Esmé Wang - The Border of Paradise

William says, “I don’t want him hearing our voices.”

“He knows we’re in here.”

“I know.”

It’s more than a mutt that a strange man could carry away. It’s me, the princess in the high tower. How else to explain this oddness, this jealousy from William? And what about Sarah? The growing desperation that comes with impending loss. I know before I get up and open the door hours later, as Sarah moans and comes to me with her wide muzzle nosing at my legs, that one day she’ll be gone. Taken away by a stranger, just as we’ve always been told about bad men, the wolf at the door.

Ma says, “Listen to me. You’re never allowed out again. You’re never leaving this house without someone again. You come right here.” She grabs my arm and pulls me into the hallway, down the hall and into her bedroom. The plain room smells like her perfume, as though she’s been spraying to cover some other scent. She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me down so that I’m facing her chest as I sit on the bed, the made bed, and the flowers on her dress are shining under the lights. She climbs on top of me and pins my wrists so that they’re pressed against the bed, and I start to cry because it hurts and I’m surprised. I think my wrists are going to break. She shakes me. The mattress squeals. “You are a girl and you are not safe and you are not going anywhere.”

William, where is William? Hiding in his room? Watching from the door? Listening from the hallway?

“I’m a good mother,” she says. “You’ve never been hurt. You’ve never had to sell your body before you even grew breasts. I’ve kept you safe.” She lets go. “You smell terrible. Go take a bath — your hair smells like a greasy pan.”

When I see William in the hallway his face is both closed and open.

“I’m going to take a bath,” I say. And I go into the bathroom. After I strip off my socks and my cotton dress I turn on the bathtub faucet. I climb into the tub and feel the cold water pool around my body until the water runs hot at my feet, which are grayish and dirty under the toenails because I am an animal.

The door opens and William comes in.

“Let me be alone for a little bit,” I say, but he doesn’t go. Instead he sits on the toilet seat and runs both hands through his hair, gripping it, holding his small head in his hands.

“I heard her yelling at you,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to make sure the doors are always locked now. I think that’s a good thing. And she’s worried about you, you know, because she loves you. She doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you. I think she’s worried you’re going to run away.”

“That’s stupid. I don’t even know how. I don’t know how to live out there.”

“Promise me you’re not going to run away.”

“I’m not going to run away.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“At the fire you wouldn’t come.”

“At the fire,” I say, “we were going to die.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

I turn off the water because the tub is about to overflow, even though I would rather leave it on. I want him to leave, but I don’t want to be alone.

“I’m sorry that I scared you,” I say in the echo chamber.

He stands up and comes to the tub. The water ripples around my body, splashing. He sits cross-legged alongside the tub and rests his head against the side with his hands in his lap as though begging. Or maybe he’s just tired.

The water is burning hot by my feet and cold at my back, so I swirl it around in order to mix the temperatures. William doesn’t move.

“Tell me,” he says, “about something fun that we did when we were little.”

“Noah’s Ark. Jonah and the Whale.”

“Those were fun.”

“They were.”

“I liked to play Noah’s Ark,” he says.

“That’s because you were always Noah.”

“I did the voices of the other animals.”

“You got to do the voices of some of the best animals.”

“I did?”

“But,” I said, “you always let me be the deer.”

William is silent. A rush of love roars out of my heart like a locomotive from my dreams, so strong that I feel like I’m going to faint from its whoosh sprinting from my body. I have never loved anyone like I love William; I have never known anyone like I’ve known my brother; I will never know anyone as deeply and fully as I know my idiosyncratic, bombastic, impossibly flawed kin. The only way that I can think of to honor this is to match his silence. So I touch the top of his head with my wet hand, anointing him. I am so confused.

After he leaves I finish my bath, pouring the plastic bucket of water over my head to give my hair a cursory washing. I wrap myself in the crackling towel hanging from the towel hook and let my hair drip all the way to our bedroom. William is lying in bed with the covers up to his armpits, his hands sprawled over the sheets. His eyes are closed, but open when I sit on the corner of the bed, patting my body dry with the towel.

“Come here,” he says. “Please.”

“I’m very wet.”

“But I like you.”

“I know.”

I crawl into our bed, wrapping my hair in the damp towel, and still my hair sops the pillow so thoroughly that I’m convinced it’s soaked to the mattress beneath it. He puts his arm around me. I make my breath go slow. Ma always tells us never to sleep with our hair wet, it’ll get us sick, but I lie and lie forever with my hair never getting any drier, and William begins to lightly snore with his face pressed against the nape of my neck, which tickles, and is incredibly gentle in nature. It’s not so bad, I tell myself. This is good, to be loved. Why would I not want this — to be loved, to be loved more than a person loves himself, to be loved so much by people whom I also love, who want to keep me safe and close to them. Isn’t that what life is about? Isn’t that what was meant for us?

In the middle of the night William wakes me, and for a second I don’t know where I am. “You’re doing that thing with your teeth,” he says softly. The lights are still on. “It woke me up.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be sorry. Just relax. It’s bad for your teeth. Wears down the white.”

He puts his hand on my naked back, making small circles with his palm — small, small, circles — until sleep takes his hand and he stops, dropping into slumber, but now I’m awake and I don’t want to be naked in this bed anymore, I want to put on a nightgown or turn off the light or something. But I’m afraid that if I crawl out of bed, I’ll wake him up. So I stay.

In the early morning, on the front porch, barefoot with scissors in hand, I can barely see anything. Birds are calling — trills, appoggiaturas — and I sense a flock shifting in the sycamore five yards from my face. (Immediately before Wellbrook my father’s visions all involved birds, particularly crows and ravens. At dinner he’d duck, hands slamming on the table so hard the plates rattled.) Sarah is restless, pacing in the dark and perhaps hungry. I gather my hair in a makeshift ponytail and lop it off. I snip off the remaining hair. The sibilant cutting is louder than I thought it would be, and when I finish I pat my head all over with my free hand. It’s very short. The sky is now a purplish blue and I can make out the snickering outlines of trees and bushes, the J-shaped curls of my locks on the porch, and then I sit among the potted cacti to watch the sun rise.