Read Online A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jane Hamilton
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nourishment, Nellie seemed to be saying with her food. Here is life!
I went out to the porch and sat on the swing. Heat lightning flashed in the distance and lit up the sky for an instant, before I had time to see. There were so many miracles at work: that a blossom might become a peach, that a bee could make honey in its thorax, that rain might someday fall. For Lizzy there would be no more miracles. I thought then about the seasons changing, and in the gray of the night I could almost will myself to see the azure sky, the gold of the maple leaves, the crimson of the ripe apples, the hoarfrost on the grass. Lizzy somehow suddenly belonged to the earth. We would want to look at the beauty, trying to see through her eyes, and yet at the same time she was the air, the flower, perhaps even the moon now. All we could do, the only act left to us, was to look.
When I woke up two hours later I was still on the swing outside. I had slumped over and slept, my cheek resting on the scoop of the garden trowel. Howard’s rusted, stained T-shirts were hung up, shirt after shirt, on the clothesline. I wondered if I had hung them out. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the birds were chirping sweetly in the lilac bush by the feeder. I pulled myself up into a patch of pale light. It was another perfect morning. The green was slowly burning out of the grass and the dried ends would prick my feet if I walked across the lawn. The swallow in the nest in the far corner of the porch looked at me with distrust, I could tell, as if he thought I might run for him and crush him in my hand.I remember realizing that if I had ever felt rooted, it was nothing more than wishful thinking on my part. I had been simpleminded to think that I had come to a point of repose. The bottom, the solid ground of the world, had gone out beneath my feet.
I went upstairs, stepping carefully around the loose boards that groaned, to Emma’s room. Maybe this was home, I thought, this one small room with a bed and a dresser in it. There were feathers on the floor from a doll quilt, dried-out Magic Markers with no caps in sight, pennies hidden in the pile of the rug. I sat on the bed and looked at Emma. She was not going to be especially pretty, a fact that had now and again pained me. She had thin blond hair, a pug nose, and small eyes with sparse lashes. I used to kiss my children at night, holding dear their untroubled lives. It was the short time of grace, the time before a sorrow would teach them the ways of the world.
Emma looked like a different child in sleep, with her mouth shut and her folded hands at her chin. Although she had unnerved me from the start, at birth, because she was so clearly her own person, I felt as time went on that I knew her, that I would always know her better than she could ever know herself. I understood her before she had a concept of herself, and that knowledge, of her habits and proclivities, I would keep like a secret cache. I had washed her day after day, moving my hands over her smooth skin dotted with little golden hairs, skin that for years hadn’t had a single mole on it. I wanted to think, despite my better judgment, that whatever befell her—marriage, divorce, childbirth, disappointment, and triumph—I would know her. She sniffled and screwed up her eyes as she slept. I touched her hair and I was so glad, so glad that it wasn’t she who had drowned. It struck me that my girls would be safe because they had statistics on their side: No more than one child per neighborhood died in a given length of time. We had sacrificed Lizzy for the safety of all the others. Emma was free of danger for now, free to go to kindergarten where she would learn to sit in a circle and cut and paste and make rude noises on her forearm. She would have the chance to go through the long, dark tunnel of public education, and graduate in a long, white gown, and go on to the college we could afford. I wondered what she’d been told about Lizzy. I
I went out to the porch and sat on the swing. Heat lightning flashed in the distance and lit up the sky for an instant, before I had time to see. There were so many miracles at work: that a blossom might become a peach, that a bee could make honey in its thorax, that rain might someday fall. For Lizzy there would be no more miracles. I thought then about the seasons changing, and in the gray of the night I could almost will myself to see the azure sky, the gold of the maple leaves, the crimson of the ripe apples, the hoarfrost on the grass. Lizzy somehow suddenly belonged to the earth. We would want to look at the beauty, trying to see through her eyes, and yet at the same time she was the air, the flower, perhaps even the moon now. All we could do, the only act left to us, was to look.
When I woke up two hours later I was still on the swing outside. I had slumped over and slept, my cheek resting on the scoop of the garden trowel. Howard’s rusted, stained T-shirts were hung up, shirt after shirt, on the clothesline. I wondered if I had hung them out. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the birds were chirping sweetly in the lilac bush by the feeder. I pulled myself up into a patch of pale light. It was another perfect morning. The green was slowly burning out of the grass and the dried ends would prick my feet if I walked across the lawn. The swallow in the nest in the far corner of the porch looked at me with distrust, I could tell, as if he thought I might run for him and crush him in my hand.I remember realizing that if I had ever felt rooted, it was nothing more than wishful thinking on my part. I had been simpleminded to think that I had come to a point of repose. The bottom, the solid ground of the world, had gone out beneath my feet.
I went upstairs, stepping carefully around the loose boards that groaned, to Emma’s room. Maybe this was home, I thought, this one small room with a bed and a dresser in it. There were feathers on the floor from a doll quilt, dried-out Magic Markers with no caps in sight, pennies hidden in the pile of the rug. I sat on the bed and looked at Emma. She was not going to be especially pretty, a fact that had now and again pained me. She had thin blond hair, a pug nose, and small eyes with sparse lashes. I used to kiss my children at night, holding dear their untroubled lives. It was the short time of grace, the time before a sorrow would teach them the ways of the world.
Emma looked like a different child in sleep, with her mouth shut and her folded hands at her chin. Although she had unnerved me from the start, at birth, because she was so clearly her own person, I felt as time went on that I knew her, that I would always know her better than she could ever know herself. I understood her before she had a concept of herself, and that knowledge, of her habits and proclivities, I would keep like a secret cache. I had washed her day after day, moving my hands over her smooth skin dotted with little golden hairs, skin that for years hadn’t had a single mole on it. I wanted to think, despite my better judgment, that whatever befell her—marriage, divorce, childbirth, disappointment, and triumph—I would know her. She sniffled and screwed up her eyes as she slept. I touched her hair and I was so glad, so glad that it wasn’t she who had drowned. It struck me that my girls would be safe because they had statistics on their side: No more than one child per neighborhood died in a given length of time. We had sacrificed Lizzy for the safety of all the others. Emma was free of danger for now, free to go to kindergarten where she would learn to sit in a circle and cut and paste and make rude noises on her forearm. She would have the chance to go through the long, dark tunnel of public education, and graduate in a long, white gown, and go on to the college we could afford. I wondered what she’d been told about Lizzy. I
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