Angel

The next few days go by about as slowly as possible. Mama seems even more absent than usual, and I take an extra shift in the reclamation shed just to keep my mind occupied.

Tulip must feel bad about what she said to me because she seems sort of stiff and tense. And I suppose her ceremony is this week too. It’s a big deal for her but I do not want to ask about it. I’d rather just let that information flow past me without thinking about it, like a leaf on the river.

When Friday comes, I'm careful to groom myself the way that Brother Owen suggested. I bathe again in the afternoon after work, tying my hair back with a little bit of fabric fashioned into a ribbon. I made myself a dress out of a shower curtain with tiny blue flowers all over it. Hydrangeas, I think they are, little puffs of color like cotton candy.

It looks all right, I suppose. I watch myself in the mirror, turning from side to side, trying to see what I'll look like to strangers. What are they expecting? Fancy clothes? Makeup? We are not allowed to wear makeup. My freckles are about the only adornment I've got.

My last chore for today is preparing dinner. I fry up some pork chops in the cast-iron skillet, dropping some green beans to lightly cook in the fat. It's a nice, simple, homey meal. The sort of thing I will be preparing for my family, when I have one.

Looks like I might be having one sooner rather than later.

“You all right?” Mama asks me from the kitchen doorway. She leans against the framing with one shoulder, her arms folded, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

I turn around in surprise, biting my lips together and trying to rearrange my face into a neutral expression.

“All right? Of course I am all right.”

“What's that you're wearing?”

I glance down. How am I supposed to explain this?

“Angel? Are you planning on answering me?”

“Just have a seat. I’ve got your dinner right here,” I say, trying to change the subject.

But it doesn't work. Though she pulls out a wooden chair, scraping it along the floor before she sits, she keeps her eyes on me. She’s scrutinizing everything I do now, trying to figure out exactly what's going on before I tell her. She considers herself quite shrewd and is a large fan of mystery novels that we sometimes get in the donations. I found that out now. Mary likes the romances. Agatha likes the thrillers and horror stories, my mother prefers mysteries. No wonder she thinks she's so smart.

Her plate clunks against the table as I push it toward her. She picks up her fork and leans back in her chair while I sit.

“So?” she persists.

I shrug. Something tells me if I start to talk about this, I’ll cry. I don't want to do that. I want to be brief.

“Have you been drinking?” I ask her suddenly. She opens her mouth in shock.

“How dare you? I am your mother!”

I nod, taking a knife to cut neat little triangles out of my pork chop. The meat glistens with a sheen of oil and little flecks of black pepper.

“I know you are,” I say evenly, careful to control my voice. I've been taking my new role seriously, testing the boundaries of what I can and can't say. This might be farther than is really wise.

“What I do is really none of your business,” she mutters testily. “Honestly. I can’t believe you.”

She stuffs some pork chop into her mouth, chewing noisily. I detect a faint whiff of alcohol, certain that she's exhaling it through her nose right now.

“Where would you even get it?”

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

“Honestly,” she says again.

“From the reclamation shed? That doesn't seem to make sense. Where would you get the money? How does that happen?”

She points her fork at me. “I know you think you know everything, but you don't. There's still a lot of things that go on around here you don't know anything about, Angel. A lot of things.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, while both of us try to figure out what we’re going to say next. This is not an argument that either one of us can win at this point. All we can do is make things worse.

“Well, anyway, I like your dress,” she finally says.

And I can't help it, I start to cry. As softly as I can at first, trying to choke it back by keeping my head down, holding my breath. But when the tears start dropping onto the rim of my plate and flowing into my nose, I have to sniffle. She hears it. She knows.

“Geez, Angel. What's the matter with you?”

I look up at her, trying to see through the bleary puddle of tears in my bottom eyelashes. Her expression teeters between annoyance and actual sympathy.

“Tonight… they’re taking me…”

“What are you talking about?” she asks irritably. “Who's taking you? Where could you possibly be going?”

I start crying in earnest, my shoulders heaving up and down, threatening the new seams of my shift. I try to explain, but I can only talk in phrases between hiccuping coughs.

“I don't know… Father Daddy… we’re gonna… for the Family… sell me…”

She squints at me, calculating. Then her eyes open wider.

“You're going to Dustin’s?”

I nod miserably.

“Well, that does make sense. I was wondering why they didn’t give you Master yet. Makes a lot of sense.”

Her cold, distant tone slashes at me. I feel lonely, like a kitten left out the snow.

“Mama,” I bawl. “But I'll be… I'll never see you again. Will I? I don't even know… Tulip said…”

She leans forward, resting her elbows on the table and clasping her hands under her chin.

“Listen, kid,” she starts, “everybody has a job to do. You should consider yourself lucky. You're probably very important to us. They probably picked you specifically, you know.”

“I was picked to settle your debt,” I hiss, suddenly full of venom. “It doesn't really have anything to do with me, at all. It's you, Mama. Your debt. Why didn't they sell you to settle your debt?”

She shrugs, raising her eyebrows imperiously. “What do you think they would get for an old lady like me anyway? My work is here. My service was raising you, and they must think I did a good turn on that or they wouldn’t have picked you. It all works out, somehow, it always does. It's all part of God’s plan.”

I don't want to say anything. She looks so satisfied, so smug. Then I realize, she's always been well aware of her debt. Apparently, so are a lot of other people. With me gone, nobody will be able to hang that over her head anymore. Her last shred of humility will just vaporize, just like that.

“So you will clear the last of our family obligation, Angel,” she continues reasonably. “Doesn’t that seem balanced? Fair? Everybody carries a debt, anyway. Don’t you think that both of us living here these last sixteen years has cost the Family something? Eating isn’t free, you know. And Silas coming in, being the father you never had? Don’t you think you owe him for that?”

I gasp a little, trying to understand what she's saying. It never occurred to me that I would owe Father Daddy for what he does, not really. Not for me specifically. He does it for everyone.

But that is sort of true, isn't it? I never had another father in my life. He's just about the only man I've ever looked up to with that kind of gravity or respect.

Then I remember our time in his office, murmuring word Daddy against his chest. The vision of his face buried between my legs flashes through my mind and I feel my cheeks getting hot as I blush fiercely.

“You all right?” Mama asks me, her eyes narrow. “You getting feverish or something? You think that'll get you out of it? Want to go take a nap or something?”

“I don't need a nap,” I spit right back at her. I stand and gather the plates off the table, even though she's got a couple bites left.

She doesn't even realize, this might be last night we ever see each other. Those might be the last words she ever says to me. And now she is going to have to make her own dinner. Clean her own house. Tend her own garden.

She'll miss me. She will.

That gives me only the slightest glimmer of satisfaction as I trudge out of the kitchen, swallowing back yet another wave of humiliating tears.