Family Read Online Free PDF Page B

why, then, would she ever think that make-believe motherhood was a gift to be passed along?
    christmas was a time for disappointments. and motherhood—make-believe or otherwise—was, perhaps, the biggest disappointment of them all. we were keeping on theme, at least.
    i ignored my gift. crafted crude paper dolls from thick, dull construction paper instead. sketched outfits for them that were better suited for a pool party at the barbie dream house than christmas dinner in anywheresville.
    i thought about fantasy: my own, my mother’s.
    i discovered something else my mother had managed to pass along to me, after all:
    the void, the vortex. the endless, empty chasm of never being satisfied.
    her orbit was a black hole; she was antimatter. we couldn’t fill each other up, mother and i, couldn’t even fill ourselves up.
    but i couldn’t bring myself to completely let go, either.
    not that it did me much good.
    i was skating, scraping at the edges of the confines of my life, fingers curled, toes flexed like the soles of a plastic plaything.
    i was clinging.
    while mother pulled endlessly further away.

campfire
    Henry had told me about the campfires that He would hold at night, but it was different, being there.
    being there was quiet. holy.
    more , even, than what i imagined, those three days there in the van. i couldn’t have imagined this much.
    being there made me feel special, like a magnet tugged at all of the tiny ions in my body and tilted me toward Henry. and in that, i was connected to every other jagged shard that He had collected. connected to every member of our sea-glass circle of family.
    the fire threw off heat, baking the edges of our skin, drying our eyes, and coaxing our own fever outward. warming us at our collective core.
    on my first night at the ranch, i don’t have to cook.
    on my first night, i am treated like a guest, like a princess, like a treasured object.
    i meet my sisters, and though i can’t yet recall each of their individual names, i know it is no matter. they understand. they feel my love, my wells of gratitude. and in response, their faces radiate light, protection, welcome.
    i am a part of this group, instantly. folded in, enveloped.
    i meet brothers, too. some brothers, a few. young boys with blooming cheeks and hair almost as long as my own. they wink and chuckle, appear pleased to meet me. happy to know me. to have me.
    they are. the brothers.
    they are here, shelly explains, to help Henry. to aid emmett. to assist with all of the infinite endlessness of life at the ranch.
    “there are some things you need a boy for,” shelly says. the corners of her mouth turn up as she responds to the punch line of a joke i haven’t yet been let in on.
    i nod as though i understand. as though i get it.
    here, now, i want to get it.
    i want to hold it, to have it all. to claw my way up the dank, slippery walls of my ink-black well and find my way to this bright, enlightened, newborn family forever.
    i nod as though i understand. as though i get it.
    and i know that soon enough, i will.
    after shelly finishes my tour, and the sun begins to set, the rest of the girls set about fixing dinner for the group.
    “we take turns,” shelly explains, though she obviously isn’t taking a turn tonight, and she doesn’t offer as to when her turn generally falls.
    i suppose they have a system worked out.
    they—this family—have worked it all out. and they work together. they all work. together.
    the ones who are cooking don’t seem to miss her, don’t seem to mind; they move smoothly, their preparations a choreography that they’ve each committed to heart.
    pots rattle and drawers clang and from somewhere, someplace that has somehow until now escaped my curiosity, several mangy dogs approach, sniffing eagerly, but managing not to be underfoot.
    they, too, understand the system.
    the rhythm here is metered, measured, tuned to a frequency that even the animals are aware of.
    Henry’s influence, His