Little Fish

by Casey Plett

He would say to Wendy, “Your father loves you. He is imperfect, and he has done many wrong things.” He would say: “His love is greater than his faults.” He would say: “Love is not attached to our human foibles because if we are truly loving, it comes from God. Love withstands our sins; love is higher than all the … crud we might inflict on those we love. Your father needs to beg forgiveness for his sins to you and to the Lord. But that is a separate thing from the fact that he loves you. And he will always love you. That is how love works.” He repeated variations of this a lot.

“People need your love the most when they deserve it the least.”

And their bodies easily clicked into place, turning the same pages in an old book, following a progression both already knew, one both women had known the first time they touched each other: Here, here is my skin that feels like your skin, my muscles and frailties that feel like yours, the lift of your flesh something I intuitively know from my own body, inner maps that, for most of my life, I thought were purely shameful and mine alone. And here, with you, with me, for minutes, for hours, if nothing else