I glanced at the mattress and my face flushed hot with embarrassment when I saw the bloodstain on the sheet. I froze, and couldn’t look at Atticus; I wanted to run out of the room, but if I got up he would see the stain so I did not move.
“What is it?” he asked.
I moved my leg over so my thigh covered the blood.
“Nothing…”
He sat upright, too. “Please don’t lie to me—did I hurt you?” He fitted his hands on my elbows.
I shook my head, thought on it a moment, and fought a dilemma. Which is worse: letting him know that he hurt me, or letting him know about the blood?
I chose to spare his feelings and expose my embarrassment instead.
When Atticus saw the blood, he glanced down at himself, naked in the dim glow of the tiny candles, and saw that there was blood on him too.
“I didn’t expect to…start so soon.”
He kissed the top of my head and pulled me next to him. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You never have to be ashamed of anything with me. All right?”
“All right.”
After a moment, I got out of the bed.
“I’m going to clean up.”
“Okay, love.”
I am finally where I belong, I thought as I left the room.
(What have I done? What have I done…? I thought as I watched her go.)
By the next morning, after I crawled out of bed, I was surprised to see there was no more blood when I went into the bathroom. I shrugged it off, again attributing it to my cycle.
The soreness, however, was not something I could brush off.
“You’re lying to me,” Atticus said as we made our way down to the blackberry bush together—he wouldn’t let me go anywhere without him after the incident with Mark Porter. “Every step you take is more…careful than usual. Don’t lie to me, Thais; I know I hurt you.”
“I’m fine,” I said with a smile in my voice. “You worry about me too much.”
“I don’t worry about you enough,” he countered.
I laughed. “That’s ridiculous!” I stopped and glanced back at him. “If you worry about me anymore, I’ll be a prisoner in that cabin. I’m surprised you haven’t boarded up the doors and windows and put a chain on my ankle so I can’t go anywhere.”
Atticus laughed, shaking his head. We started walking again.
“Y’know, that’s not such a bad idea. At least then I’d know where you are at all times.”
“It’s a horrible idea,” I said promptly. “You have horrible ideas, Atticus. Ridiculous and horrible. I will not be locked up.”
“If I really wanted to lock you up,” he said, “I could easily. You’re very small”—he laughed out loud—“If we hadn’t used all the duct tape on that girl, I could tape you to the floor—that’s how easy it’d be to keep you in that room if I wanted.”
I matched his loud laughter, throwing my head back.
“Well it’s a good thing we’re out of duct tape,” I said.
“For you, I guess it is.” He came up closer and leaned around to kiss my neck.
After picking blackberries and checking the snare traps and the fishing line, I put myself on laundry duty while Atticus gutted and cleaned our meager catch for the day. I scrubbed the bloodstained sheet in the pond, but knew nothing would get it out.
We ate lunch and then went for a swim; carried more dry wood against the cabin to replace what we had burned for cooking and sterilizing water. Then we went for another swim.
I noticed the way he looked at me; I was as aware of it as he was of the way I looked at him. We adored one another; we were the only two people left in the world; we were cut from a different cloth but stitched together by some stroke of luck, some miracle.
What would Sosie think of me now?
I had been outside taking the clothes off the line when my sister’s face entered my mind. My beautiful Sosie; oh, how much I missed my dear sister.
“He’s not the same man who tore us apart that day,” I told Sosie as I pulled a T-shirt from the line. “He never was that man. Oh, how I wish you were here so you could see and understand.”
I folded a shirt and placed it on a tree stump.
“Tell Momma that I’m going to be okay, that God sent Atticus to protect me and that I’m going to be okay.”
But what I did not tell my sister was that I thought God had also sent me to protect Atticus. Sosie would not have understood such a thing. Sosie would never have approved that her sister would willingly give herself to any man. And I thought Sosie would tell our mother and then both would be turning over in their graves.
But my father would have understood.
He’d always wanted someone strong for me, someone who would protect me when he was gone. “Thais, you should give Fernando a chance. He’s the only man I trust. And he’s a strong and devoted young man—he’ll protect you.”
“But I don’t want anyone else to protect me, Daddy, except you. Give him to Sosie.”
“I will never be with a man!” Sosie yelled from the living room. “I’ll die before I let anyone ever touch me, Daddy!”
Father looked at me paternally. “No one can survive in this world alone,” he said. “When I’m gone, you’ll need someone strong to protect you and your sister, to keep you alive.”
I shot up from the kitchen table, my dress swishing about my ankles as I went toward him. I draped my arms around his neck and hugged him so tight.
“Daddy, we’ll always be together. You’re all the protecting we need.”
I sighed. I missed my father terribly. We had a special bond; and we were so alike—everyone had always said so.
I smiled; the fabric dangled from my hands.
“I’ve found someone to protect me, Daddy,” I said.
Because he would understand. He wouldn’t turn over in his grave hearing such news—he’d dance in it! I giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Atticus asked, coming up behind me.
I startled.
“You scared me!” I playfully slapped his arm.
Atticus beamed, grabbed me around the waist, and pulled me to him.
“I heard you laughing,” he said, kissing my right cheek. “What were you thinking about?” He kissed my left cheek, and I melted in his arms.
“I was just thinking about my sister.”
“Oh?” He let go of me and sat on the grass, drew his knees up, and smiled at me with interest. “Was she a funny girl? Tell me about her.”
I folded the shirt in my hands and placed it on top of the other one on the tree stump. I paused and looked thoughtfully out ahead. Atticus reached out and took my hand, gently pulling me down to sit with him on the grass.
“Yes, Sosie was the funniest girl I knew.”
I drew my knees up, and pulled the length of my dress over them.
“Before she lost her sight, before The Fall, she was always playing pranks on me and our parents. One time, to get back at me for spilling soda on her favorite blouse, she filled the top of the toothpaste tube with some kind of prescription medicine Momma kept in the medicine cabinet.” I stopped to reflect, shaking my head and smiling at the memory. “She made sure I’d be the one to squeeze it onto my toothbrush. And of course I did, and I started to brush my teeth with it—I was so mad at her for that!” I laughed. “And she was so clever, and so sharp—had a foul mouth if I’d never one before—and everybody in the neighborhood was afraid of her. My big sister. Nobody ever messed with me.”