Free Family by Micol Ostow Page B

overjoyed.
    shelly is growing a new life inside of her. her body is a safe house,
    a haven.
    our family will have a new baby.
    our sisters will be mothers.
    and Henry will always be our father.
    this baby, the very fact of it—
    it means that the fabric of our family is now that much more firmly woven, that much more inextricable. the surface of our puzzle pieces have been brushed with glue.
    we are bound.
    eternal.
    infinite.
    my eyes shine. i scrabble across the seat, clutch shelly tightly. her body feels rigid against my own.
    i understand: she is afraid.
    she is not the first of our sisters to give birth on the ranch, not hardly, but she is the sister who is my own second skin.
    her fear is natural. but this news, this new life—it is something to celebrate.
    of this, i am certain.
    and so, i tell her so: “you aren’t alone. this baby is all of ours.”
    there is no ego, no i, no before, i remind her. no parents. just us: the family. infinity, and love, and binding. the sins of the fathers have been washed from the slate. we are clean, scrubbed and fresh. we, our family— we can create our own now . a now for the baby.
    shelly’s baby. all of ours.
    it is a miracle.
    i never did believe in heaven, and yet.
    it is .
    a miracle.
    she hears me, allows my thrill to shower her. i can see that she hears me.
    a clarity comes over those storm-cloud eyes.
    she takes a breath, nods. “i’m not worried; that’s not the right word.
    it’s just, i can’t”—
    she bites at her lip—
    “the father could be anyone.
    junior, Henry… or someone else.
    it could be anyone else from the ranch.”
    she looks ashamed, looks the way i sometimes felt after a visit with uncle jack—
    like a nuclear rain shower couldn’t begin
    to undo the stains.
    but why? because the baby could be anyone’s?
    as though that even mattered.
    as though that weren’t the entire point of our life, together, on the ranch.
    our family .
    “but we are all one family,” i insist.
    “we are all Henry’s children, wives, and sisters. everything— everyone —belongs to everybody.”
    “true.”
    though she still sounds uncertain, my enthusiasm must have leaked, spilled over past the edges of her body’s boundaries. she hazards a hopeful grin. reaches out, clasps her fingers around my own.
    “we can do this,” she offers, more as a question than a statement.
    “Henry—He has connections, contacts.
    there’s a man He met, sometime back,
    a music manager.
    someone important.
    this guy’s gonna come out, hear us sing, take a listen to Henry’s stuff.
    help us get the message out.”
    i nod, knowing:
    Henry’s reach, His grasp, is far.
    His orbit is infinite.
    His connections like sticky spider-webbing.
    “it’s gonna mean money,” shelly goes on. “for the baby. for our family .”
    i blink.
    money.
    of course,
    babies—
    people—
    families—
    cost
    money.
    we live so well on cast-offs,
    on trash.
    that i had nearly forgotten about
    such real-world things.
    things like
    money .
    i have a moment,
    a hiccup,
    where the soft spaces of my throat seem to tighten, to close.
    where mirror-mel awakens,
    wide-eyed,
    wondering:
    
    wondering:
    what ever happened
    to free love?
    but mirror-mel
    should know better
    than to question Henry.
    “we can do this,” shelly says again,
    and the choking,
    closing
    
    sensation
    melts away.
    i turn to shelly.
    my sister.
    soon to be a mother .
    i nod, utterly convinced.
    “of course we can.
    we will .
    “we’re family .”

uncle
    Henry says, there is no before , and He is right.
    He knows. everything. sees right through people like they’re cut from glass, His eyes the prism of a psychic kaleidoscope: telepathic, all-knowing.
    infinite.
    i have no before , no memory of what it was to have a father.
    no memory of life before the undertow, before eternity overtook me.
    before infinity.
    but.
    there is one thought,
    one mind-image,
    one flash of consciousness that can’t be erased,
    no