rat-hunting dog lies panting in the sun. He catches sight of my shadow waving to him, and jumps to his feet, turning in frenzied barking.
There is Cora, coming out of the house with a basket for gathering vegetables clapped against her side.
I wave, leaning toward her. “Hiya! Cora!”
At first she can’t find me. Something about this delights me: hiding in plain sight. She stops and stares around the yard while I holler and shout: “Look up, up here!” She finds my shadow waving at her first, then lifts her eyes, shading them with her free hand. Her mouth is a perfect round O. I falter for half a breath, waver, steady myself before her sight. She drops the basket. Screams.
That brings our mother running.
Cora has fallen on her knees, hiding her face in her apron. She can’t bear to see what might happen next. Why does she assume the worst? I could spit with irritation. Why doesn’t she trust me?
I can do anything, anything I want to, Cora, just watch me.
“Lord have mercy.” I see my mother’s lips shape the words a half beat before their sound arrives at my ears.
I make myself stand steady as a post. And then, as if I’ve been planted on the barn roof, attached like a weather cock to a whirling vane, I spin around once, twice, three times.
My mother’s hand drops from her heart and she runs to find a better angle from which to see me—she climbs the pasture fence, as if by getting higher she will be closer to me, and then she climbs right up and into the branches of a maple that overhang the pasture fence.
Is she trying to save me? Or is she urging me on?
I feel birdlike, although I know I can’t fly, nor do I wish that I could. It’s just an act. I wave to my father, to the three hired men, to Olive standing on the porch, all of them summoned by Cora’s cries. Cora herself peeks from under her apron only to resume her hysterics. “Get her down, get her down, get her down! Before she falls!”
I curtsey, lifting my skirts and swinging them. And then I turn and run the peak to the far side of the barn where no one can look up and see me but the pigs in their rooting pen, and the cows pastured beside the mountainous manure pile.
I greet the indifferent animals. I salute the pond and pause for a breath to remember little James, drowned. And then I jog lightly back to my audience. I’ve forgotten almost everything, past, present, and future, but this—the line of hot metal, the sky over me, the waiting faces upturned. They are looking for me, hoping to see me again. They fall quiet at the sight of me, hushed for a moment.
My mother in the tree in her full apron and skirts, her arms scratched by the branches, hugs the rough trunk.
I have one more trick. It seems, suddenly, a pity I didn’t learn more last summer, when I practiced walking the fence hour upon hour—but this trick is a good one. It’s the best I’ve got. I bend backward, reaching my hands for the peak of metal, and with one quick and forceful push, curve over myself, feet travelling overhead into a brief handstand that is meant to collect itself at the other end, and finish by coming around to standing.
But I’ve mistimed my push. My hands are not planted, my hips tilt off balance. I am coming down.
I hear them gasp. No!
I hear my mother’s silence, her power. She would climb all the way up the tree and leap onto the roof and catch me if she could—if only the tree were taller, if only its branches brushed the barn.
My body collapses sideways, hip crashes vertical metal, the ridges, the nail heads poking through, the steep descent. Down is down. Down is hard dirt barnyard, broken stone, the rough unfinished roof of the never-occupied rabbit hutch, a pitchfork head, a rusted bucket, a broken plough, and God knows what: I am falling swiftly toward the side of the barn in which gathers the loose and lost elements of our farm’s life.
I will not go there. No.
A grunt, a core reflex of refusal.
I snap my legs, my spine
There is Cora, coming out of the house with a basket for gathering vegetables clapped against her side.
I wave, leaning toward her. “Hiya! Cora!”
At first she can’t find me. Something about this delights me: hiding in plain sight. She stops and stares around the yard while I holler and shout: “Look up, up here!” She finds my shadow waving at her first, then lifts her eyes, shading them with her free hand. Her mouth is a perfect round O. I falter for half a breath, waver, steady myself before her sight. She drops the basket. Screams.
That brings our mother running.
Cora has fallen on her knees, hiding her face in her apron. She can’t bear to see what might happen next. Why does she assume the worst? I could spit with irritation. Why doesn’t she trust me?
I can do anything, anything I want to, Cora, just watch me.
“Lord have mercy.” I see my mother’s lips shape the words a half beat before their sound arrives at my ears.
I make myself stand steady as a post. And then, as if I’ve been planted on the barn roof, attached like a weather cock to a whirling vane, I spin around once, twice, three times.
My mother’s hand drops from her heart and she runs to find a better angle from which to see me—she climbs the pasture fence, as if by getting higher she will be closer to me, and then she climbs right up and into the branches of a maple that overhang the pasture fence.
Is she trying to save me? Or is she urging me on?
I feel birdlike, although I know I can’t fly, nor do I wish that I could. It’s just an act. I wave to my father, to the three hired men, to Olive standing on the porch, all of them summoned by Cora’s cries. Cora herself peeks from under her apron only to resume her hysterics. “Get her down, get her down, get her down! Before she falls!”
I curtsey, lifting my skirts and swinging them. And then I turn and run the peak to the far side of the barn where no one can look up and see me but the pigs in their rooting pen, and the cows pastured beside the mountainous manure pile.
I greet the indifferent animals. I salute the pond and pause for a breath to remember little James, drowned. And then I jog lightly back to my audience. I’ve forgotten almost everything, past, present, and future, but this—the line of hot metal, the sky over me, the waiting faces upturned. They are looking for me, hoping to see me again. They fall quiet at the sight of me, hushed for a moment.
My mother in the tree in her full apron and skirts, her arms scratched by the branches, hugs the rough trunk.
I have one more trick. It seems, suddenly, a pity I didn’t learn more last summer, when I practiced walking the fence hour upon hour—but this trick is a good one. It’s the best I’ve got. I bend backward, reaching my hands for the peak of metal, and with one quick and forceful push, curve over myself, feet travelling overhead into a brief handstand that is meant to collect itself at the other end, and finish by coming around to standing.
But I’ve mistimed my push. My hands are not planted, my hips tilt off balance. I am coming down.
I hear them gasp. No!
I hear my mother’s silence, her power. She would climb all the way up the tree and leap onto the roof and catch me if she could—if only the tree were taller, if only its branches brushed the barn.
My body collapses sideways, hip crashes vertical metal, the ridges, the nail heads poking through, the steep descent. Down is down. Down is hard dirt barnyard, broken stone, the rough unfinished roof of the never-occupied rabbit hutch, a pitchfork head, a rusted bucket, a broken plough, and God knows what: I am falling swiftly toward the side of the barn in which gathers the loose and lost elements of our farm’s life.
I will not go there. No.
A grunt, a core reflex of refusal.
I snap my legs, my spine
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