Chapter 27 Astonishing
Astonishing
Kate Shaw
When I am alone on the day that changed things, I turn off the light and stand at the wide window and watch stars appear. I stand in luxury while Baines Creek’s grieving heart beats and its citizens carry on with their hardscrabble lives. Birdie has grown cold and Loretty stays missing.
Who did I see in Micaville walking with that older woman.
Was it Loretty? Maybe—but why was she so far from home?
After days of looking, no one wanted to reach beyond the village, beyond walking distance, beyond the familiar.
Only my serendipitous drive with Lydia through a crossroads I’ve never seen may have shed new light.
Tomorrow, I’ll call Eli and tell him to go to Micaville.
He needs to ask at the store if a new girl has come.
But if she has, then the bizarre questions are why, and who assisted our girl to travel so far from home?
Rachel snores under the table, and I head to the bathroom and flick on the light to see a claw-foot tub long enough for my six-foot frame. A bottle of pearly bubble bath sits on the window ledge, and I pour in decadence and fill the tub with steaming water that didn’t need heating on a woodstove.
I step out of my trousers, unbutton my shirt, and cast aside dingy underwear.
I turn and catch sight of my nakedness in a full-length mirror and stare.
I’ve not gazed upon my body in ten years because there are no mirrors in my cabin.
The only reflection of my form is what I’ve seen in a still pool of water.
Full-on, I face the mirror, which is kind with the golden cast from wall sconces.
It reflects toned legs that have carried me thousands of hard miles.
My muscles are as defined as in an anatomy book.
Above lean hips and flat belly, my small breasts sag.
A silver bush of hair springs from my armpits and between my legs. My calves are a sheen of silk.
But it is the span of my shoulders that pleases me most. The sculpt of my collarbone has carried burdens that could have broken me but didn’t.
What I see is an with straight posture and wide feet, planted strong.
I’ve become something more without trying, and what comes to mind is a poem Rachel often quoted to me.
It’s by Hafiz, a Persian poet, written in the fourteenth century.
I wish I could show you / When you are lonely or in darkness / the astonishing light / Of your own Being.
And this is what my Being has become. It is pleasing.
I step into fragrant bubbles, sit, breathe deeply, and lie back to float.
I close my eyes and think about Rachel. Physically, we were lucky to look alike.
Tall and angular, we were prone to wear trousers and polished boots and tailored shirts, like the movie stars Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn, who were famous when we met.
We kept our hair cut short and had the same quirky cowlick at the crown.
When mistaken for sisters at the start, we never corrected anyone.
We were Kate and Rachel, and we perpetuated the lie.
Sisters could go behind closed doors. Travel together.
Share the same hotel room. Sisters could gain entry to a hospital room where only family was allowed to comfort the dying.
When I see my body tonight, I see Rachel’s body the way it would have aged naturally had she not been mutilated by breast cancer in the summer of ’73.
Three years after I got fired for helping a student get an abortion.
Three years after I came to Baines Creek for my punishment that included leaving Rachel in the legitimate academic world where she belonged.
Ironically, the year she died, constitutional law legalized abortion and changed the rules. A fair resolution at last.
I allow myself to be at peace tonight and float and let go.
When I open my eyes, I see a symbol on the painted ceiling.
An eight-pointed star in shades of lapis.
Birdie had an eight-pointed star that hung beside her humble door.
Her Cherokee friend gave it to her when she was a girl.
It kept her balanced. Hers was rudimentary and made of sticks.
She touched it when she entered her trailer.
It reminded me of a child’s craft project, crudely made but deeply loved.
Maybe this blue star on the ceiling will help me find balance.