Inevitable and Only(62)

Elizabeth said, “Ross wanted me to tell you that we’re all ready for dinner.” I wished I believed in a god, so I could pray that she hadn’t overheard us. It didn’t seem like she had. Still, Raven and I exchanged glances as we hurried down the stairs.

Once we’d all gathered around the table, Ruby filled our glasses—Josh, Elizabeth, Raven, and I got sparkling cranberry-apple cider—and we toasted.

“To ahimsa,” Ruby said, and we all echoed. As the eldest woman present, Ruby was supposed to give the toast, but this year she asked Dad to do it. “You have such a way with words, dear,” she told him.

So Dad led us off, no particular Voice, just Serious Dad: “The word ahimsa, as you all know, is Sanskrit for nonviolence. To do no injury. To cause no harm. This Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving, we will meditate on this truth: that the violence we inflict on others is a manifestation of the violence within ourselves. Guilt, shame, disappointment—these are all forms of self-violence. When we cannot forgive ourselves, we inflict self-violence. And it is only by learning true unconditional love, compassion, and reconciliation for ourselves that we can learn to live truthfully and compassionately with others.”

I snuck a peek at Mom, expecting her to be glaring daggers at Dad. She wasn’t. The expression on her face looked like the way I feel when I’m reminding myself that I don’t do crying. Which, like I said, is something I inherited from Mom in the first place, so she’s supposed to be the master of it.

Huh. I hadn’t seen her look at Dad like that in a long, long time.

“To paraphrase Gandhi as Keats would’ve put it,” Dad continued, “truth is ahimsa; and ahimsa, truth. Let us join hands and hold each other in the Light.”

“Thank you, Ross,” murmured Ruby, and we all bowed our heads. The brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, carrot-beet fritters, vegan pumpkin lasagna, and apple pie were all keeping warm in the oven, and their scents mingled and swirled around the table, making my mouth water and my stomach rumble.

After a few minutes of silence, someone usually spoke up. That’s how a Quaker prayer service works. This time, it was Mom.

“Would you say grace for us before we eat, Elizabeth?” she asked, surprising everyone.

Elizabeth looked especially startled. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to disrupt the—I mean, I don’t know how to say a Quaker grace. Or a, um, Sanskrit one.”

“We like the one you usually say just fine,” Mom said, and I had to take another look at her face to make sure she was being sincere.

So we all bowed our heads again, and Elizabeth began the words of her usual prayer. “Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts—” She stopped, cleared her throat, started again. “Bless us, O Lord—” She broke off and I heard a chair scrape back from the table, and opened my eyes just in time to see her running out of the room.

Everyone started talking at once. “What’s going on?” said Raven, and Renata said, “I don’t know, I think she went upstairs.”

I pushed back my own chair and went up to our room.

Elizabeth was curled up in a ball on her bed, her shoulders heaving. I hadn’t seen her cry since that first day we’d walked back from church together. Which, now that I thought about it, was kind of odd. I mean, she’d lost her mother. The only parent she’d ever known. Unless she was having private breakdowns with her guidance counselor, she must’ve been keeping everything incredibly corked up for the past few months.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down next to her and putting a hand on her shoulder.

She slapped at my hand, hard, shocking me.

“Go away!” she said, and if my heart had skipped a beat a moment earlier when I’d walked into the room, now it threatened to jump right out of my throat. She sat up, her voice rising. “I don’t need you, any of you, your stupid forgiveness and self-love and blah blah blah. You don’t really believe in any of that, you don’t know what sacrifice is, what penance is, you don’t know anything you’re talking about.” Her voice broke off on a sob.

“Elizabeth, what—”

“And don’t think I don’t know you’re talking about me!” she screamed. “You and Raven, I’m not deaf! I don’t care what you think about me! I’m trying to live a good life—trying to do what’s right—it’s not easy, not easy when—” She broke off again, covering her face with her hands, crying so hard her whole body shook. Harsh, ugly, hacking sounds. I was afraid she was going to throw up.

I realized I was holding my breath, as if by doing so I could erase all the things Raven and I had said about her earlier. “Elizabeth, I’m so sorry,” I started, but she cut me off.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I could barely understand what she was saying through the thick tears clogging her voice. “You just don’t get it.” And she picked up her pillow and threw it across the room as hard as she could. It hit the vanity table. Brushes, combs, bottles of perfume and nail polish went flying. She threw a book from her bedside table next. The pages fluttered as the book flew across the room, hitting the mirror, which cracked right down the middle. Then the mirror began to topple forward, as if in slow motion. I jumped up and caught it right before it hit the floor.

“Get out!” she screamed, and I set the mirror down and started to back out of the room, just as Dad came rushing in.