Cackle(67)

After I finish, I sit at the dining room table with my hands clasped in my lap and my plate still in front of me. The only things left on it are a few skinny chicken bones.

I stare at them. They’re delicate and pale. A grayish pink. They have a vague shine.

I wonder now, in the elastic minutes I spend studying these bones, who gets to decide what’s beautiful.

Before tonight, I probably would have said that chicken bones were grisly, unsightly things. I would have thrown them right in the garbage without a second thought. But why? What’s ugly about these parts?

This bird fed me. I should cherish its bones.

I fed me. I should cherish myself.

I clamp my eyes shut. My fingers curl in tight, my hands embracing like long-lost friends. I focus. I breathe in. That golden scent of butter, of citrus and rosemary. The warmth of it all nuzzles against me.

There’s a contentment I’ve never known brewing within me. I can feel it, its gentle swell.

Surrender, a voice says.

Sophie says. I say.

It glides through me with slick fins. Down to my toes. Up, in the narrow canals of my ears. But when it gets to my chest, something happens. My nerves rupture, and they drown it. It drowns.

I open my eyes.

I open them to a tall tower of chicken bones floating above my plate.

I gasp, and they fall. There’re more of them now, so many, and they rain down on me. I push myself away from the table. Ralph takes cover under the ramekin, a makeshift fort.

Maybe it lasts only a few seconds, but it feels like longer. It stops eventually.

There are chicken bones scattered all over the dining room. On the table, on the floor.

“I think it’s safe now,” I tell Ralph.

He emerges cautiously.

“I don’t know what happened,” I say.

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know, either.

“Well,” I say, looking down at all the bones, “I guess I’m magic!”

I start to laugh.

“I’m fucking magic! I can’t . . . I mean, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I just did that. I made that happen. Don’t know how, but I did. Me! Can you believe it?” I ask Ralph.

Of course he can.

I decide to save the chicken bones.

I gather them all and put them in a pot with water, along with my final lemon sliced thin, some rosemary and salt. The Internet says to boil, so I boil. Then I reduce to a simmer and let the pot sit while I work on lesson plans, while I brush my teeth and wash my face. While I tuck Ralph into bed. While I tuck myself into bed.

I lie on my back, facing the ceiling, trying to breathe out my lingering adrenaline so I can sleep.

I choose not to fixate on my failings, because maybe I’m not any closer to having control over whatever it is, whatever I’m capable of. But I know that I’m capable.

I didn’t always know that.

I flip over onto my stomach. I smile into my pillow.

In the morning, I wake up to bone broth.

“I made this!” I tell Ralph, letting him taste a small spoonful. He gives an enthusiastic squeal.

I get dressed and sail out to my car. I run into Lynn on the driveway. She’s walking up with a coffee cup I recognize from the Good Mug.

“Good morning!” I call out to her.

She gives a quick wave, then puts her head down and cuts across the yard, beelining toward the front door.

It occurs to me that the last time we saw each other, I was dancing barefoot in the backyard. For some reason, this compels me to say, “I made bone broth, if you’d like some! It’s broth from bones.”

If my goal was to let her know that I’m not weird, shouting the word “bone” at her twice before sunrise probably wasn’t the best move.

She gives another wave and then disappears into the house.

I save the broth and take it to Sophie’s on Saturday. She doesn’t think I’m weird. She thanks me and teaches me how to make soap from wood ash and pig fat.

“Don’t worry about Lynn,” she says when I tell her about our encounters. “She travels, sees a lot. She has an open mind.”

Lynn doesn’t seem that open-minded to me, but I guess it’s a lot to ask of someone to shrug off their upstairs neighbor frolicking around the yard on a cold November night, singing to herself.

“I’m glad for you, pet,” Sophie says. “It’s a nice thing, to cook for yourself. To be good to yourself. To commit to and feed your own happiness.”

“Yes,” I say. “I used to think, ‘Why put in all that effort just for me?’ But I get it now.”

“Mm,” she says, straining some strawberry juice for the soap.

The next weekend, Sophie teaches me how to make rose petal salve, how to make ginger oil. We roast and grind cinnamon. We dehydrate mint and make tea. We slice open vanilla beans with sharp knives and scrape out their insides. We bake cakes we adorn with fruit.

I teach myself how to make lamb stew. I teach myself how to bake salmon so it’s well-done, the way I like it. There’s no one else to consider, and for the first time, that feels like a gift. I dance around the kitchen to music of my choosing.

One morning, I wake up and there are flowers at the foot of my bed. I don’t know how I know, but I know. I picked them in my dreams.

I take them to school and display them in a vase on my desk.