Sufficient Grace (22 page)

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. Crossing 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.

‘Hockey practice. Took one in the face.' Samuel is mouthful and proud about the puck; it means he had some time as goalie, his great plan to become popular at school.

It won't work. He's too bad for the Mennonites and too good for the normals. And the Fundamentalist and Baptist kids know him too well already; his spark is wearing out. Samuel is wedged halfway between heaven and hell: he is stuck in high school.

I am eating my warm bread, and Grandma is spreading honey on the piece cut for Naomi. The girl won't eat crusts, so they have been trimmed and piled on the wooden breadboard. Samuel's half-tooth reminds me of a girl from Iowa who visited our Sunday school last summer. Someone's cousin, she had a black smear in the blue of her eye. I kept risking glances at her, trying to figure what was strange, what was broken. And she saw me. She fixed me with a stare straight from both eyes, smeared and plain:
I can see you looking.
But she didn't take it hard or none. She told me about being little and the cat claw and the prayers of the righteous. She lived it all as testimony, and that's how I took it. Samuel's tooth is just the same. I sneak looks at Samuel, trying to look deep enough to see the brokenness in him. Trying to tell if he is too far gone to ever come right again.

Naomi has finished her bread and has plopped down next to Grandma. Side by side on the living-room couch, they are reading an old seed magazine and making grand plans for the garden. Grandma is anxious to get to the dirt this spring; she rubs her hands together, crepey skin smoothing like mud wet from early rains. Naomi's honeyed hands stick to each page as they pick tomato and radish and squash. I pile the plates in the hot soapy water in the sink. Samuel strokes his tooth lightly with his thumb. Grandma sees rows of geraniums and pansies. Naomi don't want to go home.

What I don't understand is how you can grow mushrooms and raspberries out of the same dirt, water and air. No one planted them there, but they still spring up alongside the old horse path. Even with seeds: who tells the seed what to become? Take a handful of pumpkin seeds and a handful of cucumber seeds and plant them in the garden. It takes faith. A body must have faith in the seed and faith in the rain and faith in the sun. Once the spindly sprouts shoot through the soil, it is hard at first to tell what you sowed. The green vines are hairy and curly both; it ain't until the flowers lose their bloom and the fruit begins to form that I can tell what's what. A more experienced gardener must know right away, but I haven't seen too many seasons of planting or harvest. I guess I'll learn more along the way.

Wrapped in a pink crocheted blanket, Naomi and Grandma are purring together like cats. I watch them from the kitchen, the way they hold their heads near and smile, always sharing some secret. I wipe my hands on a dishtowel and lean in the doorway.

Naomi is blooming like there is no stopping her. Honestly, she has been sick to her stomach and pretty tired, but the Lord has granted her an easy way. Other than peeing all the time and being a bit teary and crabby, she is still my Naomi. Her face is pink and shiny; Grandma just said that Naomi ‘glows with the love of the Lord'. I felt like growling and saying that her breasts must be full of the love of the Lord too, because they sure are getting swelled up fast. Naomi lifted her shirt and showed me before, so I know. For all her spiritual gifts, Grandma sure is missing something right now. Can't she tell that there are two souls dwelling in the little brown girl settled on her lap? Can't she see the work of the Lord? It is right before her eyes, but she has not eyes to see.

Jesus taught this about the kingdom of God: all man can do is scatter seeds on the ground; the work is done — seeds sprouting and growing — while he sleeps or toils, just the same. Alone, the soil generates the grain; we don't know how, how it grows from seed to stalk to head then kernel. When the grain ripens, he reaps it with the sickle. Man doesn't grow the grain, but he cuts it when the harvest has come.

23

MY EYES SEEM LIKE THEY'VE LOST THEIR COLOUR
.
IT'S NOT
like the blue has drained from them, but that I now live in a black-and-white world. We got about six inches of snow last night, and she's still blowing out there this morning. The dark pines are weighed down with thick, heavy snow, and I think that some of the boughs might even break. Naomi and I are looking out Grandma's front window watching the white come down; although Samuel went home when Gloria came by in the van, we stayed the night. The fire was too warm to leave. Winter is already too long, and we've all got months to go yet.

With my missing colour, I also miss birds: feathers swooping, beaks chittering, tiny feet hopping about. It's not like they've all gone south. The downy and red-bellied woodpeckers are still hammering the trees, and there are quite a few black-capped chickadees scratching at the sunflower seeds on the ground underneath Grandma's feeders. But we haven't seen a mourning dove nor heard their low
coo coo
since their hunting season in September. Reuben and Samuel took a few beside the barn, but when they brought them in to Grandma, she wouldn't help the boys cook them up. It was sad to see their floppy necks hanging down the side of their fluffy, smoky feathers; limp and dead, they looked so small and not even worth eating.

Not all the winter birds are shades of grey and black. Last year, Grandma's tree was blessed with a pair of cardinals; the lady was a brownish-red smudge, but the male could take your breath. He was a beauty against the snow with his deep-red chest puffed against the cold. He would lift his pointed cap high as his black-lined eyes held a steady gaze. They haven't come back this year, though, and the feeders are too close to the house to pull in the pheasants, so this winter we're stuck with only blue and black on white on snow: blue jay.

We come by our love of birds honestly; Grandma gave it to us in her blood. Sitting on hardback chairs, side by side, Naomi and me keep watching those birds pecking at the snow. They make tiny tracks with their cold feet.

I wouldn't shoot one, but I sure wouldn't feed one neither. I just can't bring myself to like blue jays. With their bright blue feathers lined with black and white, any beauty they bring to winter is rubbed out by my memories of the pain they bring to spring. I've seen one steal a mourning dove's nest, peck out the eggs, and then lay her own eggs in the spaces left by the dead. Blue jay mommas will munch on newly hatched robins; blue jay daddies will rip up mice and frogs to take back to his naked, blind babies. He is a thief, and he is a liar: his voice can pretend to be a hawk or a killdeer. Around the blue jay, you can't trust even your own ears.

There must be a special kind of cruelness that pushes a body to kill a baby; to crush a helpless egg is beneath even an animal. What kind of mother can crunch through a damp, downy chick and then fly back to her brood?