The Firelight Girls: a Novel by Kaya McLaren

Author:Kaya McLaren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

thursday

ETHEL 2012

As she always seemed to do, Ethel woke before everybody. During the days it seemed she was distracted enough to be more or less all right, and sometimes at night she was too tired to think, which also helped. But the beginning of each day overwhelmed Ethel. She hated waking up without Haddie next to her. Everything just seemed as empty as her bed. Each day, her first thought was, How am I going to endure another day without Haddie?

This morning, Ethel could not bear it and caved to the habit that offered her a tiny bit of comfort. She wrapped Haddie’s ashes in a towel so no one would think anything other than that she was off to do her morning routine in the bathroom if they saw her carrying it, and with the ashes in her hand she quietly slipped out of the loft, down the stairs, and out the doors.

Frost coated everything. Change was in the air. Ethel did not like it at all. Autumn mirrored every ending in her life, it seemed. The end of Haddie’s life. The end of camp. The end of her own life. All of it was beyond uncomfortable.

She made her way to Elks Beach, sat on a log, and unwrapped Haddie’s ashes, but this time she did not talk to them. She only held them in her lap and pondered the various groups who might purchase the camp. It seemed highly likely it would be a church, and when she considered which denominations appeared to own the most camps it seemed highly likely it would be one that was intolerant of gay people. How unthinkable to have her sacred place, her home, owned by people who would condemn her. Actually, losing the camp was unthinkable, but losing it to people who thought her sacred love was sinful was just downright hideous. Could the circumstances be more unkind? she wondered.

She gripped Haddie’s ashes tighter and resolved that no matter what, she would still return here, no matter who officially owned it on paper. Yes, other people might own this place, but this place owned her. She belonged to it. Rain had fallen and filtered through the soil, picking up minerals along the way, seeped all the way to the water table where the old well had pumped it up for her to drink. The minerals from this land were in her bones. The water still resided in her tissues. How could anyone else own that? It would be like someone owning her mother.

Chances were good that the camp wouldn’t be inhabited full-time. There would be times when Ethel could still come home for a moment, come home to the place in her bones, to the place where her love still lingered.

ETHEL 2011

Ethel remembered the feeling of Haddie’s urn in her hand two days after she died, cold and surprisingly heavy. She had walked out of the funeral home with it into a world where it seemed few had understood that all

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