Chapter 30
Thirty
Guilt. Shame. Remorse. Anger. Hate. Sometimes, you feel suicidal.
And yet, there are days that are good. There are whole days in the land-that’s-becoming-a-garden, where you and Cyrus spend hours laughing and talking and the things you’ve done don’t bother you at all because you never even think of them.
There are afternoons teaching Gertrude archery and shouts of triumph the first time she hits the bullseye and neither of you talk about hard choices, or what it was like to have your back against a wall.
Then there are days when you feel nothing, when it feels like you carved your own heart out of your chest and ate it, and now you’re a walking husk.
And then days when your knife really looks like an ending to the story.
You ask yourself Do you really want to keep on living?
And when the answer is no, you find Red, and you teach her another set of tracks.
You can’t stop living until she’s safe in the woods on her own.
Of course, there are days when you don’t ask yourself that question at all.
There are days that you let yourself taste a food you haven’t tasted in over a decade.
There are days that sense-memory sends you back to the gingerbread house, and you’re trapped there, and you can’t get out.
But, then, there are days when Cyrus feeds you a spoonful of soup he’s making with the vegetables from his garden, and usually, that makes you want to live at least until supper’s ready.
His garden—there are days when you bless it and days when you curse it.
There are days when you want to tear up his garden by its roots and days when you can’t wait for your own garden to be ready, and you’re never sure what kind of day it’s going to be until you’re in the thick of it.
So: how are you doing? The answer is: not great.
But also, better than you thought. But also, very, very bad.
And somehow, still, wonderful, as in full of wonder, as in not ready to give up on what comes next.
Maybe a better answer is: it depends on the day, the hour, the minute.
Maybe a better answer is: how are you doing is the wrong question.
But you’re not sure what a better question would be.