fingers of her right. Her eyes closed. Click click click. “There’s no
tetanus,” she said. “The wound will close. Eventually. But it’ll leave a
nasty scar.”
She turned me onto my stomach and examined the bruise—a patch
of deep purple the size of a human head—that had formed a few inches
above my hip. Again her fingers crossed and her eyes closed. Click click
click.
“You’ve damaged your kidney,” she said. “We’d better make a fresh
batch of juniper and mullein flower.”
—THE GASH BELOW MY knee had formed a scab—dark and shiny, a black
river flowing through pink flesh—when I came to a decision.
I chose a Sunday evening, when Dad was resting on the couch, his
Bible propped open in his lap. I stood in front of him for what felt like
hours, but he didn’t look up, so I blurted out what I’d come to say: “I
want to go to school.”
He seemed not to have heard me.
“I’ve prayed, and I want to go,” I said.
Finally, Dad looked up and straight ahead, his gaze fixed on
something behind me. The silence settled, its presence heavy. “In this
family,” he said, “we obey the commandments of the Lord.”
He picked up his Bible and his eyes twitched as they jumped from
line to line. I turned to leave, but before I reached the doorway Dad
spoke again. “You remember Jacob and Esau?”
“I remember,” I said.
He returned to his reading, and I left quietly. I did not need any
explanation; I knew what the story meant. It meant that I was not the
daughter he had raised, the daughter of faith. I had tried to sell my
birthright for a mess of pottage.