber would, but I wasn’t sure about my sisters. Jacob always was softhearted, though.” I laughed a little in agreement. “I’m just surprised they haven’t … I mean, do you think they’re looking for you? I keep half-expecting to see my daddy walking up to the house.”

  “I thought they might. I stayed off the road most of the way here and kept hidden in the woods alongside. Amber said they’d try to throw him off, tell him I probably went north thinking to find you in one of the C-PAF places, but she wasn’t sure that would work. But I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ve been here a week now, and they haven’t turned up, but part of me can’t stop thinking they’ll be here any minute. I ’magine he’s pretty mad that I left like that. Embarrassed him in front of that man.”

  “Oh, I just bet,” my mother said angrily. “Can’t have your womenfolk disobeying you in front of company, can you?” She looked up at me now, so I raised my eyes to meet hers. “You did the right thing by leaving, Ami. He had no right, no right to expect such a thing of you. Bringing in some man twice your age and expecting you to just … breed with him, like cattle!” Like they did to you, I thought, but there was no need to say it. “I’ve got half a mind to go back there myself and tell him just what kind of man he really is!” I must have looked surprised, because she laughed and shook her head. “But I won’t, though. No use poking the bear while he’s settled in his den. If he comes out of there, well, that’s another story. But I don’t know…”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Well, you know Solomon. It’s my way or the hi-way.
He may not come after you at all.” I should have felt relieved at the thought that Papa would decide I wasn’t worth coming after, and I was, but it also hurt.

  “When I was walking,” I said, “on the way here, I thought … well, I thought if I could just find you, then everything would be all right. And I thought that maybe I could find my own … partner, to try to, you know, have a baby with. And that I could bring him home and Papa and Ruth would take me back and everything would be the way it was before, except better, because I wouldn’t be alone anymore. But then when I got here, everything was so … you weren’t here, and being around other kids my age was … also not like I expected.”

  “I’m sorry I was gone when you got here. And about the way you found out about me being married,” she said. “And then I came and threw in a sister!” She looked at Penny, and we all laughed.

  “It’s funny, but I think you girls do look a little alike,” Mama murmured. “Except I never let that river of curls grow past her shoulders. That must be a mess to try to keep up.” She eyed my braid, which had lost control of most of the curls around my face. “Why don’t we cut it?”

  “What?” I said, even though I’d heard her perfectly well. “I don’t know. I’ve never…”

  “I know, they never let you cut it because the Lord has given it to you as a covering, blah, blah, blah. Who wants a cover in Alabama in July? We won’t do anything too crazy, just to your shoulders, so it’s easier to pull up. You can wear it pulled up high, like Penny.”

  “I was thinking I’d ask Daddy to give me cornrows now that we’re back,” said Penny. “They’re so much easier in the summer.”

  “Marcus … does hair?” This seemed so funny to me. I couldn’t imagine Papa or even my sweet uncles braiding my hair.

  “Men can do all kinds of things you’ve never seen them do! Around here, men who are lucky enough to be fathers take that luck seriously. And even without kids, it’s not all ‘men’s work’ and ‘women’s work’ the way we grew up knowing. Everybody pitches in and does what needs to be done.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot of things are different.” I gave a nervous little laugh. “I thought Hillie and Sam were sisters until Will explained to me about … you know, gay marriage and all that.”

  Suddenly her smile disappeared, and her lips pressed together in a line just like Billie’s and Rachel’s used to do when they didn’t approve of something. “Yes, well. Not all changes are for the best,” she said. I felt my stomach flip over.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, caught off guard again. “Will told me that gay marriage has been legal for a hundred years. And Sam and Hillie, they keep this whole place fed! They’ve been married almost as long as you’ve been alive. You … you think that’s wrong?” She sniffed and looked away.

  “Oh, Mama,” Penny said, shaking her head and looking up at the ceiling. “We’ve talked about this…”

  “I guess it’s not for me to judge what other people do. Maybe there’s some things I just can’t understand or some of the old teachings I can’t shake as easily as others. It just don’t seem natural to me.”

  Penny let out a disgusted sigh, and I must have looked shocked, because our mother shook her head and smiled like she wanted to brush her comments under the rug.

  “I guess I just think it would be such a waste if you were to take it into your head to do something like that. You and Penny, you might be fertile still! You can’t just throw away a gift like that.” My hands started shaking, and I tucked them under my legs to hold them still. Did she already know about Jessie and me, or was she just talking? I wasn’t ashamed of my feelings for Jessie now that I’d had a chance to figure out what they were, but the whole idea of it was still so new to me that it was hard to think about how it would seem to other people. Especially my own mother.

  “But, Mama,” I said, keeping my voice as low and calm as I could, “what about loving someone and having them love you back? Isn’t that gift too precious to throw away?”

  “I guess I just don’t understand that kind of love,” she said. “Or whether it’s a gift or just confusion.”

  “But … how can you still think that after … after the way they put you out because of who you ‘took it into your head’ to love? I guess Papa and Ruth, they thought the chance to make a pure white baby was too good a gift to throw away, didn’t they?”

  “It’s not the same thing, Ami,” she said.

  “How is it not?” Penny asked. “Did you choose who you loved? When you saw how hard it was going to make things for you, why didn’t you just choose to stop loving Daddy? Would that have been so easy for you?”

  “No, of course not. Maybe you’re right,” she said quietly, looking up at Penny and then me and trying to smile like everything was fine. “I guess you can take the girl out of the compound, but you can’t take all of the compound out of the girl. But let’s not borrow trouble, okay? Not when we’re all just getting to know each other.” She looked at me hopefully, and I nodded, trying to relax my face and shoulders from the clench I was holding.

  “Maybe Ami and I can get dinner started?” Penny asked, and I knew she was trying to change the subject before things got any worse. “Daddy should be home soon. You’re staying, aren’t you, Ami?” I wanted to say no. I wanted to hightail it out of there, but I knew that I shouldn’t.

  “Sure,” I said. “What are we making?”

  Mama smiled, and I could see the tension leave her. “Marcus said he’d bring home fish, so let’s hope they’re biting!” she said. “I’ll put some of those little potatoes on to go with it. Why don’t you girls see what looks good in the garden for a salad?” I followed Penny around to the back of the house where their little kitchen garden grew, but once we were back there, she turned around to look me in the eye.

  “Well, I guess you’re not the only one who has to apologize for your family’s backward beliefs,” she said. She looked upset. “I’m sorry she said all that stuff, Ami. I know you … well, I mean, it seems like … you and Jessie?” I felt my face flush, but I made myself look her in the eye.

  “I guess everybody knows, huh?” I said. It wasn’t really a question.

  “Nina told me,” she said, grinning. “And I think it’s great! I don’t think Mama knows, though. If she did, she wouldn’t have said all that stuff.” I raised my eyebrows and gave her a questioning look. “Well, maybe she would have,” Penny admitted, “but I like to think she wouldn’t. She’s not a bad person, Ami. It’s just, it’s like she said—some of that stuff she grew up with is still stuck in her head. But I think that’s just because she hasn’t had anyone close to her to knock it loose.”

  “So that’s what I have to do, knock it loose for her?” I asked, and she laughed.

  “Yep! If Jessie makes you happy and she has to accept that to keep you around, then that’s what she’ll do. She’s so glad you’re here, Ami. And I am too.” She gave me a shy smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Me too,” I said. Was this what it meant to have a sister? At Heavenly Shepherd, I always felt like there was one opinion—Papa Solomon’s—and the rest of us had to fall in line. But here Penny was taking my side even though she wanted me to believe that our mother could change. I decided that a sister might be a pretty good thing to have, and I felt a tiny seed of love for her plant itself in my heart.

  We gathered greens, tomatoes, and cucumbers for the salad, and pretty soon Marcus came home with fresh fish that he cooked over a little firepit he’d built. Their cabin and yard were tiny compared to the compound, but there was something homey about it all. The garden was laid out in neat rows, and it was separated from the firepit by a little patio paved with old bricks fitted together in a pattern. They even had a little rough-built table and chairs out there. There was an orderliness to the whole thing, like someone had put a lot of thought and time into making things just so. Was that my mother, I wondered, or Marcus? Or was this a home they could have only made together? Whe
n everything was ready, we sat down at the table on the patio to eat.

  “I hope you don’t mind if we eat out here, Ami,” my mother said. “I know it’s hot, but at least there’s a little breeze. It’s just so stuffy in the house this time of day.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “I’m always happier outside than in.” I looked up to see them all watching me, and suddenly I felt awkward. My mother must have sensed it because she started fussing over filling everyone’s plates.

  “What was it like—” Penny started, but Marcus cut her off.

  “I don’t think Ami wants to talk about that now, Penny,” he said. My mother looked at him gratefully, but Penny rolled her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “What was it like growing up on the compound, is that what you wanted to ask, Penny?”

  “Well, yeah. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, though,” she said. “I just wondered…”

  “I don’t mind talking about it. It wasn’t all terrible or anything. I mean … the way I left was, and I always missed you,” I said, looking at my mother, “but mostly it just felt … like normal life, I guess. I was safe and I had enough to eat, like you wanted, Mama. Ruth took good care of me, and Billie and Rachel and Amber and Jacob and David played with me and taught me things. I learned to read, even if I wasn’t allowed to read a lot of different books.” Penny made a surprised face, and I realized there was a lot we still didn’t know about each other. “And how to sew and grow food and even hunt a little bit, even though I didn’t like it. My uncle Jacob took me fishing a few times,” I said to Marcus, “but the river is a couple days away, so I couldn’t go with the men anymore once I got older. I fished on the way here, though, caught my dinner my last night on the road.”