The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

“What if he succumbs?” “He won’t,” Mama answers, even though it’s early yet, with a long night ahead, and they all know the wee hours are when even the strongest can slip away.

owl. Socall hands Jubilee her Bible and tells her to tear out what she needs for nesting material. Few pages remain. Genesis and the other Books of the Law were used for lighting fires during the winter that wouldn’t quit, the Prophets were shredded for the chicken coop, and much of the Gospels plug the holes in the walls to stop the drafts from chilling a person to the bone, which Socall claims is what the Good Lord intended all along.

She downs half her drink, then breathes out fumes and philosophy both.

“There are but three things over which a poor soul has no control: his birth, his death, and who he’ll love, and anyone who tells you an orderly tale about love has surely never encountered the real thing.”

It could revive in him a purpose, even restore the very principle that first made him take up photography—that making images is born of a desire to share with others, to connect on some intimate level with another person; to be known, in other words.

He kisses like a man eating the last peach of the season, pausing halfway, and then savoring the rest.

Though the yearning to be with her swells, he can’t deny the obvious: he is so out of place and she is exactly where she belongs. His thoughts turn to the birds in his father’s apple tree. Whether or not the intruder intends harm, if it goes to a place it has no business going, the resident is threatened. All along, Jubilee knew what he did not want to admit to himself—starlings and bluebirds cannot build nests in the same tree.

She instructs her heart to send its taproot way down deep into the earth to keep her from toppling over.

Thirteen years later and scantly more self-assured than his younger self, he now wishes he’d accrued a surplus of attractive features and accomplishments, and the temptation is great to present Jubilee with an intended version of himself in the hope that he’ll one day mature into it, but he is resolved to play no part in deceiving her about his deficits, even if it means receiving marching orders sooner rather than later.

This is how the forest grows when nobody is looking. Thick roots curl over one another, vines make loops and latch onto tree branches, bark shivers when moss scuttles over it, and leaves unravel all at once, making a tree quiver—all this while the ground softens and arcs, and the river, once dammed at the bend, surges ahead into the ready creek bed.

Despite their differences, both men have come to understand that love does not insist on its own way. Love goes at the pace of the one most wounded.

She turns her pale green eyes to him, and he is a book falling open to the savored verse.

Throughout the day the visitors cluster in different configurations. Some stay only a little while, some will ride home after dark. Nobody ever apologizes for the past. Maybe they don’t apologize because they know summoning and granting forgiveness can take a toll on a person. The visitors never make any mention of Jubilee’s burning, Levi’s slaying, or Mama’s rampage, but they don’t mention Faro’s funeral or Ronny’s recovered body, either. Mostly, they lament about the weather and grouse over how much Willard is charging for feed and speculate on what crops ought to be planted and how much they’ll fetch come market-time.

Peace-making is not how they say, waving a white kerchief or shaking hands. If only it was that easy. Rather, it’s having to sit in the company of those known before only as foes, and then growing comfortable with how much is held in common.

By midday, Jubilee’s become certain of one thing—the Bufords are not the only people to have prayed thy-kingdom-come only to be waiting still. Maybe the kingdom doesn’t come on those hard words that about loosen a person’s teeth on the way out. Maybe it comes in small talk, the kind of talk that fills the qui...