Anna Quinn - The Night Child

It is dark and the cold stings her face. The sidewalks are illuminated by streetlamps, the yellowish glare making her feel like she’s on a stage, and she has to stop for a moment to regain her balance. But then she runs, runs several blocks down sloping sidewalks to the water. People lying bundled in the Seattle Times in doorways littered with butts and rubbish. She keeps her eyes down when the drunks and junkies stumble by. Yellow taxis speed and stop, buses lurch into curbs, suddenly enormous, their pneumatic doors hiss, their filthy pipes spew exhaust into her face and she keeps running, and now here are the cathedral bells ringing five o’clock and she can’t think about how Fiona loves those bells she can’t think about Fiona, it’s for the best, it’s for the best, it’s for the best.

Once she arrives at the waterfront she slows, breathing hard, walks between run-down warehouses to an abandoned pier. Gulls keening overhead. High tide. Waves pulse loud, slap against pilings; a sudden penetrating smell of creosote and seaweed. The rough wooden planks creak under her feet. She arrives at the end and wraps her arms around herself and looks across the blue swells to the mountains, shadows in the dim light of dawn. A ferry boat blows its horn.

She peers into the water and imagines herself diving into the blackness. Pulling herself down, down, down, mouth open drinking freedom swallowing loss lungs release forever emancipation beneath despair sinking somewhere holy.

Her arms raise and she bows her head, palms coming together like a prayer. Deep inhale. But then her grandfather’s voice: You are tough; you are stronger than you think. You are tough; you are stronger than you think … and she hesitates.

In that moment, a cry. Child sounds. She holds her breath. Listens.

Silence.

She waits. Arms still raised. Again, a cry—from behind the dumpster. She brings her arms down. Walks numbly toward the sound.

Here is the sound.

A child. Her dress is red. Her eyes are blue. A little girl sits. Arms locked around exposed knees. Rocking. Blonde hair infused with light.

Here is Margaret.

Nora shakes her head, tries to shake off the numb, the disbelief of seeing her there. The incandescent skin and bones and eyes of her. The blue eyes. Nora steps closer, tentative with apprehension that any sudden movement might make her disappear. Margaret keeps rocking, rocking, rocking. They stare at each other. Blue meeting blue.

“Margaret?” Nora says.

“I … I … don’t want to die,” Margaret cries then, rubbing the sleeve of her blouse across her face, smearing tears across her cheeks. “Please. Please. Don’t let us die, I-I-I’ve worked very, very hard.”

“Margaret?” Nora whispers, whole body aching.

“I’ve barely, I’ve barely—” but then Margaret begins to cry again and buries her face in her hands.

Nora takes off her coat, hands shaking, and wraps it around Margaret’s shoulders. Falls to her knees in front of her. Split suddenly open, inside out. The hero child is real. The hero child who arrived each time she was needed, who knew when to play dead.

“Margaret, I am … I am …”

Margaret stops rocking, says, “Am I no one?”

This question from six-year-old pink lips.

“No!” Nora says, though the second she says it she can taste the lie. Guilt fills her. She’s hated, blamed, and denied Margaret. Used her. Wanted to drown her. Mother annihilating child. Nora draws in a breath, reaches, touches Margaret’s face. Struggles for words that won’t feel small and failing in her mouth, words true enough to bear the monster weight of this child’s pain. This child’s war-weariness. “I was wrong. I was so wrong,” Nora says. When Margaret doesn’t say anything, just keeps rocking, Nora says in a voice gaining strength, owning courage, “Listen to me, little warrior girl,” the words aching in the back of her throat, “we are not ruined. We are beautiful—beautiful and sacred and we are never giving up.” And when she says this, right there, out loud, she knows this to be true.

Margaret stares at her, weighing pain, weighing truth, weighing love, and then, eyes brimming soft, raises her arms. Nora gathers her tight, kisses her into her breast, absorbs more love than she’s ever known. Margaret presses presses presses skin into bone into light into light into light into light into light into light.

It would not have been possible to sustain the decade-long effort required to write this book without the constant support of many kind, generous, and loving people.

First, thank you to my sons, Ben and Roarke, my heaven and earth, who opened my heart in ways I hadn’t known possible. I love you so much, and it is the greatest privilege to be your mother. Thank you to my stepson, Loren, who is a strong, beautiful force in our family, and has gifted us with a tremendous sense of humor and compassion.

To my husband, Peter, my touchstone, who gives me the kind of love I’ve never before experienced, who was my smartest first editor, who believes in me more than anyone I’ve ever known, who would hold both my hands each time I wanted to give up, and say, “This book is so important and beautiful and powerful.”

Thank you to Laurence for his unwavering commitment to interior truth, his fearlessness in confronting it, and his willingness to shift the frame and ask, “Is there another way to think about this?”

I am grateful to all my editors and manuscript readers: Dorothy Allison, Lidia Yuknavitch, Peggy Hageman, Marjorie Osterhout, Kate Kennedy, Karen Sullivan, Nancy Rekow, Sharon Dembro, Sylvia Bowman, Marcia Perlstein, Nyla Dartt, Courtney Vatis, and Gordon Warnock. Thank you for drawing out what I most struggled to express. Your brilliant, insightful questions expanded and deepened my story in a thousand ways.

To the crucible that is the Writers’ Workshoppe & Imprint Books. Your astounding collective energy helped me grow me as a writer. Hands down. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today.

And huge gratitude to the authors I’ve had the incredible honor to meet along the way, who offered fortifying advice and generous support: Rikki Ducornet, Dorothy Allison, Lidia Yuknavitch, Pam Houston, Melissa Febos, Sue William Silverman, Sonya Lea, Rene Denfeld, Sheila Bender, Susan Wooldridge, Erica Bauermeister, Jennie Shortridge, Adrianne Harun, Terry Persun, Bill Ransom, Cheryl Merrill, Julie Christine Johnson, Christine Fadden, and Louise Marley.

Thank you to my incredibly wonderful friends who encouraged and nourished me with love along the way: Karen, Maryann, Maggie, Carol, Holly, Bob, Helen, Sarah, Jason, Susan, and Tom.

This book would not exist without my brilliant, hardworking agent Gordon Warnock and the fabulous Blackstone team: Josh Stanton, Greg Boguslawski, Addi Black, Anne Fonteneau, Lauren Maturo, Jeffrey Yamaguchi, Peggy Hageman, Kathryn G. English, Josie McKenzie, Courtney Vatis, and Ananda Finwall.

Thank you to my tugboat, whose magic held me in solitude for hours on end as I wrote my heart out until the story was done.

Thank you to my sister, Eileen, who was there in ways no one else could ever know, in ways I’ve yet to find the words for.

And last but not least, to St. Margaret. I can still hear you.