Every Bone a Prayer

A weight grew in the air between Misty’s mother and her sisters, a weight that Misty couldn’t quite understand. So much of growing up was that way. A feeling in a room that she’d just walked into. A feeling hanging between two people that she loved. A sense of something gone slightly wrong, but when she asked, no one would tell her the truth. And that was where childhood lay, in the shadow of knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was or why it was or how to fix it, so she was left standing in front of her mother, her mother tired and bleeding, her mother with a ragged hole chewed through her chest, her mother saying, “It’s fine. Everything is fine.

That’s why we tell stories,” Aunt Jem said. “To remind us there’s another way. A better way. We tell stories so we can find it.

Now open up your heart. It's more listening than saying anything, but you can ask for things too. You open up and wait for God to speak to you. Close your eyes now. Close your eyes." So Misty listened to her mother and she listened for God--her chest a door flung wide open; her heart the golden light spilling onto the floor, eating darkness whole. She invited everything inside.

A sense of something gone slightly wrong, but when she asked, no one would tell her the truth. And that was where childhood lay, in the shadow of knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what it was or why it was or how to fix it.

Nothing could burn a skin that wasn’t hers; nothing could pierce her or cut her, not anymore.

She’d been so afraid that her friends and family would abandon her if they found out what happened in the barn that she ended up abandoning herself.

None of us belongs only to ourselves. We don’t always get to decide who we are.

Names were honest. They had to be in order to work, and sometimes it felt like there wasn't a day that passed that her family didn't hold something back.

The lives of women seemed to be thin strings held taut in someone else's hands, and at any moment someone, some man, might come along and cut that string in half.

There were bluegill not far away, small for their age because the creek was a small place and it was hard for any creature to outgrow its home.

Misty was a thin slip of gray cloud inside the glass, her features blurred until they disappeared, and she couldn’t even see herself as she nodded and William smiled.

The crowd swelled like a lung, inhaling and exhaling, shuffling then still.

That’s why we tell the stories,” Jem said at last. “To remind us there’s another way. A better way. We tell stories so we can find it.

The sun was nearly gone by then and one half of Jem’s face glowed with sunset fire, the other side cast to shadow as she leaned forward.

Dolly’s house was a fifteen-minute drive from Misty’s trailer. It wasn’t a long trip, but there was something about the mountains that made it seem much longer. There was so much more than just distance between them. There were thousands of trees and brambles and vines, endless pounds of kudzu, countless dips and hollows and bumps. There were a dozen hollers between Misty’s and her aunts, and each of them had families and creeks and pets and people of their own. And every one between them added to the weight and the distance so that going to Dolly’s house felt like a great journey

The snake watched her with small, black eyes, but Misty wasn’t afraid. There was nothing that a snake could do to a girl’s bones. There was nothing left on her that anyone could harm.

Then Penny turned off the television, sighed, and said, “I swear that man’s corn bread ain’t done in the middle.

He stood there in the deepest black of night, and Misty knew that he was praying for her. She could almost feel the words lift up between the trees like fog rising from the mountains.

Those are things you did,” the garden said, “not things you are.” Misty shook her head. “There’s no difference.” “There is. I swear, I swear.” Misty felt sunlight on her cheek like a warm touch. “Doing bad doesn’t make bad when you’re sorry. When you do better after.

None of us belongs only to ourselves.