These Dreams of You

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A few minutes later Viv must pull Sheba away from the bed, however adamant the girl is otherwise. “Come on,” she says quietly, “come,” but Sheba slips from Viv’s grip; Zan gently takes the girl’s other hand and tries to draw her away as well. The girl resists and when she begins to cry — always the loudest little person Zan has known, more volume per capita than any single body he’s ever heard, like a boombox in a confessional — no sound comes from her, Radio Ethiopia gone silent, just the twisting of her little face. If Viv and Zan are to have with Sheba at least one more act of parenthood, this must be it: “She’s not there anymore,” Viv whispers to the girl, trying to think of a way to say it, “she’s here, she’s around us,” looking around them in the dark, “but not there,” indicating the body; and Sheba, supernaturally cognizant beyond what the span of such a short life allows, wonders how many mothers she has to lose, into how many mothers’ bodies she has to press her own, into how many families she has to storm her way in order to make a home. “She’s not there but she’s here,” says Viv, “let her go,” and — though she doesn’t say it out loud — be my daughter again.