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Show Moon -174 loved us no matter what we did? The Mother-God seems to count for little to people who name themselves Christians, but I think She's the Ghost, the Spirit, the Dove, the Tongue of Angels calling out the story for which the language of men has not coined words. Creator-Mother has vanished from our world, and with her, the word of Jesus that told us: Be gentle with one another. Is this why I can't be gentle with Josh? Have I lost the mother in myself? Poor Jesus. Poor us. I lie in Alice's garden, having narrowly escaped New York City and a man with gray hair at the temples named John. Yd almost come to think that if I slept with a man like Daddy Td be all right, as if Td paid some dues, lain on some altar. There'd have to be more men, more blood spilled; it would never be enough. The bees hum in my ears and the smell of honeysuckle makes me feel as if I've drunk too much wine. What is Alice's version of our story? Did I hurt her in a way I'll never know? Am I, in her view, beyond redemption? Or is the underneath thing (which she would stare at with wide blue eyes and say, "Never!") that I could not, like tomatoes and beans, be controlled by her? Was it not saving that mattered at bottom, but something darker, like rats in the walls, like the lust for power I thought was the exclusive domain of men? The pain of her deceit shouts at me. But then in this garden something begins to sing, a chorus of tiny women in the flowers, and my heart opens like a tired fist. We betray one another in the worse possible ways at the most tender moments, when we least expect to, against our will, against our good intentions. It would be an outrage, except that I don't know anyone-including me-who hasn't done her share of betraying one way or another. Look at what I nearly did to Josh with John! |