The Girl Who Slept with God: A Novel (29 page)

Jory opened her eyes and stared at her sister again.

Grace picked up a pencil and wrote down some figures on the margin of her textbook. “Seriously. You should try the gingerbread while it’s still warm.”

Jory was unable to tear her eyes away from her sister and her nearly naked head. Finally, she stood up and walked in a daze over to the oven. A square pan of the spicy-smelling cake sat on the counter next to it. She picked up a fork and sank it into the gingerbread, gouging out a small piece. It was delicious. At home they would have made whipped cream to go on top, which they each would have taken turns whipping, carefully stirring in the sugar and vanilla until the cream was thick and sweet. Frances would have insisted on licking the bowl. The contrast between
the cool creaminess of the whipping cream and the spicy warmth of the gingerbread was a sort of heaven that always tasted like autumn to Jory. She let the cake dissolve slowly on her tongue.

“You should have some,” she said thickly to Grace. “It’s wonderful.”

Grace placed her finger in her textbook and regarded her sister, her gray eyes made even larger and more serious-looking by the strange absence of hair. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m fasting.” She turned her head and went back to her work.

Jory didn’t know exactly how late it was. From the diamond-shaped window, the ground below appeared almost blue in the darkness and a sheer layer of frost glimmered on top of the propane tank. So Handsome twined between her bare ankles and Jory scooped him up and held him to her chest. He yawned his fishy breath at her, displaying a tiny set of needle-sharp teeth. Jory crept down the stairs holding the kitten. The kitchen still smelled faintly of gingerbread. Jory picked up the old phone receiver and dialed the only number that she knew. The phone rang several times and then she heard her father’s sleep-laden voice saying hello with a certain amount of hesitation.

“Dad?” Jory said.

“Jory,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Grace cut all her hair off.”

Her father cleared his throat. She imagined him sitting up in bed and putting his glasses on.

“Is this something serious?”

“She’s bald.”

“Jory,” he said. She could hear him sigh and then cover the mouthpiece to say something to her mother. “Do you want me to come over there?”

“No,” she said. “Yes.”

“Right now?” She could hear him trying valiantly to keep the weariness out of his voice.

“I think she did something to her eyebrows too.”

Her father said nothing for a moment. “I was planning on coming out that way tomorrow anyway. So I’ll see you girls then, all right?”

Jory said nothing.

“All right?”

“Okay.”

“Go to sleep, Jory.”

“Dad.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Good night, Dad.”

So Handsome had leaped up onto the kitchen counter and was cautiously sniffing the half-empty pan of gingerbread. Jory picked him up by his middle and carried him back upstairs to her bed. The sheets were still faintly warm from where she had been sleeping. She pulled the wedding quilt up to her nose and tried to still her heart. Her father would fix things. He would come out here and talk to Grace and he would fix things. She stared up into the darkness of the bedroom ceiling. She could feel So Handsome kneading his tiny claws over and over into the blanket covering her toes. She reached down and pulled him up to her face so that she could hear the subterranean rumble of his purring.

Their father was in the living room with Grace. He was perched on the brown chair directly facing Grace, who was sitting on the dead cat couch with her arms crossed. Jory had been banished to the front porch, where she had stayed for about two minutes before sneaking around to the side of the house. She was now crouched down among the dead hollyhocks, listening beneath the side window. She could hear what was being said, although it was like listening while having a blanket thrown over her head. “I’m just trying to figure out how much to worry here,” her father was saying. Jory imagined him rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“There’s no need to worry at all.” Jory could picture the type of smile that her sister would be wearing.

“Well, of course I am,” said her father.

“But there’s still no need,” said Grace.

There was a long silence during which Jory tried to rearrange her squatting position. A persistent fly kept landing on her calf and she kept swatting it away.

“I read in my
Merck Manual
about something called trichotillomania.
People feel a strong desire to pull their hair out. It’s a . . . syndrome of some sort.”

“All I did was cut my hair, Dad.”

There was another protracted silence.

“Well, it’s a rather unusual haircut.”

“I couldn’t find the scissors.”

“Grace.”

There was another lengthy moment of silence and then Jory could hear her father clearing his throat and possibly recrossing his legs. “Your sister is worried about you.”

Jory crouched farther down in the flowerbed, as if they could suddenly both see her. She closed her eyes.

Her father’s voice grew more faint. “Jory also mentioned something about your eyebrows.”

Jory sighed and shut her eyes even tighter.

Grace said something brief that Jory couldn’t make out.

“She’s just concerned,” her father said.

“I have to do what God wants me to do, Dad.”

“God wants you to be hairless?”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Maybe,” said her father. “Maybe I’m having to resort to humor.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“Oh, I know,” her father said sadly.

“It was you who taught me that God sometimes asks us to make sacrifices. And that I had to be willing to do whatever was required, no matter how odd or painful it might be.”

“But why did it have to be this . . . this particular sacrifice?”

“I don’t know exactly,” said Grace. “It just did.”

Jory guessed that her father was shaking his head or maybe folding and refolding his hands.

“You know, when we had our Bible studies, you said that Jesus cried in the garden. That he begged his father to let the cup pass from him, and that he was so scared he sweat drops of blood, but that he still didn’t turn away from the cross. He still faced his own bodily sacrifice.”

“But you’re not Jesus. You don’t have to be crucified.”

“I’m a child of God too.”

“You’re
my
child.”

“I’m both,” said Grace.

This seemed to silence their father completely, and the lack of noise from inside the living room continued on so long that Jory began to stand up in anticipation of bolting from her hiding spot. But then her sister made a muffled statement of some kind. Jory squatted back down again, and Grace said something else that Jory couldn’t hear.

“Well,” said their father. “What if I bought you some special scissors or something so you could sort of . . . even it out?”

“Why? Why does this even matter, Dad?” For a second, Jory couldn’t believe this was Grace. She sounded genuinely mystified or perhaps hurt. “Do I look that strange and horrible? Do I really look terrible to you now?”
Bereft
was the word Jory had been searching for.
Forsaken
. “Dad, do you think I look
ugly
?”

“No,” her father said. “Of course not. You are beautiful. You’re my beautiful girl.”

“But you can see my birthmark now.” Jory had never heard her sister say the word
birthmark
out loud. Ever. To anyone.

“That’s perfectly all right,” her father said with firm emphasis.

“But everyone can see it now. Every part of it.” Grace’s voice still sounded as if it belonged to someone else. A young and pitiful someone whom Jory had never met. Jory could hear her sister making some sort of noise, a crying or sobbing sound deep in her throat. And then she said something else that Jory couldn’t decipher. Jory suddenly felt as if she were listening to something she shouldn’t.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her father’s voice was pitched soft and low, as if he were speaking to a wild creature he didn’t want to alarm. “You’ll always be lovely—my very lovely girl.”

So Handsome trotted around the corner of the house and leaped, clinging to Jory’s bare thigh. Jory gave a muffled shriek and sat solidly down in the dirt. The cat was climbing his way up her shirtfront and she was trying to detach his needlelike claws when Jory spied Mrs. Kleinfelter advancing toward their front door with a shallow cardboard
box in her hand. Jory struggled up from the ground just as Mrs. K reached the door. When Jory came around the side of the house, she could hear her father opening the screen door and saying something in greeting.

“Oh, these are just the last of my Brandywines,” Mrs. Kleinfelter said. “I have way more than I can possibly use.”

Her father was holding the screen door open, and Jory watched as Grace now appeared next to him in the doorway.

“Oh,
my
,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter, taking a small step backward and bumping into Jory.

Grace opened the door wider. She came out onto the porch and took the box from Mrs. Kleinfelter’s hands. “Thank you so much,” said Grace, her eyes still slightly teary. “These look wonderful.”

“My,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter again, taking covert glances at Grace’s hair and wiping her hands on the front of her housedress. “I just had way too many. So I guess . . . Oh,
Jory
.” Mrs. K turned her alarmed eyes on Jory. “Just look how big that kitten of yours is getting.”

Jory gamely held So Handsome up for inspection.

“You know, we’ve been having some pretty hot days for October,” their father said.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Kleinfelter. “Cooling down at night, though.”

“Yes,” said their father, nodding.

“I’ll take these and put them on the kitchen counter,” said Grace, turning and going back into the house.

“Well, I’ll just get back to my packing.” Mrs. Kleinfelter gestured toward her house and then began going down the porch stairs. Suddenly she stopped. “Oh, dear,” she said. “She didn’t get ringworm, did she? From the cat, I mean?”

Jory glanced at her father, who studiously avoided his daughter’s gaze. “Um, no, no ringworm,” he said. “But we certainly thank you for the tomatoes.” Her father smiled. He lifted his hand as if conveying some sort of benediction.

Mrs. Kleinfelter gave Jory a fleeting look and Jory felt a sudden tug, a strong urge to do or say something, but then the moment passed and Mrs.
Kleinfelter turned away and headed back down the dirt pathway between the houses.

“She’s a nice woman,” said her father to himself. “She reminds me of your grandma Eunice.”

“If Grandma Eun hadn’t been completely cross and mean and horrible,” Jory said.

Her father sighed. “Grandma Eun had a hard life.” He sat down on the porch’s top step with a slight groan.

“What are you going to do now?”

Her father said nothing. So Handsome tugged happily at one of his shoelaces.

Jory lowered her voice. “She’s getting worse,” said Jory.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said her father. He plucked a pen out of his pants pocket and took its cap off and then put it back on again.

“She’s not eating, either. She says she’s fasting.”

Her father recapped the pen again. “There’s nothing wrong with fasting.”

“Not even if you’re pregnant? And she never takes a shower or changes her clothes or anything. She’s been wearing the same dress for at least a month now.”

Her father stuffed the pen back into his pocket. “What exactly do you expect me to do, Jory? Stand over her while she eats and changes her clothes? You know what she’s like. She’s been this way since she was tiny.”

“I know.” Jory scooped So Handsome up into her arms and then just as quickly dropped him onto the porch’s wood floor. “I know,” she said again.

“Her hair will grow back,” her father said. “In a while.”

The two of them sat on the porch steps saying nothing. Mrs. Kleinfelter came outside and waved once as she headed into her garden. So Handsome lay down by the porch railing in a patch of October shade and began absently batting at a lone fly. The maple tree, which was turning early, dropped its fiery leaves, one at a time, onto the still green grass.