WORTHY, Part 1 (2 page)

Today, though, was about the fish. With learned and practiced ease,
I picked my perch—an old toppled tree that partly protruded over the water—and tied a hook onto my fishing line. I deftly attached a glittery rubber worm to the hook and cast out into the pool.

Bam. Just like that, as soon as it hit the water, a fish struck at
my bait. So it was going to be one of those days. I grinned, excited, and set the hook with a quick jerk of the rod. The drag of the line in the water told me that the fish was still on. Now for the fight.

I
watched as the line cranked out, making the reel click and zip as the fish tried to flee. It couldn’t flee me. I’d set the hook just as Dad had taught me.

After a short fight,
I managed to land a good-looking bass. It would be delicious baked with lemon and perhaps served alongside potatoes. I had a recipe in one of several books that included cooking fish together with vegetables inside a pouch made of parchment paper. Maybe I could try that.

Removing the fish from the hook without a single flinch,
I checked the rubber worm and cast again. If I caught too many fish to eat in a single supper, I could freeze the remainder for later in the week—or even for the winter. They kept practically forever.

On
my third bass—there had to be some shad or some other small fish school in the pool to make them as active as they were today—I leaned far over the water and caught a dim look at my reflection. I hadn’t meant to see it. I wasn’t looking for it. But it was there all the same, and it captivated me. The water wasn’t crystal clear, and the sun was behind some clouds, but I saw enough to make me still before leaning closer.

It had been years since
I had wrapped the cottage’s mirrors up and marched them down to the barn, and this was the first time I’d remembered that I had a reflection since then. It was so easy to forget about everything as long as I didn’t have that obvious reminder. It was so easy to pretend that this was my normal life, that I wasn’t a monster.

Today, at the pool, a bass in hand,
I studied the mirror image that presented itself to me in the water with no small amount of disgust. One side of my face was smooth—pretty, even—but the other side wasn’t. The two sides of my face were exact opposites. A mass of horrifying scar tissue almost completely covered my cheek and extended a little bit onto my forehead. It was lumpy in some parts, shiny in others, and looked, all in all, monstrous. I was glad I’d taken all the mirrors to the barn. I could stare at the scar for hours, equal parts horribly fascinated and devastatingly regretful.

The fish in
my hand gave one last desperate flip for freedom and I lost control of it, my focus on the monster at the water’s surface. The fish splashed back into the pool directly in the image I had been staring at, shattering it into whorls and ripples.

I
sat back down on the log and cast out again. I couldn’t stand the person in the reflection. I just couldn’t give it any thought. The scar was the very physical evidence of how bad a person I was, of just how badly I needed to be punished. Thinking about it made the bile rise in my throat.

The sun came out, making the surface of the water to
o bright to stare at. I did my best to forget about the person I’d seen there. It was for the best. I didn’t need to dwell on things I couldn’t change.

Each day held something different for
me. There were constants, of course—the chickens and the garden, for instance—but the rest of it seemed to change day by day. I could go fishing, if I felt like it, or I could go walking through the woods, gathering mushrooms, berries, and nuts I knew to be good for eating.

If
I didn’t feel like going out into the woods—rare days, indeed—I could stay close to the cottage, letting the chickens get exercise and maintaining the buildings. I could paint them, stain the interior of the cottage, or simply read a book on a blanket in the field. There were plenty of volumes inside the cottage, though there were few on the shelves I hadn’t already read.

I
lived an isolated life by choice. I liked the fact that I could, for the most part, sustain myself. I knew how to garden and fish and cook; I could raise chickens and make repairs to buildings and clean; I could mend clothes and fix simple issues with the fuse box and stove and refrigerator without electrocuting myself or blowing myself up.

It was a point of pride that
I could survive on my own. It had taken research and practice—and plenty of mistakes.

Of course,
I did have a safety net. I utilized it less and less as I learned to be more self-sufficient, but it was there all the same.

One gray day, when heavy clouds threatened
to bring the rain the region needed so badly, I dragged the laptop out of a case on the bookshelf. I rarely kept it charged and had to plug it into the wall to get it the power it needed. I treated the laptop—and the Internet I accessed with it—as a last-ditch effort to get me what I needed when I couldn’t get it myself.

I
didn’t like using it as a window to the outside world. I eschewed the ubiquitous Google, the various news sites, and other wasters of time. When I had to access the Internet for something, I kept to my task. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting around and surfing. And it didn’t come cheap, out there. The cottage was so remote that I required satellite Internet. I paid for it by the amount of data I used, so that was another reason not to fool around on the laptop.

That day,
I logged in to the website of a farm supply store in a nearby town. “Nearby” was a relative term; the town was a good fifty miles away. I ordered another sack of chicken feed and jug of insecticide for the garden. Those were things I couldn’t make myself, though I figured if I was industrious enough, I could probably grow the grains necessary to feed the chickens, or come up with a natural deterrent to the bugs in the garden. Heck, I bet I could train the chickens to seek and destroy the harmful bugs out to get my plants.

There. Ordered.
I often thought about the employees at my bank—another place I hadn’t seen in five years. They probably died of shock every time my account showed any sort of movement, gossiping about what, exactly, it was that I was doing out in the wilderness, buying chicken feed and insecticide and the occasional order of lumber.

A truck would drop
off the supplies I ordered at the door to my cottage. Whoever made these deliveries probably hated them, hated driving all the way over here on the deserted two-lane highway before being forced to drive on gravel for another fifteen miles until they reached the cottage. I never saw who dropped the orders off. I preferred not to be seen. I didn’t want to scare anyone with my hideous face. And I never walked the gravel road that led to the highway. I hardly even looked at it. The road was a lifeline to the rest of the world—a lifeline I’d gladly sever, if I only could.

I
supposed I should consider the Internet more as an ally than a detriment. It helped me obtain the things I couldn’t get myself—the chicken feed and insecticide, clothes when I grew out of mine or couldn’t patch or mend the tears I incurred, the occasional grocery order that included powdered milk, frozen foods, flour, sugar, and other necessities.

The biggest luxury
I allowed myself was books.

When
I wasn’t working, I was reading, gobbling up words and stories in single sittings, craving more and less all at once. Romances were my favorite—cathartic scenes of love gained and lost, of hearts won and hurt, of kisses.

I
lived through these narratives, but I always finished each tome with a little bit of bitterness. I lived in a self-imposed exile. There wasn’t going to be a Prince Charming for me—especially not with my face.

As upsetting as that admission was,
I still couldn’t kick my romance habit. And the love scenes … did something to me. I would never admit it to anyone—if there had been anyone in my life to admit it to—but I liked to imagine some of the love scenes in the novels playing out while I touched myself.

As Prince Charming would lay his Princess across their silken couch,
I would lay myself down on my quilt-covered bed. As Prince Charming smoothed his Princess’ flaxen hair away from her face and kissed her, I would comb my own fingers through my curls, flutter my own fingers against my lips. As Prince Charming would trail kisses down his Princess’ shapely neck, I would drag my own fingers down my neck, raising goose bumps at the feather-light touch.

If
I closed my eyes tightly enough, I felt almost as if I could summon Prince Charming to my humble cottage bedroom. My imagination could transform my own fingers into his hands and mouth, exploring my body. I could look past the fact that it was my own hands tweaking my nipples and palming my breasts, my own hands rubbing down my belly in circles, my own hands pinching at the space between my legs, sending waves of pleasure emanating throughout my body.

I
could pretend it was Prince Charming inside of me, though no one had ever been inside of me, as I slipped my fingers into my own body, one hand still circling around my clit, creating and cultivating pleasure until it suddenly blossomed into an orgasm. My climax made me forget everything—forget the fact that I’d never been with a man before moving out to the cottage, forget the fact that I’d never, ever be with a man from now on, forget the fact that I was terribly disfigured. Orgasm was the great equalizer, setting everything right in my world.

I
shook my head free of the cloying thoughts, the ones that urged me to go pick my favorite romance novel, open it to its dog-eared page marking the best sex scenes, and take it into my bedroom to while away an afternoon. Some other time, perhaps.

I
turned the laptop off and closed it, securing it in its case on the bookshelf before peering out the window. The sun cut through the dark clouds, and I sighed. It looked like the heat was going to boil off those rain clouds before they could release a single drop. I needed the rain, and the garden needed the rain, but there was no use worrying about it. It would rain or it wouldn’t. There was nothing I could do to influence it either way.

I
spent the rest of the day cleaning the cottage from top to bottom. The pent up energy from the rain that never fell seemed to supercharge my efforts. I swept every inch of the wood floor, heaving furniture around to make sure I captured each and every speck of dust and dirt. I was lucky that the cottage was so snug. It usually wasn’t much of an effort to keep it clean in the first place, and it wasn’t too much of an undertaking for me to really make the place shine.

I
dusted the bookshelf in the family room, reverently running the rag over all the books I’d accumulated. I took the couch cushions outside and beat them with the broom, raising great clouds of dust. I washed every inch of the kitchen in soapy water before rinsing it, making the tiles on the countertop gleam. Even the dilapidated refrigerator and stove looked cheerful and bright, and like they’d last me for several more years.

The bathroom was a piece of cake, just one more part of the house swept up into
my tornado of cleaning. I saved the bedroom for last, changing the sheets and adding the old ones to the laundry basket before starting a load in the washer, hidden in a little utility closet in the hallway. I always hung the clothes and linens to dry outside.

My
bedroom was the smallest room in the house—besides the bathroom, of course—and only had room for a bed, side table, and little chest of drawers. I didn’t need lots of clothes or possessions, so it didn’t bother me much.

My
one prized possession, though—a framed photograph of my parents and me—got special treatment. I spritzed the glass with cleaner and made sure there weren’t any fingerprints or streaks. Carefully, so as not to smudge the glass, I polished the wooden frame with a rag until it shone. I stared at the picture hard, willing myself back to that happier, freer time. The girl in the picture, the girl who I used to be, stared determinedly into the camera, but both of her parents smiled lovingly down at her.

Mom’s hair was straight and fair, the same blonde as
mine, but it was Dad’s curls I’d inherited. I could see myself in both of them, the perfect blending of their love, but the realization was more sour than sweet.

I
would do anything to get them back in my life. There were some days when I felt so down that I’d spend entire hours gazing into that one photograph, trying to remember the details of when it was taken. We were all wearing shorts—it was summer, then, or we were somewhere warm, at least. The girl in the photo looked more sassy than truly happy—maybe I’d gotten fussed at for some quirk or foible or had just gotten away with something.

The truth was that
I didn’t remember the circumstances of the photo, and it killed me. I’d picked that photo out of all of them to take with me because it was already in a frame—my parents had valued it enough to frame it, and that was enough for me. But I was too young when it was taken, or the taking of the photo was enough of an everyday occurrence for it not to stick out in my mind.

Carefully,
I put the frame back on the bedside table and stood up. It was evening by then, but I collected the clean, wet laundry from the washing machine and pinned it up on the line outside anyways. What the dew kissed overnight could dry when the sun rose again.

For dinner,
I made a batch of tuna salad and stuffed it into a couple of tomatoes, savoring the way the flavors blended in the simple dinner. I refrigerated the rest of the concoction, knowing I’d eat it throughout the remainder of the week.

After brushing
my teeth and changing into my nightgown, I sank into bed as I liked to do every night—exhausted and satisfied that I’d spent the day as wisely and as fully as possible.

I
dreamed of my parents that night.

There were times when it was torture to dream of them.
I missed them almost every day, even if I tried not to think about what happened.

The worst part was feeling wistful during the dream, as if
my subconscious recognized that sleeping was the only time I’d get to see them.

“You look so beautiful,
Michelle,” Mom said, kissing my forehead. “Like a young woman already.”

“No, you’ll always be our baby girl,” Dad maintained, snaking his arm around
my middle and hugging me to him.

I
looked in the mirror they were all standing in front of and gasped. Mom was right—I looked beautiful. My hair was swept back into a complicated braided up-do, pulled clear of my face. Both of my cheeks were as smooth as milk and had a healthy blush.

This. This is what could have been. This is what should have been.

I woke with a start. That dream again. I brought my hands to my face. My left hand felt smooth skin. My right hand felt warped skin—skin as warped as my terrible life.

Sighing,
I let my hands drop and stared up at the ceiling. The silvery light of the moon filtered in the bedroom window, and I felt like crying. Why? What was the point? There was nothing I could change now, nothing I could do to prevent what had already happened. My parents were gone, and my face—and future—was ruined. Why was that so hard to accept?

I
rolled out of bed and got a drink of water from the kitchen. I drained it and set the glass by the sink before walking outside.

The land around the cottage transformed by night.
I never felt scared of it—it was still the same place I knew and loved—but it was just different.

The birdsong
I was so familiar with was replaced with crickets in the field, the cries of screech owls in the woods, the far off yips of coyotes. And instead of the sun gilding the long grass and the tree leaves with gold, the moon cast everything in silver. I held my hand out to examine it in the light. It had such a strange quality that I wondered for a moment if I were still dreaming, if my real body was actually still asleep in my bedroom. It was a mischievous—if disquieting—thought.

Even the wind had stilled.

Wearing just my nightgown, I walked out into the field toward the barn, trailing my hand through the wildflowers that grew abundantly there. They were beautiful during the day, but ethereal by night, reduced to differing shades of pewter and steel.

Maybe, by this light,
I looked beautiful, too.

It was a ridiculous thought, one that
I’d only entertain at an equally ridiculous hour such as this. I walked a couple of more steps to the barn before I stopped myself, stunned. I realized that I was going to try to peer into one of the mirrors I’d wrapped up and stowed in there. As if a single dream had changed things. As if a smooth face would solve all ills. Laughing shortly at myself, I fell immediately silent. The sound was out of place in the night, jarring, and the crickets around me quieted to hear it.