August 18
I’m so uncomfortable today. Every which way I move, I feel like a sprung waterbed.
August 19
I had the strangest dream last night.
A girl stands at the end of a rock-lined path in the middle of the desert. She walks towards a mirage. The closer she gets the more it wobbles as if it’s being held together by something that can’t withstand the scrutiny of a closer look. A hum chatters her teeth, and she backs off. She tries again but the humming in slow increments is more unbearable than before. She steps back, inhales, and runs into it.
On the other side she cascades down a towering sand dune, screaming all the way. The journey feels fast but when she looks up, she can see the climb back is unforgiving. The girl walks into water starved land and doesn’t go far before coming across a group of three. There is a woman, a young girl, and a young man, lying low by a wood fence which marks a perimeter boundary that goes as far as the eye can see in both directions.
“Get down,” the woman calls out.
The three strangers are on the other side of a semi-dried out watering hole. The girl crawls to them, following the woman’s instruction. She pulls herself through the muddy pool, which would have been refreshing but for the diminishing warm water.
They watch her with otherworldly eyes. For a moment they have become so still, the girl thinks they have turned to stone.
“I’m Grace,” she says.
They move again as if released by her words. The lady who instructed her speaks up.
“I’m Faithful.” She points to the blond girl with bleached blue eyes. “That’s Sweetwater.” She nods to the boy. “That’s Timid Heart.
“What are you doing?” Grace asks.
“What does it look like?” Faithful returns to her efforts at the fence.
Grace sees for the first time that the bottom of the fence is lined with rebar, making it impossible to pass through. The earth is hard and dry, and they have no tools.
“Why don’t you just go over the top?” Grace says.
Faithful’s head swings around to Grace, just short of an eye roll.“Why don’t you go over?”
Grace scans the surroundings. There isn’t another moving thing, not even a breeze. With nothing to lose she walks to the fence but the moment she sets her hands on it, Faithful pulls them off.
“Watch.” Faithful picks up a clump of mud and throws it over. The clump obliterates into mush, splattering over them.
“Now we may have alerted them to our presence.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be. Now make yourself useful. We need to pull out as much of this as we can, and bend it enough to believe we can get through.”
Sweetwater and Timid Heart use the mudhole water to soften the earth.
“There’s just enough space,” Faithful explains, “to wiggle under if we can bend this bar up.” She wipes the dripping sweat from her forehead with her forearm.
“You see how far they’re spaced?”
Grace follows her gaze along the fence line.
“No place is better than another. At least there is water here.”
“Where do you come from?” Grace asks.
“I come from in there.”
Grace follows the nod of her head indicating the place beyond the fence.
“See?” Faithful raises her shirt. A thick, jagged scar starts in the middle of her belly and cuts a cross to her hip. She looks at Sweetwater and Timid Heart. “They’ll get their scars too.” Faithful stops what she’s doing and meets Grace’s gaze. “Why did you come?”
“It was an accident,” Grace says.
Faithful’s voice is gentle. “Help me.”
Grace feels like she’s been working for days but the heat and light never change. Faithful’s cool voice calls her back.
“Are you ready?”
The space beneath the rebar should be a crater but instead it still doesn’t look big enough to pass through.
Timid Heart’s eyes are full of dread. “I won’t fit. I’ll never make it.”
“Yes you will. Come on.”
“No.” He moves behind Sweetwater who moves behind him.
“We’re running out of time.” Faithful reaches out but the two continue to back away.
“We’d rather stay here, together.” Sweetwater holds Timid Heart’s hand.
“You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Grace?” Faithful turns to her last hope. “Come. Show them how it’s done.”
“I don’t…”
“Grace!”
Whatever is making Faithful nervous is enough to follow the instruction. Grace steps closer to the too small hole under the half bent rebar.
“I’m scared.” Grace’s heart pounds.
“It’s time to go.”
Grace folds herself as small as she can, and pushes through the dip in the ground. A blood-curdling scream echoes across the boundary.
August 21
My little girl was born today. Seven pounds, nine ounces. The nurse said she has a cherry colored birthmark from her belly to her hip. Her name is Grace.