Read Red Lightning for Free Online Page B

places,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  as if she herself were special
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  and was called into this world for great glory.
    Gut-punched with a memory? I didn’t think it could punch so hard. But it can. I hold my stomach, cradling the hipbones with my palms, as if inside were a baby. Hold steady, kid. Three days to make it right .
    *
    The wheat flour is in a large glass container. Eggs, butter, baking soda, cinnamon, but no such thing as sugar. Only honey. I drink water and eat crackers and murmur to myself:
    Of course there is no sugar in this house ,
    of course I will have to guess how much honey ,
    of course that will ruin whatever it is I’m making ,
    of course there’s no alcohol ,
    of course .
    I stir the liquid gold into the batter and think: The people who make it in the world are those who can of course it .
    Of course life is harder than you thought. Of course babies die, unbirthed in their mother’s pelvic bones. Of course pirates come, of course people get lost at sea. Of course Libby’s house is clean and clutter free, Libby who was always tempering the mess as a kid, the catshit and black widows and flies and toilet smell and overflowing trash and cigarettes and Kay’s empty beer bottles everywhere and even Kay’svomit. Of course I let Libby do all that because even though I noticed it all too, and I hated it, I let Libby be the one who kept trying to bring back order and beauty.
    I stir until my arm aches. How come people never speak of this? How much the body can hurt? The mindwhir? How much work it takes to make this life of clean countertops, mail stacked neatly in one pile? The effort of love?
    From here, stirring, I can turn and see the main room of the house. One soft green couch in a living room, one tidy computer station, one dining room table covered in a bright Mexican tablecloth. Fossils and rocks lined up on the windowsills. Walls occasionally adorned with what must be Amber’s earlier-kid artwork. A lemon tree growing in the corner. Plastic boxes stacked in the pantry: LIP BALM SUPPLIES, HONEY EQUIPMENT, SOAP SUPPLIES. There are sprigs of lavender about, bunches of dried wildflowers. Near my feet on the gray smooth floor are metal dogfood bowls that are clean, lined up side-by-side, and if ever there was a sign of you-have-your-shit-together, it’s the state of the dogbowls.
    I put the batter into a pan, put the pan into the heated oven, find a broom, and gather up the bits of flour and cracker that have scattered. Heartsweeper. Sweeping up my own heart, sweeping up my own body, sweeping up the dusty corners and irregularities. May I audition for the part , some song goes. Of sweeping up your dusty heart? I know your darkest corners fairly well . I find the trash and let the fine bits of bonewhite fall into the bin.
    With the broom, I go to the bathroom and sweep up my tangles of cut hair. They look like long grapevines, twisted into various formations. With dustpan in one hand and broom in the other, I stand and look in the mirror again, startled by my short haircut and how it hangs now that it is dry, the bit of color that has come into my cheeks. I lift my mouth in a small smile just to give it a try. Feral gone domestic . I crossmy arms to hug myself, fingers touching shirt but stroking curved bone, and regard, gingerly, this person in front of me.
    *
    The breeze shifts my hair back and forth across my face, making it lift and dance. I’ve never had hair short enough to be flung about in such a way. The sensation is new. Small, yes, but new, and all any of us has ever hoped for, I think, is to be amazed.
    The cake is baking, the kitchen has been tidied, so I close my eyes and lean back against the house. I tilt my head to the sun, the red coloring the back of my eyelids. It smells of dried grasses, like rotting apples, like yellow leaves on the cottonwoods, and,