A Love So Big

A Love So Big

By Red Sonya

Lying on my side in my bed, I can see outside my bedroom window, down to the front yard below and halfway down the deserted country lane in front. Today, the world outside is painfully quiet and thickly blanketed in fresh snowfall. In the winter months, the snow absorbs all the sound that one would normally hear on this stretch of land at this time of day; like the muffled choke of Mr. Miller’s old Toyota wheezing to life, the slap of a splintered screen door snapping shut against the cold, and the constant hum and buzz of the single electric line overhead, setting my hair on end.

You know the kind of silence that is so noticeable, so in your face, that it’s actually painfully loud? I do. That’s every winter in every small town, Ohio.

As the bleak winter morning slowly eases into midday, the silence outside has begun to ease under the sagging door frames of our old farmhouse. It’s so damn loud I can barely think straight.

A quick glance at my digital alarm clock tells me mama’s not due home for at least another 4 hours. She’s at the church, as she’s been every Saturday since my dad died in hunting accident when I was 4. Right about now, she’s probably polishing the pews with that lemony-smelling stuff and grinding fresh coffee beans for the morning congregation.

I once asked mama why she was always at church and she replied, “Since your daddy left us, I’m married to Jesus now. Jesus is my husband.” She had then nodded her head assertively, as if that had been a reasonable answer.

I had thought about mama’s response for a long time afterward, and I admit, a lot of disturbing mental images finally made me put it to rest. I stopped asking mom questions after that.

I quickly pull on my snow suit and boots and carefully seal my new Teen Vogue magazine in a large Ziploc bag for safe keeping against the elements. Mom typically frowns on things like teen magazines, nail polish and lip gloss, but Janice at school was willing to part with her copy in exchange for my velvet scrunchie. I’d been holding out all week on reading it, delaying the gratification as long as possible. I imagine Christy Ann’s cheek splitting grin when I show her, since Bobby doesn’t like her “spending his hard earned money on that crap”.

As I stepped out onto the back porch, the blistering cold and the mind-numbing silence hit me at once like a gut punch, nearly doubling me over. The absolute silence is so disorienting I can feel my inner ear popping as it tries to make sense of the utter lack of stimulus. I sway like a drunkard on the back porch for a moment or two, waiting for my brain to reorient itself. The cold drives in like hungry wolf, nipping at the weaknesses in my padded layers. The sun is bright and blinding against the endless snow banks.

Once I am upright again, I start the long “short-cut” across the back fields to Christy Ann’s house, the silence expanding before me in all directions.

Christy Ann is older, at least a good 4 years older than myself, but she seems even older than that. That’s probably because Christy Ann already has a house, a husband and a baby all before she even turned 18.

The husband, the house and the baby, well, that came along because Christy Ann is just too damn pretty. She can’t help it. With long blond curly hair that bounces when she walks and big blue eyes that look like they could swallow up the entire world, well, she was a highly desired commodity in our small town. All the boys (and quite a few of the men) had wanted her.

But Bobby Bennet, only son of the town’s mayor, had been the lucky one to knock her up first. So instead of caps and gowns and community college, Christy Ann had squeezed into her mama’s hand-me-down wedding gown (with the waist let out) and waddled down the aisle at 8 months pregnant to make an honest woman of her.

Bobby Bennet was all good looks and hard lines. He was tall and muscular with a temper that boiled like a kettle on the fire. He did odd jobs for his father, the mayor, but there were always rumors that he was involved in more nefarious deeds, like drugs or guns or both. Christy Ann and I never talked about that.

Bobby didn’t like none of Christy Ann’s friends, but for some reason he liked me well enough. Whenever I came over for a visit, he’d give me this lazy grin as he let me in, his dark eyes sliding off mine and lingering on my non-existent chest. Something about Bobby’s immediate attention always got me flustered and I could barely string two words together in his presence. I could never tell if I appreciated or feared his attention.

But boy, did Bobby love Christy Ann. I mean, he really loved her something fierce. So much so that he barely let her leave the house, he was just so worried something bad might happen to her or little baby Jessica. This sort of made sense, what with the world being the way it is, as my mama often says.

I’ve seen Bobby grab Christy Ann and hold her so tight I thought she might just pop like a balloon in his arms. He just can’t even be in the same room as Christy Ann without needing to put his hands all over her. Sometimes she would playfully swat his hands away when she was busy trying to feed the baby or whatnot, but he didn’t like that one bit and his teasing would turn to a thunderstorm in a matter of seconds. That’s when I would scamper home and the next time I’d see Christy she’d have bruises the shape of finger imprints on her arms and wrists, and Christy Ann would rub at them anxiously as if they’d actually wash off.

“He just loves me so much he can’t help it, Katie.” She’d say with a trembling lower lip and big, somber eyes, her black liner smudged at the edges, “This love, this love that me and Bobby have, it’s just so big. Sometimes it feels like it might just swallow us up whole.”

That had sounded both terribly romantic and terrifying at the same time. But I am just a kid, trying to understand grown-up things. So I had just nodded sagely and pretended I knew what the hell she was going on about.

“I knew you’d understand!” Christy Ann had whispered fiercely and pulled me to her in a tight embrace. Her hair had smelled strongly of baby powder and cinnamon and her breath was hot on my neck. I remember I could feel the frantic patter of her heart beat in my own chest, like a little bird frantically beating its wings against a cage. At that moment, I can honestly say that Christy Ann was the only person in the world that mattered to me.

Christy Ann was secretly saving up money to go cosmetology school someday. She carefully saved all the change from the money Bobby gave her for groceries and collected the loose change that fell into the couch cushions once a week. She kept her stash in an empty bleach container beneath the bathroom sink and every once in a while, I’d secretly drop in an extra dollar or two in quarters that I skimmed from the collection basket at church.

According to Christy Ann, Bobby couldn’t know yet because he had his mind so busy on the family business and his father the mayor and baby Jessica… For now, it was just our little secret and that suited me just fine. I liked being the keeper of Christy Ann’s secrets.

It was only mid-day but the light was already growing dark and heavy, as if the sun just wanted to call it quits early. I took a mittened hand and itched aggressively at the wool turtleneck under my snow jacket, my breath coming out in great white puffs as I continued to make my way through the snow. Up ahead, Christy Ann’s rooftop was just becoming visible through the sparse tree line.

My face pulled down into a stiff frown, my lips nearly numb with cold as I realized there was no smoke coming out the chimney. Christy Ann’s house was without electric heating, so no fire to heat the house made absolutely no sense on a winter day. My heart did a little kick in my chest and I tried to pick up my pace.

As I crossed the barn lot, I felt the unmistakable feeling of being watched. I spun on my heels to see the old barn owl Christy Ann called “Hoo-bert” perched on his ledge inside, flanked by the deep interior shadows of the old barn. The owl’s eyes were like yellow glass beads cutting through the darkness, his gaze oddly intense. Normally I would have chided myself for being startled so easily, but something about the owl’s locked gaze was unnerving. There was an intelligence in those eyes that reminded me a lot of the way Christy Ann would look at times, when she would gaze off in the distance so intently I would look to see what she was staring at, but I never saw nothing.

Just as I was about to tear my own gaze away, Hoo-bert’s head snapped to the right, his eyes flicking to the upstairs bedroom window as if he’d just caught a movement or heard something from inside the house. The owl let out a single cry, urgent and piercing, and I ran the rest of the way to the front door.

I knew something was wrong the minute I pushed open the unlocked front door and the house was just as cold as it was outside. I blew out an experimental breath, watching with confused horror as my breath clouded in front of me. Somewhere upstairs the baby was wailing but there wasn’t a single light on in the whole place. The magazine slid from my hand to the dusty floor as I crept up the darkened stairwell calling Christy Ann’s name, but only heard a thick silence in return.

I found baby Jessica crying in her urine soaked crib. Her cheeks and nose were red and chapped and she had a stream of frozen snot from her nose to her top lip. Her cries were weak, as if she’d been at it a long time. “Hey little girl,” I cooed as I bent over the crib to scooper her up, “Where’s your mama?”

The baby gave a whimper and a hiccup in response and reached her arms out to me. Jessica’s diaper was so full it weighed almost as much as she did. My heart lurched again in confused panic. None of this is right.

“Christy Ann?” I called out again into the darkened hallway, the baby clutched to my side. Her diaper was leaking but I just ignored the warm urine dripping down my pant leg. I found an extra blanket to wrap around Baby Jessica and continued to ease down the dark hallway, the afternoon light fading fast.

“Where’s your mama little girl?” I asked baby Jessica again, as if she could tell me. Jessica blinked at me tiredly, her eyes rimmed red. She burrowed deeper into my jack, trying to sap my warmth.

As I made it to the end of the hall where Christy Ann’s bedroom was, I paused, unsure if I should open the door. Instinctually, I knew that nothing good was behind that door, but still, there was no path forward from this point on where that door was not opened. I steeled the baby to my chest as I grabbed the cold bedroom handle and swung the door open. The wood groaned on its hinges.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloomy light, my heart stuttered in my chest. Christy Ann hung from the ceiling beam in her best Sunday dress, a chair kicked over on the floor beneath her bare feet.

I quickly placed baby Jessica on the floor on a pile of dirty laundry and ran to Christy Ann, wrapping my arms around her bare knees and trying to heave her up, to give her slack on the rope. “No, no, no, no,” I heard myself saying over and over like mantra, but it sounded so far away. Her body was unnaturally heavy and felt wrong. After a few minutes of fruitless struggle my mind finally registered why- her body was stiff and hard almost like wood, which meant she had been dead a long time. Too long for anyone to bring her back.

I stood back and stared up at Christy Ann, the way I had always wanted to before but couldn’t because that would have just been weird. With the tears cutting rivulets down my cheeks, a low moan trapped in my throat, I stood and stared at Christy Ann, drinking in every detail, every piece of what made her- her. I memorized the curve of her cheek, the length of her lashes, the slenderness of her fingers. Even in death, she was still so lovely.

After what seemed like hours, baby Jessica began to wail again and I became brutally aware of all of the things that needed doing. I scooped baby Jessica up and managed to find a clean diaper and dry clothes and then called the police from Christy Ann’s landline.

I bundled us up in a thick wool blanket and sat outside on the front porch to wait for some help to come, whether that be the police, or the firemen, or Bobby Bennet, or even the church pastor, I didn’t know and I was certain that it really didn’t matter anymore.

As we waited, Jessica fell asleep on my chest and once again, the winter silence pressed in around me. I tried to sense Christy Ann near me or around me, but I felt as empty as the silence. It was in that moment that I finally understood what she meant when she said she felt a love so big, it might just swallow her whole.