The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(20)

No rack can torture me,

My soul’s at liberty

Behind this mortal bone

There knits a bolder one.


You cannot prick with saw,

Nor rend with scymitar.

Two bodies therefore be;

Bind one, and one will flee.

   —Emily Dickinson





The First Day





There was an open window with white eyelet curtains. There was a breeze through it. There was a brass footrail with porcelain finials. A rocking chair. The smell of baking bread. Laurel’s voice outside, the call of birds.





The Second Day





An old woman came with a bowl. Chicken broth. A napkin. She tucked it under my chin and fed me with a spoon. She had a severe face, thin, but her eyes were kind. Her hair was gunmetal gray, pinned back in a bun. She wiped my chin when I spilled. I tried to thank her, but my voice wouldn’t come. “You sleep now,” she told me, turning out the lamp, so I did.





Morning





“Mommy?”

Laurel’s voice pulled me from a jagged sleep. A dream where I was running knee-deep in red sand and rattlesnakes. I could taste blood, like sucking on a copper penny. Someone was screaming.

I opened my eyes and Laurel was standing by the bed with a tray. It was laid with a bowl of oatmeal, a plate of apple slices, orange juice, a slice of toast.

“Let me take that, child.” The old woman was there, too, lifting the tray from Laurel’s hands, setting it on the nightstand. I pulled myself up, arms shaking with the effort. The woman adjusted the pillow so I could sit, then settled the tray in my lap.

“I feel better,” I told her, my voice strange, croaking out of a throat nearly too parched for sound.

“Now, that’s a blessing,” said the woman. “You eat now.”

As I did, she sat down in the rocking chair, its rails clicking against the pine floor. Laurel climbed onto the bed with me, handing me a spoon as if I were younger than she was. Then the napkin, the oatmeal bowl.

“My name’s Jessie,” the woman said. “Jessica Farnsworth—but you call me Jessie. This here is our farm. My husband’s out sneakin’ a smoke, as if I don’t know. You remember how you got here?”

I shook my head.

“Simon found you out in the scrub wandering around with your little girl here. You couldn’t tell us much—you were in a bad way. Laurel says you had some trouble with her daddy out there on the road.”

The oatmeal caught in my throat. I took a sip of juice. When I could speak again, I said, “My name is Joanna . . . Benneman.” I threw a warning glance at Laurel. “Simon’s your husband?”

Her severe face broke into a delighted cackle. “Lord, no! My husband’s Olin, the old fool. Simon Greenwood—he’s a local man. Works in our café. Short-order cook.”

I licked my lips with a tongue as dry as ashes.

I didn’t remember anything about being found. Nothing about how we got here, or even where here was. I remembered leaving the Palomino, making for Albuquerque. Had the car run out of gas? Broken down? Did I ditch it somewhere and try to hike with Laurel through the desert? To Grants or Thoreau or some other town?

I shoved feebly at the tray with arms like bricks, the food half eaten.

“Let me take that.” Jessie pushed herself up from the rocking chair. “You’ll have a real appetite before long.”

She smiled down, her gray eyes steady. Her skin was thin and clear and remarkably unlined. It seemed to radiate like rice paper backlit by a candle.

“You rest.”

She bustled off with the tray.

When she was gone, Laurel nestled next to me on the pillow. “Mommy,” she whispered. “Our name’s not Benneman.”

“I know, sweetie. But that was my Oma’s name when she was a little girl like you. So I think it’s okay if we use it for a little while. Can you do that?”

She nodded solemnly, her pointer finger tracing a big X across her heart. “Our secret.”





Rain





I slept so much, I felt hungover with it. I didn’t ache or hurt; I was just tired—down to my last particle. Eating wore me out. I slept through so many meals, I couldn’t tell you. I’d hear kitchen noises downstairs—the rattle of pots, the clatter of dishes, the murmur of voices. Laughter. Then I’d sleep again for hours. Or years, for all I could tell.