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done that to me? No one would have known. A quick jerk of the neck, snap, and she would have been rid of her mangled little daughter. A slight dusting— smack smack—of the hands, and back to cooking; that’s how easy it would have been.
    “Why are you pouting?” said Abel.
    It came upon me suddenly, in a gush—a river of tears, like juice squeezed from Father’s grapes.
    “Why, whatever is wrong?” said Abel, reaching up to place his hand on my back. I imagined he felt the tiny bones between my shoulder blades, my tucked-in wings—for I had already dreamed of flying, me being Aya the Bird.
    “Don’t you see?” I whispered finally. “You would have killed me .”
    Abel studied my face a moment and blew out a breath of air from his puffed-up cheeks. “Aya, you think too much. That lamb would not have lasted the night. He was too weak. You, however”—he looked me up and down—“are …” He paused, trying to find the right word, the right meaning.
    “Crippled,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said. He looked me straight in the eyes as he said this, searching for my response. He had agreed with me, acknowledged the label I placed upon myself, and had not immediately apologized for it, like Cain would have, in a quick attempt to cover an embarrassing blunder. Abel treated me as someone who was… well, whole. “But,” he continued, “that is the way Elohim wanted you. Do you believe that?”
    I nodded, half believing, half wanting to believe. But also I wanted to ask, Why?
    In Abel’s defense, he had given me a hobbling goat as a gift, and she follows me wherever I go, so I know he speaks the truth—he will spare a cripple once in a while.
    So, as I stood in the courtyard that night, after Cain had stomped out, I saw an opportunity to impress Father, a small moment of time in which I might convince him to understand me just as I understood myself. I hadno idea how to do it, though. Here I had been given a gift, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, think of anything to say, to do. I stood, mute and un -moving.
    Father’s eyes shifted uneasily after Cain’s squared shoulders and barrel of a neck, then shifted back to me. He laughed suddenly and said, “Aya, you’ve done it again. Delicious.” In the withering light, his face was full of shadows. I could not read his eyes.
    I bowed and scurried to remove his plate.
    I scold myself when I act like a mouse. Why do I care what Father wants? Am I not Aya, the beautiful magnificent bird who can fly away from here in her dreams? Aya, the girl who holds the staff of life in her hands. Aya, Goat Owner.

I put my hand on Mama’s fat belly, and I feel something go bump. I clap my hand over my mouth, surprised, and Mama says it’s the baby inside her. She says that’s how me and Jacan were—tiny tiny in her belly.
    I ask, “How did we get out of you? Like the baby sheep get out of their mamas?”
    “Yes,” says Mama.
    “Did we look that bad?” I say.
    Mama laughs and says, “Yes.”
    I’m holding a turtle, a gift from Jacan. I’m jealous of Jacan because he gets to go with Abel and watch the sheep and the goats. Abel is a nice brother—he gave Jacan a horn to blow, and I always hear it, blasting in the distance, and Mama laughs and says, “That boy. I’m going to hide that thing from him one of these days!”
    Mama is lying down on her back, on a bench in the courtyard. Her middle looks like a termite hill, and she holds one arm over her face, so the sun doesn’t hurt her eyes. She says, “In the Garden, there was thick moss over the forest floor. To lie on it was divine.”
    “Why didn’t you bring some of it here?” I ask, stroking the turtles shell. That’s it, I’ll name him Turtle, like Aya’s name for Goat.
    “I didn’t know how far we were going,” says Mama.
    “Oh,” I say. “Look, Mama, a butterfly.” I pick the butterfly up by itswings. It’s got all sorts of colors on it, blue like Mama’s eyes and yellow and shiny green. It