Gypsy Quiet

FICTION G · s i uiet Lucy Flood After living in my mother-in-law's mildewed basement for three years, my legs were heavy. Dulles's love had strangled me. Day after day I waited for a tornado to hurl me off the couch and out the door. I imagined that the foundation of my marriage was like city soil, paved over so that nothing would ever grow. Although my mother-in-law had begged me to go tothehealer, who she claimedwas the onlypersoninthe whole valley that could cure myinfertility, I'd refused. Dulles and I didn't know the precise scientific reason why we couldn't have kids, but it didn't surprise me that we weren't fertile. By marrying him when I was still in love with a man who had earned a B.S. in Botany, I had brought on my suffering. The sound of a male cricket singing for a female finally caused me to get up out of the dark. In the daylight, my eyes drank in the mountains that snuck up in all directions around Dirt Creek. When I spotted the cricket making music in the overgrown grass by rubbing one leg against its wing, lightness spread through mybelly, making me think Td one day find the strength to walk away. As I gazed at the forest, which formed an impenetrable jungle over the mountaintops, I wondered what had become of my grandparents who lived one hundred and sixty-three miles west. Before I ran off with Dulles, all my memories were of living with my grandparents, but when I told them I planned to pursue Dulles instead of a college degree they had refused to attend my wedding. Later, when I begged Dulles to take mehome to care formy grandmother, whosebellyhadbecome large with cancer, he hit me across the mouth. That night as he dabbed a grape popsicle across my lips, tears fell from his dark eyes. After my lip went down, I found I had nearly lost my voice. I never again called my grandparents or anyone else outside the valley. When my eyes came to rest on my mother-in-law's garden, I rememberedhow my grandfather looked whenhe dug abunch of carrots from our back yard. He said that God had given us our bones for a purpose, and that one day my big, proud bones would take me where I needed to go. Hearing my grandfather's words reverberate around me, I knew Ihad tohonorhimby going to receive Persia's healing. I could have driven up the gravel road to the healer's, but instead I walked. I wanted time to prepare myself for whatever gifts she could offer me. As I made my way past the peeling catalpa trees, I listened to the birds. In their 45 music, I heard the earth's percussion. A bird made a quick, high-pitched call, causing the mortar to fall away frombetween my cells, making space for God to inhabit me. Persia's cabin sat so close to the ledge that I thought the slightestwind might pick it off and send it tumbling like a leaf down into the road that coiled through the valley. The previous summer, I had enjoyed looking up at her house from mine. While I watched the sun alight on the roses that arched over her roof, I wondered whether the flowers anchored the entire structure to the ground. In Persia's yard, I stopped at the lavender plant, leaned over, and picked off a grey, spiky top, rolling it in my fingers, breathing it in, imagining that the tiny particles floated into my lungs and through my blood stream, transforming the lavender into me. Persia met me at the door. The lyrics to the Indigo Girls' song "Prince of Darkness" came from inside. Although she was fifty, her hair trailed behind her in a streaming mass of silver white ringlets. Seeing her hair reminded me that only He could create something that at midday shone just like the full moon. "Hey, Marion. I knew you'd be coming. I had a premonition," she said. "Do you see things?" I said. "My ancestors come to...