by Amy Harmon
A nurse entered the room once and turned around and went right back out. Wilson made no attempt to move or retreat to the chair in the corner.
“You never told me the ending of the story,” he murmured much later.
“Hmm?”
“The hunter and the star girl? Did they live happily ever after?”
“Oh,” I remembered drowsily. “No . . . not exactly. She stayed with him, and they had a child. They were happy, but the girl started to miss the stars.” I paused, fighting the lethargy that was stealing over me. I continued, my voice fading with every word. “She wanted to see her family. So she wove a large basket and collected gifts for her family, things from the earth that you couldn't find in the sky. She placed the basket in the magical circle, put the gifts and her son inside, and climbed into the basket herself. Then she sang a song that caused the basket to rise into the sky. White Hawk heard the song and ran to the clearing, but he was too late. His wife and child were gone.” I felt myself drifting into sleep, exhaustion muddling my thoughts, making speech difficult. I wasn't sure if I dreamed it, or if Wilson actually spoke.
“That story sucks,” Wilson whispered sleepily in my ear. I smiled but was too far gone to respond.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tiffa and Jack got to the hospital about five o'clock the next day. Wilson had moved to the chair sometime while I slept and had received the call letting us know they had arrived. He went out to meet them when my nurse came in to chart my condition and take my blood pressure. I was eager to leave the hospital and was dressed and waiting to be discharged when I heard a light knocking. Tiffa stuck her head around the heavy hospital door and called to me.
“Can we come in, Blue?”
I answered yes, and she and Jack walked into the room hand in hand. Tiffa had pulled her hair off her face into a curly up-do, but somehow she still managed to look chic and put together. Jack looked worn out. They had waited at the airport most of the night and all morning, waiting for flights to resume. But they were smiling broadly, and Tiffa was practically vibrating. Without warning, she pulled me into her arms and promptly burst into tears. Jack wrapped his arms around the two of us and commenced sniffling as well. I felt emotion swell in my chest and rise in my throat until swallowing was impossible. I held myself as still as I possibly could, as if movement would dislodge my control. I recited the alphabet backwards in my head, “Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T . . .” focusing my eyes beyond Tiffa and Jack. Wilson stood by the door. My eyes locked on his and immediately shifted away. “J, H, I, G, F, E . . .” I recited silently. But my efforts at distraction did not prevent me from hearing Tiffa's heartfelt thanks.
“She's beautiful, Blue. She's absolutely beautiful. I can see you in her . . . and that makes me so happy.” Tiffa whispered between sobs. “Thank you, Blue.”
I had to pull away. For my own survival, I had to pull away. They let me go, but Tiffa clasped my hands in hers. She seemed unconcerned with the fact that tears still streamed down her cheeks. I marveled at her ability to cry without shame or embarrassment.
“We're going to name her Melody. It was Jack's mother's name, and I've always loved it.” Tiffa's eyes shifted to Jack, who urged her on with a tip of his head. “But we would like her middle name to be Blue if that is all right with you.”
Melody Blue. It was a beautiful name. I nodded, just the slightest movement, but I didn't trust myself to speak. Then I nodded again, a little harder and smiled the best I could. I was pulled back into Tiffa's arms and held fiercely as she whispered a promise in my ear.
“You have given me something I would never have asked of you, and I promise I will be the best mum I can be. I won't be perfect. But I will love her with all my heart, and I will be perfect in that. When she's old enough, I will tell her all about you. I will tell her how brave you were and how much you loved her.”
A moan tore from my throat, and I shuddered helplessly, no longer able to hold back the billowing sorrow that flooded my mouth, streamed from my eyes, and robbed me of speech. Jack's arms were back around us, and we stood that way for a very long time, propping each other up, as gratitude and sorrow met and merged and silent bonds were forged. I found myself offering up a prayer for the very first time. A prayer to the Great Spirit that Jimmy had believed in. A prayer to the God that had created life and let it grow in me. A prayer for the child who would never call me Mother, and for the woman whom she would. And I prayed He would take away my pain, and if He couldn't do that, then would He, please, take away my love? Because the pain and the love were so intertwined that I couldn't seem to have one without the other. Maybe if I didn't love, I wouldn't hurt so much. I felt Wilson's arms enclose me and bear my weight as Tiffa and Jack eventually released me and stepped back.
When I was discharged from the hospital, Wilson took me home, helped me into bed, and stayed with me through the night once more. Never once did he complain or offer empty words or platitudes. He was just there when I needed him most. And I leaned on him, probably more than I should have. I didn't let myself think about it or question it. I allowed myself to be taken care of and forbade myself introspection.
In the days that followed, Wilson gave me more and more space, and we fell back into a pattern that resembled the days and weeks leading up to Melody's birth. I went back to work at the cafe almost immediately and started carving again. In other ways, moving on was much more difficult. Immediately after Melody's birth, I bound my breasts the way the nurses showed me, but they ached and leaked, and I would wake up soaked, my sheets wet with milk, my nightgown sticking to me. Washing myself was almost painful, my body felt like a stranger, and I couldn't bear to look in the mirror and see the swollen breasts that were meant to nourish, the stomach that grew flatter every day, and the arms that longed to hold what was no longer mine. Every once in a while I would forget and reach down to caress my belly, only to remember that the swelling that remained was not a child, but an empty womb. I was young and active, though, and my body recovered quickly. Soon the only reminder that she had been part of me would be the faint stretch marks that marred my skin. These marks became beautiful to me. Precious.
Correspondingly, I found myself unwilling to sand away the imperfections on a piece of juniper I had been shaping and molding. The scars on the wood were like the marks on my skin, and I found myself continually tracing them, as if removing them would signify a willingness to forget. I ended up enlarging them, so the lines and divets became mawing canyons and shadowy recesses and the gracefully stretching branches became twisted and tortured, like the clenched fists of empty hands.
Wilson came to visit me in the basement one evening while I worked on the sculpture, sinking down on an overturned pail, observing without comment.
“What are you going to call this?” he asked after a long silence.
I shrugged. I hadn't gotten that far. I looked up at him for the first time. “What do you think I should call it?”
He gazed back at me then, and the sadness in his rain-grey eyes had me turning from him immediately, shrinking from the compassion I saw there.
“Loss,” he whispered. I pretended not to hear. He stayed for another hour, watching me work. I didn't even hear him leave.
Life returned to normal in painful increments, as normal as it ever had been. I worked, carved, ate, and slept. Tiffa called frequently to check on me and offered details about the baby only if I asked her first. She was careful and precise, but mercifully subdued in her descriptions. Each time I was able to hear a little more, although the first time I heard Melody's new-born wail through the receiver I had to end the call immediately. I spent the rest of the night in my room, convinced that my heart was officially broken and no amount of time and no amount of tears would ever ease the ache.
But time and tears proved to be better tonics than I would have thought. I had spent my whole life denying grief, holding it back like it was something to avoid at all cost. Jimmy had been so contained, and I had adopted his stoicism. Ma
ybe it was the hormones, or a purely biological response, maybe it was the fact that I had pled with a God I knew very little about to take away the pain, but in the days that followed Melody's birth I discovered I had been given the ability to weep. And in weeping there was power. The power to heal, the power to release pain and let go, the power to endure love and to shoulder loss. And as the weeks became months, I cried less and smiled more. And peace became a more frequent companion.
But as peace and acceptance became my friend, Wilson began pulling away. At first I was almost grateful, simply because I was terrible company. But as I started to heal, I started to miss my friend, and he was mostly absent. I wondered if he felt his job was done. Maybe Melody had been delivered, and so had he.
Just before Christmas, I wrote a couple of days off work and went on a major wood hunting expedition. I headed into Arizona, hit the corner of Southern Utah, and circled back to Vegas with a truck full of juniper, mountain mahogany and more mesquite than I could carve in a month of Sundays. The heavy rains and floods from months before had moved downed timber from higher ground, filling the washes and valleys and making it fairly easy to find what I was looking for. Unfortunately, I had to leave some of the heaviest pieces behind because, though I had perfected using levers, pulleys, and ramps, some of the pieces demanded more than one woman and her tools could accomplish. When I planned the trip, I had hoped I might be able to convince Wilson to come with me. With the Christmas holiday he would have some time off. Buy he was so obviously trying to steer clear of me that I didn't bother.
When I rolled in on Monday night, filthy and tired, sporting slivers, bruises, torn clothing and a throbbing toe, courtesy of a log that got away, I was not in the mood for any interactions with Pamela and Wilson. Unfortunately, they pulled up at the house while I was attempting to unload my truck by the basement entrance. Pamela was wearing a little white skirt with tennis shoes and a fitted sports tank, her hair pulled back into a perky ponytail. She shivered as Wilson jumped up into the back of my truck and began to help me unload. She danced in place for about two minutes, hopping from one foot to the other.
“Darcy, I'm freezing. Let's go inside, shall we?” she complained, and then smiled at Wilson when he paused to look at her.
“Go on ahead, Pam. It is too cold out here. I'll just help Blue get this in the basement.”
Pamela scowled slightly, her eyes lingering on me doubtfully. She didn't want to leave Wilson, I could tell. Women have a sense about these things. There was something going on between Wilson and me. And she knew it. I just shrugged. Not my problem.
“Really, Pammy. Head on up to my flat. I'll just be a minute. There's no reason for you to stand in the cold,” Wilson insisted.
It wasn't really very cold, although December in the desert can be surprisingly nippy. But I guess if I was wearing a tiny tennis outfit instead of jeans, work gloves, and a flannel shirt I might be cold, too. I didn't know what Pamela was worried about. My hair was a ratty nest. In fact, I was pretty sure I was sporting a few twigs. My nose was red, my cheek scratched, and I wouldn't be turning any heads, including Wilson's. Pamela must have arrived at the same conclusion, because she gave me a long look and flounced away, calling that she would just turn on the “telly” for a bit.
“Pammy?” I mocked, rolling a four foot section of a tree I'd razed down my makeshift ramp.
“When we were little, everyone called her Pammy. It slips out every now and again.”
I snorted, not having anything to say but feeling disdainful anyway.
“Why did you leave without telling anyone where you were going, Blue?” Wilson called over his shoulder as he descended the ramp, juggling an armful of juniper. He proceeded down the stairs to the basement, and I decided that meant he didn't need an answer or he didn't think he was going to get one. He loped back up seconds later and resumed talking as if he hadn't left.
“I didn't even know you were gone until yesterday morning. Then I started to worry.”
“I didn't leave without telling anyone. I just didn't tell you,” I replied shortly. “This is the last piece, but it's heavier than hell. Get on the other end, will ya?” I directed him, changing the subject. I didn't want to justify my absence. He had been the one ignoring me, not the other way around.
Wilson grabbed the end of two heavy, tangled branches I was struggling to hoist. Two separate branches had grown out of two different trees that had been growing side by side, and the branches had overlapped, wrapping around the other, the smaller branches tangling and intertwining. The branch from one tree had been damaged and was split at its base. Had it not been wrapped around the branch from the other tree it would have come down on its own. I had to climb both trees to cut each branch loose, sawing off the branch that wasn't split, and severing the few jagged connections of the one that was. It had cost me a hole in my jeans and a long scratch on my right cheek, but it would be worth it in the end.
The imagery of the fused branches was compelling and suggestive of something innate to every human heart – the need to touch, the need to connect – and I knew exactly what it would look like when I finished. When I'd first seen it, I had ached for something I had denied myself since I walked out of Mason's garage apartment a year ago. But it wasn't the physical release I yearned for. Not entirely. It was the closeness, the connection. But the thought of going back to a time when I'd slaked a physical need at the expense of an emotional one didn't appeal any longer. And so I was left with the ache and no idea how to soothe it.
Wilson and I teetered down the stairs, facing each other through scrubby branches and prickly bark. I led the way, placing my end gently on the floor by the workbench, and he followed suit, standing back and wiping his hands on his white tennis shorts. He had sap on his light blue shirt and grubby marks on his shorts where he had wiped his hands. I wondered if Pammy would want him to change. The thought made me inexplicably mournful, and I snatched up a chisel and mallet. I wanted to start removing bark and twigs and leaves immediately. Maybe I could work the ache away, focus the need and desire clawing at me into something productive, something beautiful, something that wouldn't leave me empty in the end.
“Can I leave my truck where it's at?” I asked Wilson, attacking the bark, my eyes on the branches.
“Are the keys in it?”
I patted my pockets and groaned. “Yeah. They are. Never mind. I'll go move it and lock it up.”
“I'll do it. I've seen that look before. Blue is in the zone,” Wilson commented wryly, and he turned and left without another word.
I worked frantically for several hours, stripping and snipping, sanding and shaving, until my embracing branches lay bare and naked on the concrete. My hands were raw and my back screamed when I stepped back to take a breather. I had pulled off my flannel shirt sometime in the course of the night, growing too warm from my labor and the small space heater that Wilson insisted I use, blasting in the corner. I'd twisted my hair into a sloppy braid to keep it out of my face and safe from the sander. It had grown so long that the braid kept falling over my left shoulder like a heavy vine. I was considering lopping it off when I heard a key scrape in the lock and the basement door swing open with a rush of cold air. Wilson shut the door behind him, shivering a little from the wintery blast. He wore a T-shirt and those low-slung jeans, the ones I had tried not to notice the first time he'd worn them. My keys were in his hand, and an irritated expression made a crease between his grey eyes.
“It's midnight, Blue. You've been down here working non-stop for five hours.”
“So?”
“So . . . it's midnight!”
“All right, Grandma.”
The scowl between Wilson's brows deepened. He closed the distance between us, his eyes taking in my unkempt appearance.
“You were gone for three days, and I'm guessing you hardly slept the whole time you were gone, yet here you are, working like you're under a deadline or something. Your jeans are torn, you were limping earlier, and
your cheek is scratched,” Wilson argued. He ran a finger down the angry welt on my cheekbone. I reached up to push his hand away, but he captured my hand and turned it over, running his fingers over my palm, straightening my fingers, noting the callouses and the scrapes I had acquired in the last few days. Goose bumps rose on my arms and tickled my neck. I shivered and pulled my hand away. I crouched beside my project and resumed sanding.
“So why didn't you tell me?”
“Hmm?” I didn't stop working.
“You said you didn't leave without telling anyone where you were going. You just didn't tell me. Why?”
“You've been avoiding me for a while, Wilson, which gave me the impression that you wouldn't be bothered by my absence.” My words were blunt, and I boldly held his gaze.
Wilson nodded, pulling his lower lip into his mouth, chewing on my accusation. But he didn't deny that he had purposely stayed away.
“I thought maybe you and I needed some distance. It's been only two months since Melody was born. Our . . . relationship . . . has been forged on some pretty intense experiences.” Wilson formed his words carefully, pausing between thoughts. I didn't like that he was so deliberate. It felt patronizing. But he continued in the same tone, speaking precisely and slowly.
“I thought maybe you needed some time and some . . . space. Without drama, without . . . me . . . or anybody else. Just space.” Wilson looked at me intently, his grey gaze sober and steady.
I laid down my tools and stood, putting space – the thing Wilson was so convinced I needed – between us. I shivered, freezing now that I had slowed my pace. The cold of the concrete floor had seeped up through the soles of my feet, and my torn jeans and thin tank top were suddenly insufficient to ward off the chill. I turned my back to Wilson and reached my hands toward the heater, trying to pull the warmth into my stiff fingers and arms.
