Where the Lost Wander

by Amy Harmon

God and Pa.

That hurt

To call her Mother would be to deny the Pawnee girl with the heavy hair and the crooked smile.

“Goodbye, John Lowry.” “Goodbye, Jennie.”

“It’s worth it, you know.” “What is, Jennie?” “The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”

“Are you angry with the bird because he can fly, or angry with the horse for her beauty, or angry with the bear because he has fearsome teeth and claws? Because he’s bigger than you are? Stronger too? Destroying all the things you hate won’t change any of that. You still won’t be a bear or a bird or a horse. Hating men won’t make you a man. Hating your womb or your breasts or your own weakness won’t make those things go away. You’ll still be a woman. Hating never fixed anything. It seems simple, but most things are. We just complicate them. We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.”

“I like him too, Ma. That’s why I’m mad.”

“Then why wasn’t he out helping her?” I grumble.

“I never get sick,” I say, parroting Naomi May, and stiffen when Abbott laughs. “You already are. Lovesick. I can see it all over your face.”

“Please don’t do that again, Mrs. Caldwell,” he barks, his mouth at my ear,

“You’re all grown up, Wyatt. All grown up,” Ma whispers. “And you’re a fine man.”

John does not flirt. He doesn’t say pretty, empty things. He listens, soaking everything in. John’s a doer. An observer. And his thoughts, when he shares them, are like little shoots of green grass on a dry prairie. The flowers on the prickly pears that grow among the rocks.

“I would like a picture of you,” he says, and I am touched by the soft sincerity in his voice. “I would like many pictures of you,” he adds.

“I want a picture of you sitting on a barrel in a yellow dress and a white bonnet in the middle of a crowded street,” he says, looking up at me.

“That’s what marriage is. It’s shelter. It’s sustenance. It’s warmth. It’s finding rest in each other. It’s telling someone, You matter most. That’s what Naomi wants from you. And that’s what she wants to give you.”

“Yeah, well . . . I can’t wait that long.”

“I love you, John Two Feet Lowry.” “I love you too, Naomi Many Faces May,”

“I’m sure.” Why would I want to stare at my own reflection in my children if I could look at John instead?

“We women want to make the world brighter, don’t we? Even if we have to fight our men every step of the way.”

I’ll have snakes in my belly until I’m with Naomi again.

“I would carry you to the ends of the earth.”