The Feathered Bone (13 page)
Read The Feathered Bone Online
Authors: Julie Cantrell
Friday, December 24, 2004
Christmas Eve
“I
GUESS YOU
'
RE TOO OLD TO SET OUT COOKIES FOR
S
ANTA AND
carrots for his reindeer?” I ask, half hoping Ellie will burst into a fit of giggles and say, “No, let's do it!”
Instead, she rolls her eyes and plugs tiny white earbuds into her ears.
Where are you, Sarah?
I get the hint and leave my daughter to her music. Then I head to the carport, where Carl is tinkering with his compound hunting bow. “Help me. Please. I can't get through to her no matter how hard I try.”
“That's your problem,” he says. “You try too hard.” My husband doesn't look up from the fletching jig as he repairs several faulty arrows. I move closer, and he slaps my rear. “Mm-hmm! Nothing better than a woman who knows what she's made for.” He pulls me close with hungry desire and leans me back against his workbench. “You ready to give me my Christmas present?”
I laugh it off, pulling away. “Sure. Right out here in front of the neighbors.”
This seems to arouse him, and he pulls me close again, even more forcefully this time. He kisses my neck, and my body reacts with flame.
In the yard next door, children are playing.
“Carl, there are kids everywhere.” Still, I cave in close against him, enjoying the way it feels to be in his arms. He's kissing my shoulder when Ellie comes outside, calling, “Mom!” as she closes the door behind her.
I pull away quickly. Frustrated, he spins his attention back to the arrows, as if I have no right to leave him wanting, even when our child needs me.
“Change your mind?” I ask Ellie. “Want to make Santa cookies?”
“I guess so.” She says this with a flat tone, but I take it as a spark of hope.
“You hear that, Carl?” I can't hide my relief. “Wanna help us?”
He responds coldly. “No.” Then he grabs his bow and heads for the full-sized foam deer in the backyard. He pulls an arrow from his quiver, nocking it in place while attaching his release to the string loop. The tense line snaps, the carbon arrow spins through the air, and the shaft slices the target with a loud, clean
pop
. We leave him to his fun.
In the kitchen Ellie and I discuss Christmas memories from years gone by. “Remember when you caught me hiding your new bike and I had to confess that Santa wasn't real?” I hand her the sugar, and she measures while she talks.
“Yeah, I was glad you told me the truth. One kid in my class still believed last year. I felt kind of sorry for her.”
“I struggled with the whole Santa thing, actually.”
“Really?” Sarah pours her scoop of sugar into the bowl.
“Yeah. I wanted you to have all the fun, but I didn't want you to be traumatized like I was when I learned he didn't really live at the North Pole with elves and reindeer.”
She rolls her eyes again. “You're so dramatic.”
“I never told you that story?”
She shakes her head and reaches for the flour. I point to the next step of the recipe, and she reads the measurements.
“Well, you know I was adopted, right?”
She nods.
“I found out about the adoption just before I learned the truth about Santa.”
“Ouch,” Ellie says.
“Yep. Hurtful stuff.” I smile. “Seriously, there's no comparison between the two. But I was able to express my feelings about Santa Claus. I couldn't really talk about being adopted.” I pass Ellie the baking soda and measuring spoons.
“How'd you find out? About Santa?”
“Friends at school. They'd been teasing those of us who still believed. Our teacher admitted it was all a hoax.”
“Your teacher told you? That's harsh!”
“Yep. Second grade. I locked myself in the teachers' restroom and refused to come out. For hours. It only had an inside lock. Even the janitor was at a loss. They thought about taking the door from its hinges, but they decided to call my mom instead.”
“No way.”
“True. When she got there, I screamed at her through the heavy door, âWhy did you lie to me?' ” I act out the part with extra flair.
Ellie laughs softly. “Like Dad says: Drama Mama.”
“It really did upset me. I trusted those people to give me the truth. When I found out I had been fooled, my faith in them was broken.”
“Oh, come on, seriously?” She rolls her eyes, stirring the dry ingredients.
“You have to understand. In the span of one week, I had learned my mom and dad weren't my real parents. And that Santa didn't exist. Took me a long time to learn to trust again. And right when I was beginning to do so, my father left us. That was that.”
Ellie steals a few chocolate chips before adding them to the dough. “But you trust Dad, right?”
“Of course. Can't have a marriage without trust.”
“So what finally got you out of the teachers' restroom?” Ellie asks.
“Easy. All my mom had to do was offer chocolate chip cookies.” I smile, and we continue working together in the kitchen, making our favorite dessert. Mother and daughter. Ellie and me.
Friday, December 31, 2004
New Year's Eve
Hello Sparrow,
I'm trying to get The Man to like me. Then maybe he'll let me go home.
I'm scared of him, but he brings me food and water. And he takes me outside to use the bathroom. I have to keep a pillowcase over my head out there. And my leg feels weird without the chain. I think I got used to the heavy.
The other girls have to stay chained, but I'm his favorite. That's what he says. I don't know the other girls. I only know The Lady, and she says I ask too many questions.
The Man says he'll keep giving me food, water, clothes. Even an iPod. As long as I'm good. He says I shouldn't be scared. But I am.
Saturday, January 1, 2005
New Year's Day
Hello Sparrow,
Happy New Year's!
I bet Mom is cooking black-eyed peas and cabbage. She says they make us healthy and wealthy. They really just make the whole house stink. She's probably making cabbage rolls. I always hold my nose while I eat those. But now I miss Mom so much, I'd eat all her cabbage rolls and never complain.
I bet The Lady won't cook cabbage. She seems to be as scared of The Man as I am. I asked her why they would want to take someone else's kid. She said, “Asking why won't change nothin'. You might as well get that through your head.”
Sarah's New Year's Resolutions 2005
1. Go home.
Hello Sparrow,
The Lady said we're in a place called Chalmette. I don't know where that is. Sometimes I hear cars go by, so maybe I could run for help.
I'm in a shed. There are holes in the floor, but all I can see is dirt. There's one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, like in our attic at home. Sometimes The Man keeps it on all night. Sometimes he keeps it dark for days. I like it to be on, but he won't let me touch the switch. If The Man wants the light
on, it stays on. If he wants it off, it stays off. He is in charge of everything. Even The Lady knows that. She says, “What LeMoyne wants, LeMoyne gets.”
LeMoyne is what she calls The Man. I don't call him a name because he won't call me mine. He doesn't call The Lady a real name either. Just
Baby
or
Woman
or the really bad B-word, depending on if he's in the mood to be nice to her or not.
The walls here aren't finished. Pop would laugh and say, “That's what we call a stud. Like me.” I like to help Pop build things. But now it feels like none of those things ever happened. I don't want to forget who I really am. So I will keep writing everything I remember.
Hello Sparrow,
I like to look for patterns in the ceiling, like when I was a little kid. I find elephants and tigers. Even dinosaurs. My favorite is a nest of birds. I pretend you're in there, but I'm glad you're outside instead, flying free.
The nest makes me think of our field trip. Miss Henderson showed us pelicans on the Louisiana flag. She said the mama pelican didn't have anything to feed her babies, so she let them drink her blood.
Miss Henderson told us that we should always think of that mama pelican. And that we should know our parents would do anything to save us. Mrs. Amanda said, “That's true. Anything.”
The Man says my parents don't want me. That they aren't looking for me. But I don't believe him.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Valentine's Day
“Happy Valentine's Day.” I snuggle against Carl's warm chest, drinking in the woodsy smell of his aftershave. It makes me want to curl next to him in a flannel sleeping bag beneath a world of stars. I try not to let my mind drift away to Sarah, the search. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Let me get my coffee.” He shuffles into the kitchen, and I trail him, laughing, holding his mug.
“I already fixed it, honey. Set it down by you? When you were shaving?”
He takes the warm cup, a tacky souvenir from our summer road trip out west. It shows a picture of Hoover Dam with shiny black letters that declare
I took the dam tour
. We spent the night on a houseboat, sleeping in the middle of Lake Mead. One of my favorite vacations. I can still picture Ellie plunging into the clear, cool waters of the lake. She felt so proud.