Sufficient Grace

by Amy Espeseth

  Daddy said we shouldn’t handle him, that we shouldn’t get our scent on his feathers. Ingwald said that the Lord has His eye on the birds just as He has His eye on His precious children. Holding a hurt bird is a dangerous thing: he can scare himself to death. His little heart will beat right out of his chest. Praying for healing for this bird is like holding your breath, knowing you could just relax and breathe but being scared to quit hoping and let go.

  Birds aren’t safe; they can’t even trust their own eyes. Loons will try and land on heat mirages rising up from blacktop roads; they’ll mistake the mirrory haze for water and tumble wings and feet into the hard ground. And this little bird slapped straight up against sheer glass. Now his left wing hangs lower than his right; I wonder if he’ll ever fly again. I wonder if he’ll even breathe again through his hard beak. If God shows the same care for us as the birds, we are mighty deep in trouble.

  I’m all upset, all up in arms. I can’t think straight today; I’m having trouble settling on an idea or making up my mind. I can’t separate the thoughts in my mind from the feelings in my heart. I can’t choose between what is of the Lord and what is of the Enemy. We have to go home now. We must lay this soft-feathered bird down next to the outhouse and hope he ain’t dead. I hope he’s just playing possum. I pray that he will rise up and fly again. Maybe he already is in the arms of Jesus.

  Every year, almost every bird goes home. Wherever they spent the winter — down south in the warm there or up north here hiding in the cold — when summer comes, it’s back to the place where green is growing and violets and lilacs smell. No matter how far they’ve got to fly, they fly it right according to plan. She’s got to flit with wings and beak and find another one just right for her heart, a bird that flies straight and strong with clean feathers and eyes. He’s got to bring her twigs and such, branches that will bend to hold, and grass that will cushion the tiny eggs she’s set on laying. Inside the nest, they’ll have feathers — their own or otherwise, maybe one bright feather found on the ground, some lost blue spark to settle in with the plain padding — to soften the sharpness of the sticks. It is a long trip, this going home, but migrate means mate to most. And mate means eggs, and eggs make it worth the sore wings.

  They rear the young, raising them on drowned worms and flying beetles. Every night the nest is more crowded with their growing, clawed feet and round heads bumping as they settle into comfort. Every morning just might be the morning that the breeze blows gentle and the rain don’t come and the chicks finally try their stumpy wings. In the tree, the parent birds clutch the branch underneath their claws; they hold tight as they watch the babies slide away in the air. The babies squeak out their new voices and try to test their hearts with flapping. The old ones sit still, hearing their own hearts beat inside their feathers; the old ones rest and watch them fly. Then they’re gone.

  Near the end of summer, with blue draining from the sky and wood-smoke air changing all creatures’ minds into fall, the birds come by new feathers. Soon, they are wrapped in plumage right for the flight. It is by kind, this gathering together, this making of the flock. They match beak and feather and foot: browns with white speckles stay with browns with white speckles; blues with blues; reds with reds. Together they feed to plump up and grow. They are ready to fly far to the warm or ready to crouch still in the cold. The flock lives and moves and feels together. They see themselves in each other’s faces.

  My hands are bunched up, crooked like the bird we laid down on the woodpile by the outhouse; even asleep, or maybe dead, he had his feet clawed up like he was remembering sitting on a branch. His eyes were open but not seeing and his neck was floppy. I didn’t bury my face in his feathers. I didn’t have to; I knew without even smelling that he smelled like a tree. Naomi and I laid that bird down outside, she with sniffing and crying and me with my lips pressed tight. She told her daddy she was so sad and now, even as the van jostles over the muddy ice ruts in the road, she slumps in her seat, deep asleep. She said she was so sad, but now she don’t look it none. The van is warm and smells of firewood burning; our damp clothes are drying on our bodies as we ride. She was so sad, but now she sleeps. I am awake. I keep pressing my lips together and taste the syrup from the pancakes we ate for lunch. We are leaving the cabin and we are driving home.

  The sun, stars and moon guide them as they go, but birds fly home with directions grown from their bones. They are born to it. That’s how it goes with gifts. Hollow bones must be just like the anointing, something passed from mother to child. Grandma’s bones are living now, but even after the Lord takes her, they will live on in her people: Uncle Ingwald, Uncle Peter and my daddy. Her Holy Spirit power will got to go somewhere, though, and I know it won’t go to me. Maybe Naomi will receive the fire.

  They can see it, the elders, whether the anointing is upon you. When we pray for healing, the old men sway, groaning at the front of the church; with creaking knees they wander the pews, passing around the grape juice and cracker communion. Their wrinkled faces look with their eyes into my bones. I can see into them too: secret sins — beer, beatings and such; and smushed plans — taking over the farm, marrying the girl, leaving the other behind. But it comes down the bloodline either way, the curse or the blessing just the same. We don’t always get to pick. As he raises his hands in prayer, Uncle Ingwald’s eyes shine just like Grandma’s. And Grandma says her boy Peter and Reuben look just alike. But she’s wrong: it’s me that has the man’s mouth. Samuel ain’t the shepherd of his people; even I can see that. He won’t lead no flock. He won’t lead no sheep anywhere but astray.

  I listen from the van window, but all I hear is the crunching of the tyres. January is near enough to silent: most of the birds are away. But I’m waiting. I’m anxious for their return. For I’ve got plenty questions. If all the birds of a kind are the same, how can they tell who’s flying at the front of the flock? How do they decide who leads the flight? And if a bird is left behind, either up north or down south, what is he to do? He can’t just join another cluster. People see it on you, what is your kind. The same ones leave together, whether leaving home or coming back. They all fly the same. It is easy to see, even from a distance, who belongs.

  I wake because of the cold breezing in behind Reuben’s back; he’s climbing out the sliding door. We’ve stopped moving and the van doors slam quick. It’s almost dusk, that still purple time of long shadows and no sound, and the doors scraping shut echoed like gunfire. Reuben’s joined Samuel and our daddies at the edge of the road, standing near the banked-up snow in the ditch to get a look at the problem. With the back of my hand, I wipe away our breath that’s fogged the window. My daddy’s on his hands and knees by the back wheel. Uncle Ingwald and the boys are crouching behind him, looking at what he’s looking at, and shaking their heads. I can’t hear them, but I don’t need to. We’ve got a flat.

  It isn’t until the back doors of the van are pried open and let in the wind that Naomi stirs, looks around a bit, and then snuggles down again under a blanket on the back seat. Samuel is taking down the spare, and Reuben is moving our suitcases so they can get at the tools and change the tyre. My brother has already shed his jacket: he gets so heated up, even outside. When he throws it up over the back seat, the coat flops down on Naomi’s head and she finally wakes up all the way.

  Reuben tries to sound annoyed, but his cheeks are red and his eyes are excited. ‘I ain’t jacking up this van with you girls in it.’ He don’t mind changing a tyre, even in the snow. Pushing and pulling in this world is something he knows and likes. He’s ready to sweat.

  Naomi, still sleepy, is struggling into her jacket; she’s got a sleeve inside out. I slip into the back seat to help her, manoeuvring the armhole of the slippery pink plastic. Her head leans onto my chest, and I smell her hair, dirty but sweet like a barn kitten.

  ‘Let’s move, girl.’ I talk soft.

  She doesn’t want to go into the cold, but we have to
lighten the van.

  ‘We’ll find tracks.’ And I know it is almost dark and that we won’t be following deer or rabbits nowhere, but sometimes a lie can’t hurt. We creak open the door and turn our faces into the wind.

  Snow is falling light but steady on our shoulders. Reuben’s hands are callused and gloveless in the cold; he waits, holding the jack, while Samuel struggles to loosen the lug nuts. Our fathers watch and stamp their feet. I can hear Samuel’s breath, pushing in and out, as he strains against the metal. His arms pull at the wrench, but he can’t force the lug nuts free. It is snowing harder and the light is failing. Samuel is stepping on the wrench, jumping against the metal with his foot, and still they won’t budge. His breath surges, great gasps sucked in and then cast out. Even in the dim light and snow, I can see his breath. Finally, Samuel throws down the wrench.

  ‘God almighty!’ He swears loud enough for us all to hear and hits the side of the van with his fist. ‘Christ!’ He walks off along the road.

  Naomi and I gawk, trying to make our bodies small. Daddy stares at the snow caked behind the front wheel; he moves up and starts kicking at the dark and gritty ice. The snow is still falling and we’re still stopped, so Uncle Ingwald pushes his lips together, shakes his head and starts toward the back tyre. But Reuben has already taken the wrench and is grappling with the lug nuts; he twists and pulls, twists and pulls, and he breaks them free. While Naomi and I huddle together trying to stay warm, Reuben positions the jack and lifts the van. He removes the lug nuts and tyre, fits the smaller spare, replaces the nuts and lowers the van. Watching him is like watching a good dog. My brother is still tightening the nuts, crossways and back, when Samuel returns.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t.’ He speaks to no one in particular. Samuel hauls the old tyre over with him, handling the rubber with his gloves.

  Ingwald walks over and roughly pulls the tyre away from Samuel. My uncle’s face is partially covered by his wool hat, but I can see his eyes and mouth. I have seen this anger before. He spins the wheel around and wipes away the snow; there is a bulge in the rubber, a large pucker that gave way beneath the weight of the vehicle.

  ‘Worn through.’ He speaks like from the pulpit, his voice holding the words slow and heavy.

  Ingwald is almost always disappointed, seeing more than we can see and knowing more than we can know. He picks at the small stones embedded in the tread like they were rubies, carefully slipping a few into his pocket. The snow has stopped falling, but the wind is whipping up the flakes that fell earlier. They are not yet packed hard into the ground. Swirling in the air, the snowflakes sting my face. Ingwald loads the tyre into the back of the van and closes the door with a dull thud.

  22

  WE HAVE BEEN HOME FROM THE CABIN TWO DAYS. I DON’T know what to think or what to do, but I will not curse the work of the Lord. There is danger here like we’ve never known, and I must not remain silent. Following the old fence line along Grandma’s river, Naomi and I trudge through the snow. It is that dying part of day when the snow glows blue, and the trees wait skinny and black against the sky.

  The wire is supposed to show you where not to step. Grandma says that as soon as the boys were old enough to toddle, Grampa traced all the quicksand on the homefarm with barbed wire. Tangled with dry weeds and rotten posts, the fencing is still there; circled sinkholes lie behind the old tobacco shed, between rusting cars inside the junkyard and amongst the deer stands deep in the woods.

  Dwindling light seems to bring my eyes into focus; if need be, I supply my own contrast by narrowing my eyes. Last year, when Reuben and Samuel built a darkhouse for spearfishing through the ice, it took me no time to see clear through the water into the muddy weeds. Darkhouse shacks are special-made to shut out light; the walls are thick and sometimes even chinked. Only in complete shadow can you peer into the man-sized hole and watch the fish swim by. Most locals hang a carved wooden decoy high in the clear water to make the pike come up close. Throwing the tiny metal spear into a passing fish takes some practice, and it’s not unheard of for folks to drop white fencepost caps into the hole to provide focus points for eyes numbed by dark water. Of course, it ain’t legal to sink extra help — neither is spearing walleye if you ain’t Indian — but that don’t mean it don’t happen.

  Blue snow and black trees; black water and green fish; contrast helps us see what is changing before our eyes. And so, narrowing my eyes, I’ve been meaning to walk with Naomi for weeks now. Walking together side by side, not looking face to face, loosens our tongues. My boots feel heavy with the mud and snow, and my arms are cold and numb.

  My heart is heavy too. ‘You are round.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How can you be? You’ve never bled.’ She must know that much.

  ‘Maybe I don’t need to bleed.’ Naomi winds her way amongst the evergreen trees.

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe pray.’

  Clinging to the edges of the river, sharp, thin ice is trying to span the distance between the mud and the thicker ice. Deer have stepped cautiously across the broken edges to get to the thawed patch in the middle; the current keeps the middle open and the deer pause there to drink. Bare branches scrape my face, so I hold them back and let Naomi pass under my arm. Walking through the woods, you can either make someone’s way easy or let the trees slap them hard in the face. She holds her face straight and she speaks soft.

  ‘Always, his breath smells like hot dogs. His hands bruise my wrists.’

  I keep my eyes turned to the ground, watching my way across the snow.

  ‘Most times like a hound, from behind. Sweat drips off his forehead and trickles down my back. Sometimes he can’t keep it strong enough, and sometimes he can’t finish. When he’s done, he shivers like a man possessed.’

  My boots slip on the ice. As I lose my balance, Naomi’s arm steadies me. I need to know where.

  ‘In the woods, in Babylon. In the ice shack, in the darkhouse, in the hunting stand. Up at the cabin, up in the haymow. Under the dock, beneath the pews.’

  Nowhere is safe, but she ain’t no baby. Why didn’t she stop it?

  ‘I never thought to fight.’ She lets go my arm and looks me square in the eyes.

  I know before she opens her mouth, but she’s got to tell me, tell me what she never could say before, never could say aloud. Either way, it’s too much, but my heart can only bear one answer.

  ‘Samuel.’

  Now I need to know when.

  ‘Since I can remember.’

  And I know I wasn’t even first choice.

  Naomi bends from her middle and vomits on the ground; the brown splash melts a path, sinking through the snow. Surprised, I breathe in deep, but catch only the scent of pine needles. My mouth is dry and tastes sour; there is nothing left to ask or answer. So we pray. I take Naomi’s mittens in mine. God can make a miracle: the baby can leave. We pray for the way, and we pray for the end.

  With the same measure I judge Naomi, I’ll be measured myself. There is no need to judge. My eyes don’t see right that way anyhow. Something evil in me wanted the fault to be on my brother, to know that I was something to somebody. But the bigger part of me knew — even hoped — it was Samuel. Reuben did not touch this girl. When Samuel said he’d go to Naomi, I hoped he was lying just to make me jealous. But what I did to save her didn’t save her at all; Samuel and me are just plain damned to hell.

  I hold this in my heart: we must wait for the Lord Himself to weigh and measure. And it might not be us that will bear the load; I can see some of what is truth. Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

  It is cold and we are still walking but now not talking. The snow is starting to drift, banking up alongside the trees and blowing right across the road. C
rossing the field nearest to Grandma’s barn, I almost lost my boot. I stepped down deep, deeper than I thought it should be, and brought up a sock instead of a moon boot. My pants were still tucked around my leg, tight around my ankle, but a stocking foot can’t compete with this weather. Right away I stepped down hard into where my boot was when I lost it, and I got lucky. I’m still walking with two boots, even though one set of toes is frozen. My mittens are tucked into my jacket sleeves, but wind keeps slipping up my wrists. We were going to lay ourselves down on the ground and make snow angels, sliding wide wings and kicking slippery robes with our arms and legs. But it is too cold, even for joy; my eyelashes and nose hairs are sharp.

  After our woods walk and talk, Naomi and I want to go in and have Grandma give us something warm to drink. We stomp up the creaky steps to the boarded-up porch, screens covered with plywood to stop the winter winds. Hockey gear — a duffel bag spilling pads, a taped-up stick and unsheathed skates — is slumped by the doorway. Samuel is here. We scrape open the kitchen door and smell both baking and boy. Grandma’s round back is to us as she pulls bread out of the oven, and Samuel is at the table, socks hanging off the back of his chair and bare feet on the braided rug. Grandma believes in dry feet, and Samuel loves fresh bread. Their deal is clear.

  Samuel is tilting his head strange to slither in bread, yellow butter catching in the corner of his mouth. Bustling about, Grandma slides two more pieces onto plates. When I sit at the table to start buttering my own bread, I can see what is twisting the boy’s eating. His front tooth, on the left side, is broken clean in half. It ain’t ragged, like a rotten tooth that has crumbled; instead, it is sharp-sliced and square.