“I’m glad I am.”
He winced like she’d slapped him. His forehead creasing, he stared at her. “You’re glad?” he said. “You’re happy? Completely happy?”
Amanda’s mind drifted to nighttime, and how she snuck out of the house to see the moon, standing until her feet went numb. “Not completely happy, but I love Andrew, and I’m sure I’ll get better at all the things I’m supposed to do.”
“You look so much older with your hair up.”
“It feels strange. Like I was wearing the same clothes for years, and somebody took them away from me.”
He nodded. “That’s how I feel without you.”
“How is Elias?” she asked, suddenly wanting to change the subject. “Has he started working with you yet?”
“Somewhat. I don’t think he likes it. He told me he wants to be a fisherman.”
“Well, fishermen have sons too,” she said flatly. She had to fulfill her destiny as a woman, and Elias would have to fulfill his destiny as Father’s son.
“He’s smart. He could have been a wanderer if he’d been born to one.” Father’s voice was admiring but detached, like he was talking about someone else’s child. “Before I know it, he’ll be ready to leave the house. He doesn’t want to leave your mother, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know what she’ll do when he leaves. But if I can survive losing you, she can survive losing him. Though she’ll feel lonely. I do.”
Amanda nodded, unsure what to say.
“I didn’t want to come see you. I wanted to let you settle in, but I also knew it would make me miserable.”
Amanda shrugged. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I can do. Children grow up and leave.”
“It’s life, it’s life. I’ve watched others lose daughters and felt sorry for them. Now they can feel sorry for me.”
“Not too sorry,” she said, half laughing. “With me running around the island all the time and sleeping on the sand, they probably think you’re better off rid of me.”
“It hurt every time I woke up and you weren’t there.”
“I was—” Amanda tried to think of what she was. “Young. Angry.”
“But you’re not anymore.”
“Angry? I don’t think so. I’m just…tired.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ve grown old enough now. I don’t know. It is nice to see you.” This is only half a lie; the familiarity of his face warms something in her.
“Have you ever thought what it would be like if we could live together forever?”
Amanda looked up sharply. “No. Of course not.”
“I’ve thought about it. Just living together, you greeting me every evening when I came home and waving good-bye in the morning. You tending to the garden, the rain barrel, the chickens. We could stay together forever.”
“No, we couldn’t. Nobody does that.” Her voice rose more quickly than she wanted it to, and its volume intensified with her pulse. She didn’t remember standing, but now she towered over her seated father. “You can’t do that. It’s against the shalt-nots.”
“I’m not saying it should happen. I know you have to marry, and have children. Andrew is a good man. You chose well.”
“I did.” Her voice echoed around the kitchen, and she realized she was nearly shouting. Embarrassed, she quickly sat down and looked at the blood on the floor. “I don’t know what you want, coming here and talking like this,” she said quietly.
“It’s just wishes, Amanda. Silly wishes. I’m an old man now, I won’t live much longer. Long enough for Elias to have children, I hope, but once you have a child…well, I feel like it will be the beginning of my end.”
“Maybe I’m barren”—her voice hitches—“and Elias’s wife will have defectives and you can live a good long time.”
“You know I don’t want that.” They were both quiet, a bird punctuating the silence now and then with a quickly ascending whoop. Amanda felt stupid and clumsy and unreasonably aware of her breasts hanging free under her housedress. Bulbous, ridiculous, shameful. She rose, arms across her chest, and Father rose too.
“Come.” He held out his arms, and she moved into them by rote memory, not even thinking about the movement until his head was on her shoulder. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of his hair, and she shuddered without meaning to. Father didn’t seem to notice. “My girl,” he murmured, rocking her back and forth.
Eventually Amanda pried herself away, disentangling herself carefully but hurriedly from him. Father’s arms remained open, hanging in the air like they were suspended from strings, his face revealing an awkward mix of hope and despair.
“I should go,” he said quietly, his arms still extended. “I’m a foolish old man.”
She cleared her throat. “I won’t let you distract me anymore! I have to figure out how to turn this rabbit into food,” she said, as gaily as possible, as if they had just had a pleasant conversation over some cake and tea. “Come by for dinner soon, so you can see Andrew.”
“Yes,” Father said, giving a strange little bow she’d never seen, and he walked out of the house still holding the bloody cloth. Amanda sat down in the chair, feeling like her bones had turned to water. Putting her head between her knees, she stared at the red smears on the floor until they seemed to mean something, as if they were written in a language she could almost, but not quite, decipher. Her arms wrapped around her head and she pulled her hair loose, her tears making rosy, blood-veined splotches in the splattering of red below.
Chapter Thirteen
Amanda
Amanda wakes in blackness, sitting neatly on her heels, a sphere of cold, milky light gleaming down at her. Choking with surprise, she lets out a small quavering scream and her hands begin groping her face, her belly, her legs, to confirm she is whole. Her daughter is restless, striking at the inside of her womb as if to rouse her from her fugue.
Reaching down, Amanda feels her hands sink into cool, satiny mud and realizes she is outside. There are hulking forms in the distance that, as her eyes adjust, morph into dark houses and crooked trees.