Category: Lifting Voices

“Good.” Rhys patted her shoulder, an awkward little tap. “Um. Also, can I go to school when it’s your smithy? You know how Paw is, but you’re different.”

“I promise,” she said, watching him light up. She was about to explode. She needed to release her emotions, her stress, her fear, but she couldn’t do it in front of Rhys. She couldn’t let him know. She pushed him off the cot. “Now go to bed. Maw will pull your ear off if she finds you up.”

Rhys hopped up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he whispered in excitement, running out of the room. His footsteps faded, and another pair crept closer.

“You can come in now,” Minette said, and Irma slunk into the room.

“Morty…” Irma trailed off, hugging her arm. “Will you really look after us when–when Maw and Paw are gone?”

Minette’s throat went thick. She stood and took Irma by the shoulders. She watched Irma’s bleary eyes flit across the room in agitation. “Yes,” Minette said in a firm, steady voice, despite all that was roiling about inside her, “and you’ll be just fine. You’ll make your own way. We’ll prove them wrong. You’re a brave girl, Irma. And powerful.”

Irma gave her a lopsided smile. “Rhys was right. You’ll do great.”

Minette smiled back, flicking Irma’s nose. She needed Irma to get out of here so she could process the chopping block she was standing on in peace. Worries pounded like a headache behind her forehead: There was already a woman. Minette was already a suitor.  “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Irma slipped out, and along with her, a choked, ragged breath pushed out of Minette. All her energy left her, and she deflated, sinking onto the bed, putting her head in her hands. She stared unseeingly at the floor.

There was already a woman. There was already a woman. The sentence repeated in her brain, over and over, like an alarm bell. Maw and Paw had already talked to another mother and father. Both sets of parents had had a conversation that amounted to, “yes, your child should procreate with my child. That sounds like a great idea.”

Minette paused in her reading that night when a hand knocked softly at her door. Rhys peeked his head in, a question on his face.

Minette smiled at him, scooting over and patting the narrow cot beside her. Rhys came and plopped himself down on her bed hard enough to make it sag to the floor.

“What’s going on? Are you alright?” Minette asked him. She peered at his face, trying to see if he was any redder, or had any pocks. “Do you feel sick?”

“I’m fine, Maw,” Rhys teased, batting her hand away. His knee jiggled, making the whole room vibrate with his barely-contained energy. “I just wanted to talk.”

It was her own face and its redness that Minette really had to worry about. “About what?” she asked.

“You,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Are you okay?”

Minette forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’ll be alright with the smithy,” Rhys said, offering her a pat on the shoulder for support. He had such misplaced faith in her. “You’re just as good as Paw.”

It was the opposite of what Minette wanted to hear. “So are you, in your own way.”

“Yes, but this isn’t about me,” Rhys said, and damn it, he was a smart kid, was an arrow aiming for the heart. “Are you scared about meeting someone?”

Of course he’d dig deep and hit a vein of truth. Of course that squinty gaze of his would see right through her.

Minette swallowed down all of her feelings and threw up a nice, big wall, just like the ones circling Droz.

“The truth is, I am,” she said, an authentic wobble in her voice.

Rhys shook his head. “You’re daft,” he said. “Lucy is gonna love you.”

Minette’s heart jumped around in her chest, the blood leaving her head. She swallowed. “Lucy?”

“She’s the butcher’s daughter,” he said, completely frank, unaware of how queasy she felt just hearing about this. “Maw and Paw have been talking about her for weeks when you’re not around. It’s obvious why.”

Minette forced a smile. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Rhys said with a grin. “Don’t tell them I told you. Now, will you stop moping?”

“I’ll try my best.”

That was the last conversation she’d been trying to avoid. “Maw, please!” Minette protested. She wrapped a lock of hair around her finger and rubbed it between her fingers. She wouldn’t be able to meet her reflection at all with her last shadow of independence sheared off. It was her only weak grasp at her true self, at the person she dreamed about. Shearing off her hair turned her outsides into the outsides of the Good Son, the honorable husband, the person who was not–and would never be–Minette.

Paw’s fist slammed down on the table, silverware jangling, Irma startling. Uh-oh.

He leaned forward. Crickets sung outside, unaware of the calamity inside. “Why do you fight this so hard?” he asked. His face was the reddest she’d ever seen it, and that was saying something.

Minette was silent. She couldn’t tell him. She had no defense. She couldn’t answer past her tight throat.

“Morton, you’re too old for all this. It’s time to grow up,” he said, snapping the last two words in emphasis.

Minette ordered herself not to cry. She nodded her head, hiding behind locks that would be gone in a day or two. Her dreams bled away. This was real. This was happening. To her. And soon.

“Yes, Paw.”

Paw leaned back. “Good,” he said. The sounds of life resumed. Everyone else kept eating, complimenting Maw on her mash. Irma asked about her dress, and Maw’s eager yammering filled the silence and loosened everyone’s shoulders.

Life kept turning around Minette, even as desperately as she wanted it to stop, to just stop, if only for a moment.

It felt utterly useless, almost stupid. What control did she have over her life? All her dreaming, her pining for something else, it had only served to hurt her. To highlight its own impossibility. Before autumn came, she’d have a moppy head and a wife and she’d be a partner at the smithy.

Before long, she’d be trapped behind the portrait of her false life forever, acting and dancing around like a fool until it was time for her own weary, overworked death, completely voiceless, her true self unknown to all.

“Irma’s right,” Minette said. “It’s a little early to talk about this, isn’t it?” She tried a smile. Maw and Paw liked to get serious sometimes, to impart Elder Wisdom upon the Youths, but those moments never lasted long. Minette just had to get through this one.

“I met a boy who goes to school in town,” Rhys piped up. “He’s my age, and he’s the son of the candlemaker. If they can–”

“It’s never too early to get your affairs in order,” Maw said, barely blinking at Rhys’ words.

Rhys went quiet. Minette had nothing to say, either, and definitely not Irma.

“I thought you’d be happy,” Paw added after the silence hung around too long, and Minette didn’t miss the edge of hurt in his tone.

Minette’s heart fell into her tummy. She sighed. “I… I just don’t think I’m ready yet,” she said. “I could use some more time. To practice. At the smithy.” It was the most and the least she could say to appease Paw and eliminate any suspicion. Minette didn’t know how to explain herself if he learned that she didn’t want to be the man of the house. She didn’t want to run a smoky, choking business for forty years and then die because of it and consign her beefy son to the same fate. She didn’t want to impregnate some woman. She didn’t want to drop her kids on a wife locked at home while Minette compared her muscles with other men at the pub and complained about naughty children and nagging.

“Of course y’are!” Paw exclaimed. “We’ll go to the mines tomorrow. I want you to find me the softest ore. Something good to work on on your own. Once you do that, we’ll start your partnership, and let the women in town know you’re eligible. It’ll all fall together.”

Minette nodded, running a sweaty hand through her hair. She schooled the look on her face. He made it sound so easy, like she’d stumble into the forge and then stumble home to bed her wife. Easy peasy. She’d thought he would back off, give her time. Some pointers, maybe. But instead, he’d only doubled down. 

In that moment, Minette had already run through a million and one different scenarios where she sabotaged Paw’s copper test or intentionally pulled out the grossest, worst piece of copper ever, but she crossed them all off her mental list. Paw knew her too well to fall for a trick like that. Plus, if he did think she was that brick dumb stupid, it still wouldn’t stop the part Minette was truly afraid of: the siring of sons. The sense of duty. The unseen woman, the loyal wife.

“That hair,” Maw added, nodding over at Paw. “That goes, too.”

The table went silent. Minette waited for someone to say something, anything, but there was nothing. Even the forks and spoons had stilled.

“She just needs more time,” Minette spoke up. “She can learn just the same as any of us can. But sometimes you’ve got to be patient.

When Maw said “Morton…” in That Tone of Voice, Minette had no choice but to shut her mouth and look up at Maw. “Enough about that, then.”

Minette knew what that meant. She held back a sigh. “Yes, Maw?”

“Paw tells me you’re doing well at the smithy,” Maw said. It wasn’t a compliment.

Just get to the point, Minette wanted to scream. No need to draw out the agony. She knew this was about more than just hammering metal. This was about the Good Son they wanted.

“Yes,” Minette said, proud of how her voice barely trembled.

“We’re thinkin’ of your future,” Paw butted in, popping a bread roll into his mouth whole. “I’m getting old.”

“I know you are,” Minette said. She thought again of his froggy, chipped voice, of how his whiskers were more white than brown. His aging appearance was another reminder of her future–and how the little world she inhabited was soon to change in a big way.

Paw frowned. Rhys stomped on her big toe under the table.

“Rhys,” Maw said, spoon in hand, without even looking at him.

His foot retreated.

“Anyway,” Paw continued, clearing his throat, “it’s time you weren’t my apprentice, but my partner. I’ll teach you how to run the business by yourself, and you’ll take over. We’ll take you out courting to find you the right woman. She’ll move in with us, and start keeping house soon after that.”

Minette couldn’t help but laugh at all he left unsaid. Minette would take over the smithy when he was dead. Her future dainty, submissive wife would take over the house when Maw was dead. Couldn’t they see how absurd it was to speak so frankly about their own untimely demises?

Irma huffed. “Can we talk about something else?” she asked, echoing Minette’s thoughts. “May I be excused?”

“No,” Maw and Paw said, in unison, answering both questions. Irma slouched in her seat.

Minette nudged Irma’s knee. Irma hated all this talk about death even more than Minette did–her future was just as uncertain. Lots of townsfolk talked about the blind girl down the way, but it was the things they didn’t say that gave away their true feelings. They just didn’t know what to do with her. Minette knew that feeling, that dread, and she knew that Irma must be feeling like she was toeing the edge of a great, dark, chasm.