My mother had praised and cursed it: “You have a very
vivid imagination.” Her response was the same whether I was
telling her fantastical bedtime stories,
telling her it was Irene who'd wiped the paste on my pants, or pleading with her to let me
sleep with the light on.
Our front
lawn and the
orchards, before my mother
left, had been my
kingdom. I was a beautiful
princess, lounging on the bench
swing, a gauzy
canopy billowing out around me. I rocked until I was
dizzy, waving off
imagined suitors, waiting for
a nameless prince who wasn’t coming. I searched the
orchard-woods for
unicorns with
Laura. We had our
separate castles on the concrete block above the
well and on
the hill behind the house. Sometimes we were
farmers like
my dad and his brothers, scattering
seed pods in the air. I was a
cowgirl in the
basement of my
grandparents’ house, sitting on a
long-abandoned saddle.
When my mother
left, the days were still growing longer.
The evening light now seemed
sinister. The sky in the
valley stayed light for an hour or more after the sun went down, because of the high
ridge of hills separating Philo from the
ocean. That summer left was mild. We were allowed to play
outdoors after
supper while
my father rested. Laura was occupied, now, with watching
Daniel and
Victoria. I was
secretly relieved to be playing alone now; nothing unpredictable could happen if it was just me, and I got to play things that were
too private to play with my sister.
My
kingdom – when it was still a kingdom – was
under attack. I pressed my back against the outer wall of the house, scanning the yard for
enemy soldiers. They knew to look for me, the
princess. I had changed from my
ball gown into
peasant clothes, pretending to be a servant to save my life. I crouched behind the tree, made a dash out
the back gate and through the dried-out
clay behind the house, running from the well to the hill, looking for
sanctuary.
I played, too, that I was in the
Bible. I wasn’t sure if this was
all right with God, so I was
extra-quiet about it. I played
Mary of Bethany, who sat at Jesus’ feet and had an older sister. Jesus and I were running from the
Pharisees, who wanted to kill him. He had let me come with Him and
His disciples, even though I was a
girl. We ran across
Israel, crossing the yard and the gravel lot where my dad parked the
Ranger. The other disciples got scared and
they left Jesus, but I stayed with him; I
held his hand as we ran. I was kicking up
dust, and it clung to my shoes and my
pant legs. We dodged behind the woodpile; I waited and
caught my breath.
“We can
hide out there!” I whispered, pointing at the
woodshed.
Jesus agreed and we darted inside. The floor of the woodshed was covered with splinters of
redwood and sparse piles of
kindling. My father’s
ax rested in the nearest corner to the door. The sun had long since passed behind the hills outside. It was unarguably
night time now.
There was no good way to
end the story.
Mary couldn’t marry Jesus, and I wasn’t interested in Jesus
dying that night, even if he were going to
rise from the dead. Still unresolved when my father called me inside, I
left Jesus in the woodshed and went
home.
from The Book of Revelation
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