Sufficient Grace (13 page)

But the talk turns to the fever dreams again. Next to the freezers, Aunt Gloria is telling my daddy all about it. Gloria's been sleeping next to Naomi while she's been nursing her back to health. Before Naomi opened her eyes this morning, she told her momma — in a high, sorrowful voice — that she had wandered inside a great cave which was the gaping mouth of a giant. Inside his stomach, Naomi fed starving people and animals with meat and fat cut from the giant's belly. His heart was a volcano and his blood was lava. She used her hunting knife to stab the giant in his volcano heart. The people and animals inside his stomach flowed out his mouth and were freed. As the big mouth clamped shut in death, Naomi pulled a wood tick out between the giant's clenched teeth. The tick was pulled out alive, but it was flat as a tack. We don't know at all what to make of these feverish dreams.

I don't think Naomi should touch the coyote, as sick as she's been and all. I can't keep her from him, though. Bending over in her coat of many colours, Naomi looks into the mouth of the cold, still animal. Her brown thumb pushes up, hard, onto the sharp, pointy tooth jutting out the side of his mouth. The tooth is the same colour as a hen's egg, white-like with shadowy bruises. The muzzle is starting to freeze solid; no steaming cloud escapes from his mouth. When she takes her hand away, a purple-red imprint remains on her thumb. She moves so slow but gives me a shy smile, and I can almost see her secret dog teeth.

Rubbing the dent on the inside of her bottom lip, she looks up. ‘I do believe I'm better now.'

Reuben puts his arm low around Naomi's waist and she lays her head on his wide shoulder. Loose and wild, her hair spills across her chest. I feel the beating of their hearts. He is so proud.

‘Boy? Watch your hands.' Uncle Ingwald's breath puffs white even inside the garage.

Reuben and Naomi break apart, but the girl's daddy ain't having it. Ingwald grabs his daughter and pulls her to his side.

‘I was only showing her the coyote.' Ain't much use in protesting, but Reuben can't just stand there dumb.

Naomi shivers and looks down at her feet; she is barefoot on the cold concrete. No one thought to make her wear shoes. She should say something — maybe Reuben was helping her stand — but she doesn't say nothing at all. Uncle Ingwald wraps the quilt tighter around her and glares at Reuben.

Daddy and Aunt Gloria walk over from the freezers. They both look at all of us waiting there silent. We hear breath and the wind blowing outside. There is nothing to say.

On the way home, I'm scratching at a bump in my hair. It sure ain't a scab. I got a wood tick stuck deep in my head: something more to remember this coyote by. And it comes to me unbidden: the tick is a messenger of the Most High. What Naomi's dream says, I don't rightly know. But I know that God has come upon me. He is speaking through Grandma's blood.

Reuben and I are singing, yelling loud with the wind in our ears.

Would you be free from your burden of sin? There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood. Would you o'er evil a victory win? There's wonderful pow'r in the blood
.

Reuben digs it out for me: he scrapes his dirty fingernails close down by my scalp and pinches the body tight.

Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow? There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood. Sin stains are lost in its life-giving flow. There's wonderful pow'r in the blood
.

One quick pull, and the nasty thing is scrambling all over my brother's shivering, gloveless hands. Later, we'll roast the tick on a match. Angel or not, its dark brown body will shrivel up as the flame burns through him. The big grey ticks that hang on the dogs are all bloated with blood, but this one is still flat, hard and little like a seed. He will stay hungry. Lucky we got him off me early.

12

ACROSS THE BLACK SKY
,
GREEN STREAKS SHRED THE CLOUDS
. Scratches of white vein a yellow cone; it is a tornado of light pulsing in and out, worming its way higher and higher. The heavens are slit: ripped, split, gashed. Fire is splashing; it is dancing faster. It hisses and crackles and spits; it hoarsely murmurs,
Armageddon.
It is more than unusual to see the northern lights in December; they stripe the sky with colour a couple times a year, but usually in autumn and spring.

After the Sunday evening praise service — once everyone had finished treating Naomi like she was new and shiny, holding her hand, blessing her, and blessing God for her healing and for her gift — we all left the church expecting pinpoints of stars shining through the night. But what we got was colour: aurora borealis. Side by side, the congregation huddles together whispering in the parking lot, heads lifted, eyes fixed at the sky. In the dark, the voices don't belong to anyone in particular.

‘Beautiful. Just beautiful. Our God is an awesome God.'

‘Ain't the right season, though. Can't say I've seen them without sitting on a tractor, either harvesting or planting, eh?'

‘Right. Makes a guy wonder.'

It is a wonder, so we stand and watch, breathing and shivering together awhile. Families start to drift away, and I can hear their car engines struggling to turn over in the cold. Naomi's sleeping at our house tonight, and she walks with her hand tucked inside my jacket pocket. I see folks whispering about her to her father — some about miracle recoveries and others telling of other unknown prophecies — but we walk away and pile into the pick-up. Naomi don't even look behind her as people watch her with their eyes. Daddy's driving with Mom snuggled in beside him. Reuben and I balance Naomi half on our laps. Usually those two would snuggle together, but tonight he's treating the girl like she's spoiled meat. Our coats rub together, smelling moist as they dry in the loud blowing heat of the truck. As we drive, I press my nose on the window frost and ponder the lights.

The prophet Ezekiel speaks of a fearsome, northern windstorm made of light, its middle all glowing metal forming four living creatures. They were men, but men with four faces and four wings and straight legs capped with glinting cloven hooves. Hands hung beneath their wings; their wings flashed and the feather tips touched, but each creature forged directly ahead. There was no turning with them. Each creature possessed four faces: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Their wings were mighty: for each, two wings spread out touching another creature and two wings covered its own body. They flew straight, following the Spirit, never turning astray. To look at the creatures burnt the eyes of men like coals. The touching wings flashed fire back and forth; they were lightning as they sped across the sky.

At school we studied the aurora borealis, and it is all about cycles and what it says in your own mind to mean. Vikings believed the lights were maidens mirrored on the sky; I like to imagine being in a ship out on the water, gazing up at a girl made all of colour and cloud. The Indian tribes around here seemed to disagree as to what the lights meant. Some thought that the lights spoke of war and disease or that they were rising ghosts, enemies looking for revenge. Some thought giants used torches of fire to shine light enough to spearfish on a dark night, just like they fished from birch bark canoes with torches tied to the ends. To those Indians, the northern lights were just that big fire shining off the water into our eyes, the reflection of a lake of flames. If I've got to pick a story to stick to, I pick the lake of flames. Lac du Flambeau ain't too far from Cranberry Lake, so I know it must be near enough to true.

‘Deer!'

Daddy slams on the brakes and the pick-up skids on the ice. But Reuben was wrong: it's a fisher. Almost a wolf but stragglier and closer to the ground, I barely see the thing as it skedaddles away from the road. It is all hunchback fur and yellow-green eyes, with a weasel face and fangs. Animals walk this road at night; roadkill brings them in and roadkill they become. Barn owls swoop for bats while bats swoop for mosquitoes, and they all avoid people the best they can. We're parked crooked in the road, engine still running, all watching the shadow of the creature sidle through the cornfield. Daddy straightens the wheels toward home.

‘Naomi's lucky she didn't go through the glass,' Reuben says low.

Why the boy needs to open his mouth, I don't know. True, the maps and caps stored up the front of the dashboard did fly when the tyres slipped, but Reuben and me both held tight to Naomi. There's no seatbelts in the hunting truck anyway.

‘The Lord probably told her to hold on, though; she knew it was coming.' Reuben says it loud enough for only Naomi and me to hear.

I can't see much of her face in the dark, but I know how the hurt would look. Naomi slides off of Reuben's lap and sits on me alone. Her weight is enough for me to settle back into the vinyl, and her hair is covering most of my face.

‘Daddy don't believe neither,' he whispers.

I want to tell Reuben to shut his mouth. I want to tell Naomi that he is just jealous and don't doubt her being sick nor getting well neither.

But he don't even believe in Grandma when she talks to Jesus, so it don't matter he don't believe Jesus is talking to Naomi. I can't see Reuben's face, but I know how even his hard eyes shine when he's hurting because he's wounded something good.

I want to make it better and tell Naomi that I believe, but I don't want to lie.

As we pass Uncle Peter's land, Mom and Daddy are both looking out the driver's window at an abandoned house. That house was there when he bought the Magnusson place, and there it still stands. The four-pane glass windows are all broken and the porch has started to sag. Lilac bushes bloom around it in spring, but they're only thorny branches all winter. My uncle talks about tearing it down every year.

Once we're home, Naomi takes a bath before bed. We've got plenty of pictures showing us as toddlers laughing together in the tub, but now that we're grown, sharing a bath might feel a bit too close. Even though our growing seems unnoticeable to our family, both Naomi and I are most aware of our changes. Standing bare and goosepimpled before my bath, I glimpse myself in the bathroom mirror and see my mother's body pushing through my little-girl hips and legs. Naomi's not so lucky, though, as she don't have the memory of her blood mother's thighs to reassure her that she is forming to plan. But Naomi is thicker than me, with my arms and legs like birch sticks; she is soft and round where I am sharp and straight, even with my too-proud hips.

I've got to use her bathwater after she's done because we don't want to run out of hot. The floor is slick, and the mirror is steamy. She's left her clothes and wet towel rumpled together in the laundry basket. I hold her clothes close to my face and breathe in her smell: it's a mingle of me, and my mother, and the doe scent the men wear in the woods. Naomi's underwear is white. No sad brownish smears, her panties are clean. Even someday, someday when they are stained, I believe she will bleed perfect: red-pink cranberries frozen on the snow.

Naomi and I snuggle together under the quilts and blankets, sharing warmth in one bed rather than split between the bunks. My nose is freezing, but my nose is always freezing; seems like the blood never makes it to the tip. My body doesn't always know its own way. We've finished reading our devotions, trying to memorise the ABCs of an excellent woman. Now with our flashlights off, we speak these things in God's name. Even though we are probably getting some wrong — and Naomi keeps making me laugh — we will become Proverbs 31 women: attentive, busy, compassionate; dignified, early riser, frugal; good, homemaker, ingenious; just, kind, laughs; meek, not lazy, opens her home; praiseworthy, quiet, righteous; smiling, trustworthy, understanding; virtuous, wise, excellent; yielding and zealous. We will be wives of noble character. Together we say:
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Naomi memorises quick, but she doesn't always remember long.

Even calling out our ABCs makes me feel like I'm lying, for my chances of being noble are low. I'm not alone in my failings, in what I find when I search my heart. When Grandma prays for me, she prays against rebellion. She's seen it in me since I was little, my wilful and stubborn spirit: refusing the breast too early, spitting food, and my steady stare. And now with my talking back and such. For Naomi, her thorn is vanity; Grandma saw that in the moment they touched. Grandma held that tiny baby in her arms, kissing Naomi's shiny black hair, smelling her scalp. And modesty was lacking: pride sat deep in the dark. I believe Grandma is right; she gives us a word of wisdom and she intercedes with the Lord. But even in bed, Naomi is holding her head again in that tilted way, looking out the sides of her eyes to make sure I see her praying before she sleeps. It's dark in my room, but I see her checking that I watch her walk in her gifts. And in church, I see her believe she's chosen, and I watch her blush and bloom.

Naomi's mumbling under her breath, still praying while I'm trying to sleep. Vanity is its name. She needs to shut those dark eyes and quit looking. I'm waiting for her to fall asleep; I won't be able to rest until I know I'm alone. When the dark and the cold sit heavy on my chest and I worry for my sleep, I tell myself stories of peace. God brings me peace from both my praying and my remembering. When I was little, before bed, my mom would run me a deep bath. She'd slip her hand inside the tub and check that the water wasn't too hot, and then she'd pull off my shirt. ‘Skin the bunny.' And my shirt would fold inside out and skim up over my head. ‘Skin the bunny.' I'd sink into the tub, letting the warm water cover my body, sliding like a cased rabbit into the pot.