The Knife of Never Letting Go

“In fact, I’m sure you’ll do fine cuz you came out two weeks early. Clearly you’d decided you’d had enough and wanted to see what this world had to offer you. I can’t blame you. The sky is so big and blue and the trees so green and this is a world where the animals talk to you, really talk, and you can even talk back and there’s so much wonder to be had, so much just waiting for you, Todd, that I almost can’t stand that it’s not happening for you right now, that yer going to have to wait to see all that’s possible, all the things you might do.”

Viola takes a breath and says, “There’s a break in the page here and a little space and then it says Later like she got interrupted.” She looks up at me. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I nod real fast, my arms still crossed. “Carry on.”

It’s getting lighter, the sun truly coming up. I turn away from her a little.

She reads.

“Later.

“Sorry, son, had to stop for a minute for a visit from our holy man, Aaron.”

Another pause, another lick of the lips.

“We’ve been lucky to have him, tho I must admit of late he’s not been saying things I exactly agree with about the natives of New World. Which are called the Spackle, by the way, and which were a BIG surprise, since they were so shy at first neither the original planners back on Old World or our first scout ships even knew they were here!

“They’re very sweet creachers. Different and maybe primitive and no spoken or written language that we can really find but I don’t agree with some of the thinking of the people here that the Spackle are animals rather than intelligent beings. And Aaron’s been preaching lately about how God has made a dividing line twixt us and them and–

“Well that’s not really something to discuss on yer first day, is it? Aaron believes what he believes devoutly, has been a pillar of faith for all of us these long years and should anyone find this journal and read it, let me say here for the record that it was a privilege to have him come by and bless you on yer first day of life. Okay?

“But I will say also on yer first day that the attractiveness of power is something you should learn about before you get too much older, it’s the thing that separates men from boys, tho not in the way most men think.

“And that’s all I’ll say. Prying eyes and all that.

“Oh, son, there’s so much wonder in the world. Don’t let no one tell you otherwise. Yes, life has been hard here on New World and I’ll even admit to you here, cuz if I’m going to start out at all it has to be an honest start, I’ll tell you that I was nearly given to despair. Things in the settlement are maybe more complicated than I can quite explain right now and there’s things you’ll learn for yerself before too long whether I like it or not and there’ve been difficulties with food and with sickness and it was hard enough even before I lost yer pa and I nearly gave up.

“But I didn’t give up. I didn’t give up cuz of you, my beautiful, beautiful boy, my wondrous son who might make something better of this world, who I promise to raise only with love and hope and who I swear will see this world come good. I swear it.

“Cuz when I held you for the first time this morning and fed you from my own body, I felt so much love for you it was almost like pain, almost like I couldn’t stand it one second longer.

“But only almost.

“And I sang to you a song that my mother sang to me and her mother sang to her and it goes,”

And here, amazingly, Viola sings.

Actually sings.

My skin goes gooseflesh, my chest crushes. She musta heard the whole tune in my Noise and of course Ben singing it cuz here it comes, rolling outta her mouth like the peal of a bell.

The voice of Viola making the world into the voice of my ma, singing the song.

“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,

I heard a maiden call from the valley below,

‘Oh don’t deceive me, oh never leave me,

How could you use a poor maiden so?’”

I can’t look at her.

I put my hands to my head.

“And it’s a sad song, Todd, but it’s also a promise. I’ll never deceive you and I’ll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it’s true.

“Oh, ha, Todd! That’s you crying. That’s you crying from yer cot, waking up from yer first sleep on yer first day, waking up and asking the world to come to you.

“And so for today I have to put this aside.

“Yer calling for me, son, and I will answer.”

Viola stops and there’s only the river and my Noise.

“There’s more,” Viola says after a while when I don’t raise my head, flipping thru the pages. “There’s a lot more.” She looks at me. “Do you want me to read more?” She looks back at the book. “Do you want me to read the end?”

The end.

Read the last thing my ma wrote in the last days before–

“No,” I say quickly.

Yer calling for me, son, and I will answer.

In my Noise forever.

“No,” I say again. “Let’s leave it there for now.”

I glance over at Viola and I see that her face is pulled as sad as my Noise feels. Her eyes are wet and her chin shakes, just barely, just a tremble in the dawn sunlight. She sees me watching, feels my Noise watching her, and she turns away to face the river.

And there, in that morning, in that new sunrise, I realize something.

I realize something important.

So important that as it dawns fully I have to stand up.

I know what she’s thinking.

Even looking at her back, I know what she’s thinking and feeling and what’s going on inside her.

The way she’s turned her body, the way she’s holding her head and her hands and the book in her lap, the way she’s stiffening a little in her back as she hears all this in my Noise.

I can read it.

I can read her.

Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our road is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she’s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my ma and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.