The Cliffs

by J. Courtney Sullivan

History could only ever be as meaningful as those alive were willing to make it.

we scrubbed the house from top to bottom. We went through countless rags and brushes that turned black with soot that had accumulated from the stove and lamps.

creates a deeper understanding of the importance of spring cleaning

At the funeral, the minister spoke of Samuel’s courage. Of his ever-present knowledge that the mission could be perilous, even fatal, and his determination to see it through, even so. I thought of Hannah, how many times she nearly died attempting to bring a child into the world. If she had been taken in that pursuit, would he have spoken of her mission with such reverence?

To approach a man just buried and cut off his head? What could be more savage than that?

Human beings did so much damage to one another just by being alive. To the people they loved most, and to the ones they knew so little about that they could convince themselves they weren’t even people.

None of this made sense to her. This house was built on a cliff that was sacred to her people. Sacred to her. Why did he think it belonged to him?

If trauma could be passed down from the cells of one body to another, Jane wondered, was it so much further a leap to imagine that trauma might infect the land on which it happened? Was that a form of haunting all its own?

the beginning of American history was Indigenous history.