14

The Good Girl

He's gone. He's been gone for an hour.

Now, two hours...now, five...now, nine. My family eats supper in silence. Even though he didn't live in the house, it feels emptier, like a hollow shell missing its pearl. I keep glancing at the chair he sat in last night.

I have no idea what I've cooked tonight. I'd pulled out random green and pale yellow vegetables from the fridge, but I can't recall how they ended up in a pan or on the table afterward.

My father won't look at me. He helps himself to seconds, the serving spoon scraping against his plate. Elsie refills her water glass. I press the tips of the cold fork deep into the pads of my fingers until it hurts. It keeps my mind from slipping into an abyss.

I chew my food. Somehow, I manage to finish it, yet I taste nothing. My sense of smell seems to have disappeared, too. As well as my vision, since everything fluctuates between lucid and blurry.

I haven't lost my hearing, though. I listen to the sound of chair legs wincing across the floor as my father rises after finishing his meal. Without a word, he leaves the room.

Elsie and I keep our heads down and stare at the center of the table. I feel warmth when she tentatively covers my hand with her own, and we stay frozen like that, the physical contact foreign to us. But it's also proof that I have not lost my sense of touch.

I stay at the table long after she departs. I am the last one to go to bed.

One month.

Two months.

During that time, I do my chores. I am the daughter, the sister, the cook, the church patron. I am the good girl once more.

It comes to me automatically, but no longer naturally or blissfully. My movements are rusty, but I get through it, more determined than ever to stay busy and useful. It keeps my mind from wandering to the memory of his final kiss.

The most comforting moments take place in the fields. The lazy brush of wheat. The merciful opportunity to vanish between rows of corn. But too soon, the beautiful litany of the harvest ends, stepping aside for winter. My favorite time of the year closes its doors to me.

In my free time, I sit by the fire. When I do, my consciousness froths. I stare and stare and stare, only vaguely aware of my father's comings and goings, and my sister's attempts to chat. I'm being selfish and dramatic, but I don't care. I do what I have to do every day. They cannot tell me how to spend the rest of my hours, so long as I'm following the rules.

My father and I swap roles. He becomes less withdrawn, while I become more so. He has finally pardoned my ‘indiscretion.’ In fact, I detect worry in his voice when he addresses me. Worry that later evolves to frustration because the hearth and I have apparently become attached at the hip. He questions, lectures, advises.

Why don't you and Elsie...

You could go visit Mary or Catherine...

What about that quilting project...

You can't keep this up...

Annabelle Chaste, kindly acknowledge me when I'm speaking to you...

Each time, I nod without dedication or mumble an excuse. Occasionally, I even snap back at him. When I do, he scratches his beard in response. Not even his purposeful gaze commands my attention the way it used to. Perhaps because I have inherited that gaze and am just now learning how to use it back.

At night, I stare at the sketch Cassius drew for me when we first met. Or I read the poetry book he bought me when we took his bike into the city. Or I picture his face and scream into my pillow. I don't cry, though. The last time I did, he was moving inside me.

If I cry now, I'll break. As it is, I'd fallen apart so quickly. And if I give in fully to this weak sensation, I'll become its victim. It will take ten times as long to put myself together again.

I cannot allow that to happen. He would not want to see me like this. Not because of him.

I pray. I keep faith that my strength will return. I must travel this dark tunnel first. The other side awaits. I'm on my way.

People in the community are chummy with me again, now that our cabin is vacant. Yet they believe me a fool for breaking up with David. Their puzzled gazes at church tell me so.

At first, they suspect it has something to do with Cassius. But what happened between me and him has stayed tucked behind the Chaste curtain. Elsie doesn't betray the truth to the older girls who shamelessly approach her for information. Because they fail to gather confirmation on what really happened, public doubt takes a back seat to the possibility that my breakup with David was mutual.

Indeed, I learn from Elsie that he has been reinforcing this belief. He insists to people that it was mutual, even though it wasn't.

Ever the man to stick to routine, David continues to go to the Sunday parties at Mary's. I haven't attended them in a long time. I'm both tempted and afraid to. What if someone mentions that they've seen Cassius during a trip into the city? What if they mention a place he took me to?

I'm relieved when David stops by in early January. We hike through the snow together and find ourselves reaching out to one another like we used to. I learn from him that he's found an unlikely confidant in Mary, whom he never spent any real time with before. This is the one area that gives me a spark of pleasure.

We saw each other during the holidays, and we always see each other at church, but that's been our limit until now. I'd broken his heart. I gave him time, hoping he would someday forgive me.

"I had no idea you were sad over him leaving," David admits when I explain my absence from social life.

It feels okay to tell him the truth, that Cassius and I had developed feelings for each other. It feels okay because I trust David. He's the one who broached the subject in the first place, and he seems ready to talk. Though I have the suspicion that Mary has something to do with this turnaround.

He rubs his mitten-covered hands together. "I thought you weren't showing up at her house because you suspected I would be there and it would be awkward. Whenever I saw you looking so distant in church, I thought it was because being near me made you uncomfortable. I guess I didn't want to believe that I affected you less than him."

“He was the one..."

"I would have come to you if you needed comfort."

"That wouldn't have been fair. I would never force that on you. You're too special to me."

"Was he good to you?"

"Better than good."

David nods, taking a deep breath. "I still miss you. I'm still...I haven't unloved you, Annabelle."

"But?"

He sniffs frosty air into his red nose. He takes my arm and slips it through his, shaking me affectionately. "But this is nice, too."

It is nice. Our friendship isn't completely back to normal. Perhaps it won't ever be, but this is nice. Walking and talking with him, swapping apologies as our feet stamp into the snow.

And that's when I start to breathe again.

Since my friendship with David resumed, I've been feeling more like myself. I don't sacrifice as much time by the fire. I've even spent an afternoon with my friends. I've been experimenting a little with cooking, but since it's winter, there's only so much I can do with a rutabaga. And I've been increasingly responsive to Papa and Elsie.

For a second, I think I will be okay, too. That is, until the package shows up.

I'm sitting in my room, calmly fixing a rip in my best pair of stockings when Elsie tiptoes in, an apprehensive look stretched across her face. I frown and set the needlework on my lap. She's hiding something behind her back, her thin arms wobbling. Whatever she's holding, it must be heavy.

I shift on the bed, inviting her to sit beside me, but she doesn't. She glances behind her into the hall, as if expecting to be caught even though our father isn't home.

"Elsie?" I ask, speculating whether she's up to no good. "Elsie, what—"

As my sister steps toward me, her arms move to the front to reveal a brown box with a bunch of postal stamps on it. It's addressed to me, and it's from a business. The Gunner café.

The stockings, pincushion, and thread fall to the floor. I launch to my feet but can't move. My heart leaps into my throat. Two months. Two months without him. I'm desperate to open it. I'm dreading opening it.

Frantic questions cycle through my head. What has he been doing? Is he away from his mother? Is he in trouble again? Is he okay? Is he happy?

"I found this on the porch," Elsie says.

I wipe my hands on my apron. I sit. I stand.

"Annabelle?"

"I'm fine," I lie. I accept the package from her with shaky hands. I run my index finger over the neat, loopy handwriting, touched by how eloquently he spelled my name. He took his time writing it out, I can tell.

I screw my eyes shut. I'm terrified of finding a letter inside. Of what it will say. Of what it will do to me.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Elsie asks.

"No, actually I...I can't do this here," I say.

Since he left, I haven't dared set foot in the cabin. Today, I make the trip. I grab my coat and hike through the woods, cradling the package to my chest, recalling this familiar route with a pain that sears my insides. When I arrive, the dwelling looks abandoned as if he'd never been here.

The door creaks when I open it and walk inside. My breath hitches as the lingering smell of him throttles me. Wood chips and leather and spice...cinnamon, I finally realize. I stare at the bed where we slept, the wood stove that kept us warm, the area of the floor where we sat during the storm as he explained about his dandelion tattoo. The painting of our hill on the wall.

I place the box on the mattress and then trace the mural, the very spot where we wrapped ourselves around each other. We had our first kiss while he painted this, neither of us knowing yet how significant that place would become.

I wipe dust from the mural with my sleeve. Much better.

I perch on the bed, lift his pillow, press it to my face, and inhale the sweet scent. I sit there until light from the sun shifts in the sky, brightening a different corner of the cabin. I think about leaving the package here and not opening it yet. I need more time. I'm not ready to remember. I tell myself I'm not ready for whatever he sent me. I have to wait.

I tear open the package anyway. Styrofoam pieces overflow from the box as I dig through it and feel something solid and thin and curved, with some sort of taut cord attached and...

My hands shoot to my mouth. "Oh, Cassius."

Gently, I lift the bow from the package and examine it in wonder. It's a dark wood color and fits perfectly in my hands. Licking my lips, I glide my fingers over the arc and pluck the string. Along with the bow is a packet of arrows made of the same dark wood inlaid with green. The heads are sharp and have never been fired. The feathers tickle my skin.

There's no letter. I don't need one. I know what he's trying to say.

He is the only one to ever know the real me.

My knees hit the floor. My throat closes up. My face inflates with heat. I feel it coming. First, it's a whimper. Then it's a choked cry.

And that's when I start sobbing.

There's nothing to catch in the woods at this hour, during this season. Nevertheless, it feels wonderful. Stealing through the trees with this new instrument in my hand, something stirs in me that I recall from childhood. Excitement. Power. Strength. Purpose. Like this, I belong only to myself.

Now that I've wept until there were no more tears, my body is weightless and agile. Instead of feeling worn out, I'm re-fueled.

Some sort of unidentified creature snaps a twig in the branches above. I raise the bow, searching, but sigh when I cannot locate the source. This feels right. This is what I was meant to do.

I decide on a target, just to get accustomed, just for ceremony, to introduce myself to the craft. I focus on a knot in a tree twenty feet away. It's bulbous and heart-shaped. I lift the instrument and set the arrow, positioning my fingers the way that man in the city arcade showed me to, when Cassius took me there.

The real thing is a lot harder to master, but I will learn. My mouth purses. I caress the arrow's neck, give the feathers a light kiss, one I hope Cassius will somehow feel.

I release the arrow. In a blink, the point hits the border of the knot, almost inside, almost there. It feels as good as an orgasm. And I feel no shame.

And that's when I start to grin.

My father rises from the couch when I enter the house. The fire in the hearth illuminates his tight features. My coat and shoes are wet from the snow. My toes and lips are numb, and it's the best feeling in the world right now. So I leave myself open and vulnerable to his stare. This is who I am.

"She told me you were with David," Papa says, gesturing toward Elsie, who twitches in the corner like a wounded bunny.

She carries the look of a daughter who has recently been scolded. She lied to our father for me. I want to hug her and also wag a finger at her. I do neither because this really has nothing to do with her. My father was disappointed by my break-up with David and then relieved to see me at least resume our kinship.

But this is not about David, either. This is about his reaction when his gray eyes stray to the arrow pack dangling from my shoulder and then land on the bow that I'm clasping onto for dear life.

"Where did you get that?" he asks.

I straighten, challenging him with my best Annabelle posture. "It was sent to me."

I let my expression do the rest of the talking. Papa grunts, but the annoyance doesn't last. He shakes his head ruefully. "James Gunner would have done the same thing." He tilts his head to the side, studying me, and I wonder what he sees. Am I someone completely unrecognizable or just the same girl from a different angle?

He gestures toward the bow. "You made one of those when you were little."

I'm surprised he remembers that. My mother caught me with the bow and snapped it in half, then lectured me on the proper roles we Catholic Unity women must stick to. She'd said that I should let it be a lesson to me. She was so icy to her children, because that's how my grandparents treated her. She wasn't a very eager wife, either, but Papa never complained. He never stopped caring for her.

"Mother broke it," I blurt out and then feel guilty.

Papa flinches. "But I fixed it."

My sister and I swap baffled glances as he leaves the room and returns a couple of minutes later with a child-sized bow made from a branch switch and yarn. It's a crude model, but the memory of assembling it is clear in my mind. Seeing it again, I almost lose my grip on my new bow.

"You kept it?" I ask. "Why?"

He scratches his beard. "Because you're my daughter. Because I remember your smile when you made it. I didn't approve of your interest in it, yet I didn't want to forget that smile. So I hid it. I should have given it back to you. It was only a toy at the time, but I didn't want you getting more and more attached. It's strange how I wanted to keep it from you but also remember you that way. Can you forgive me for that?"

"Of course," I say quickly.

This is the closest we've come to a meaningful conversation in two months. Who knows why he kept that little bow in spite of not wanting me to have it? Who knows how he was able to love a woman who never loved their children or him in the same way? Who knows why he kept his friendship with Mr. Gunner so close to his heart?

Not all feelings or actions or intentions can be reduced to one solid explanation. Motivations aren't always that simple. Emotions are diverse.

Cassius would say that's what makes the heart incredible. That's what makes us real. That's what makes us flawed. That's what makes us redeemable. That's what makes us, hopefully, still good people.

Papa sighs. "You could have shot an arrow all this time, whenever you went out."

That's not the point.

"I don't want this—" I lift the bow, "—to be a temporary thing."

"Am I a blind old fool, Annabelle?"

"No," I promise. If my eyes weren't so raw from crying in the cabin, the vulnerability in his voice might have caused my tears to flow again.

"I wanted you and Cassius to have a friendship. I wanted that in honor of his father. I wanted you to have some sort of connection to the outside world. I thought it was important. It's your right of passage. But I trusted you wouldn't...I didn't expect...I didn't expect just how far you would go. I never thought you'd risk such a thing as your place here. Was I wrong to think you were merely being stubborn and loyal to David by not participating? Or... besides the bow, have I ever held you back in some other way?"

"No. Never."

"Are you happy?"

In that moment, I do the one thing I never thought I'd do when faced with that question: I hesitate. "I'm not unhappy," I finally manage. "With you and Elsie, I have enough."

"Oh, my Annabelle." With effort, he shakes his head. "That's not enough for you. Not while you carry that bow."

"That's not true! I can go hunting in the mornings. No one has to know. And I can still be here. I adore my family. You and Elsie. This is where I'm from. This is my home—"

"Do you love him?"

The backs of my eyes burn. I close them and see Cassius's face as I always see it. I feel every moment I spent with him and every word we shared. I feel the word always like it's a tangible thing. The same tangible thing that rocks me to sleep each night.

Yes, I do. I love him. I love him desperately.

And he loved me. He loves me. Doesn't he?

Panic jolts through me. Does he still feel that way? Are three months enough time to forget?

"Annabelle." Papa pushes out the words. "Go to him."

My body splits in half. I step back, but my father is suddenly there, taking my shoulders, anchoring me to the floor. "I know what it's like to be stuck between the people I love."

I think of my mother. And I peek over at Elsie, still trapped in the corner. Papa has spent years torn between his wife and his daughters. Then when she died, he remained between Elsie and me.

"I know what it's like. I don't want that to happen to you," he says.

"But it's a choice I can't undo. I don't know anything about—"

"You’re a woman. Be with him. If you decide you want to stay in that world with him, we..."

"We'll understand," Elsie finishes, stepping out of the shadow.

"Annabelle," Papa says. "Go. And find out."

Find out. Someone else once said that to me. Whichever choice I make—my family or Cassius—I will be giving up something for the rest of my life. It sounds impossible. But if there's always this feeling, this bond, maybe it will hurt just a little less.

The bow is still tucked in my hand. I clutch it for strength.

And on the following Friday, they drive me to a train stop on the outskirts of our community. Armed with the address from Cassius's package, I hug my father and Elsie goodbye. He tells me to take a cab from the train station. He tells me to be careful. He tells me to be good. He tells me to make sure Cassius looks out for me, and me him.

In a delicate voice, he tells me, "We will miss you."

I hop from the truck and start across the snow. It's an unseasonably warm day for winter. The landscape is plush and white and clear. It's midday, and there are so many hours ahead of me, and so much to see.

The more steps I take, the faster I walk. I feel the way I did riding his motorcycle, my arms wrapped tightly around him, when our trips turned me into a bird like the one on his ring. And I smile.

And that's when I start running.