This Is How I'd Love You (13 page)

Hensley’s father turns and looks at her, both of them startled by this brand-new world that’s materialized as if by magic. He smiles and takes her hand from his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “My rather astute powers of deduction tell me that the circus has come to town.”

They walk arm in arm out into the street following behind two black-and-white clowns on tricycles. Other residents fall in with them, everyone smiling. The sky still holds on to the memory of the day’s sun, casting a pink glow across the entire circus parade. Hensley kicks up dust as she walks, imagining that she, too, is beating the drum.

At the far edge of town, near the cutoff to the mine road, the performers begin to assemble tents. From a large sack, they produce what looks like bright orange parachute material. Soon enough, however, it is supported by long wooden posts and has become a voluminous tent, lit by lanterns and small torches. Canvas partitions are erected at the outside perimeter of the tent, allowing the performers a “backstage.”

As the crowd draws around, the man atop the carriage begins hawking the amazement and surprises that await them: fire-breathers, bearded women, juggling monkeys, a strong man, acrobats, a dancing bear, mathematical dogs, music, belly laughs.

The timing is impeccable. For an entire half hour, Hensley forgets about her own life. She allows herself to delight in the wonder and amazement at the antics of these unorthodox, untethered people.

Hensley stands obediently beside her father as he greets townspeople and miners—some of whom she’s met before and some she has not, a smile still spread across her face. But now she marvels at her father as he recalls each of their names. His sense of duty is never far from him. She watches his face, still burdened by what he’s learned of her, and she realizes that he, too, must long for New York. This strange, dusty, lonely place cannot feel like home to him either.

She glances at the tent behind them, wishing there were a magic carpet, or some kind of secret portal straight to Broadway. She and her father could be back in Manhattan, having dinner at Polly’s, and afterward Hensley might meet a school friend, one who knows all about undoing what’s happening to her body. A friend who could take her to the Lower East Side, or to Brooklyn, where the gruff nurses could scold her for being careless, or corrupt, or cowardly. Their capable hands, however, would hold her tight, absorb her shrieks, wipe her tears, then send her home with warnings and pamphlets and a bloodied towel.

“Care to take a look at the strong man, Hensley?” She gasps, startled by the interruption. Berto shrugs his shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Hensley smiles. She shakes her head. “It wasn’t you. I was daydreaming. Under the influence of the circus, I guess.”

He nods. “So? How about it? Do you want to see the strong man?”

“Oh, of course. Yes. Daddy?” she says, turning back to her father.

He leans his head in to hers so she can speak into his ear. “I’m going to see the strong man with Berto.”

“Fine, fine,” he says, all the while nodding attentively to the postman’s opinion that the town should begin collecting a fund for flood emergencies.

Hensley and Berto cross to the far side of the tent where a man is just about to tear an apple in half with his bare hands. He has a delightfully long and curling mustache and he is wearing denim overalls without an undershirt. He is no taller than either of them, but his arms are thick and solid like the branches of a tree. The apple is red and shiny and Hensley wonders if it is fake. But he offers another woman in the crowd a bite to test its authenticity. She demurely takes a small taste and gives her hands a clap, vouching for its flavor.

Then the strong man puts both hands on the apple and quickly tears it into two jagged pieces, a few seeds spilling at his feet. Everyone claps. He takes a big juicy bite from one half and Hensley laughs. Berto leans closer to her, his laughter a silent, intoxicating force. Hensley laughs even harder.

Next, the strong man asks for a volunteer. Hensley is still giggling, so she is an obvious choice. He takes her hand and guides her to a stack of haphazardly stacked chairs and stools. Beside it is a little stepladder. He urges her up the steps and onto the top stool, where she sits gingerly. Berto is just smiling, watching. Hensley puts her face in her hands, embarrassed by her sudden starring role under the tent.

The strong man leans down and says, “Hold on tight, darlin’. You’re going for a little ride.”

Hensley grips the seat of the stool and puts her feet on a rung at the bottom, the heels of her shoes hooked around it. In a single, fluid motion, he hoists her high above the crowd. A scream of fear rises within her, but no sound escapes. Instead, the entire world goes silent. Everything slows down, even the people below, who all seem to be frozen. She cannot see the strong man, but there is a slight trembling of effort that throbs through the stack of chairs, and she can feel his presence coursing through her. For only a moment, Hensley wonders what would happen if he dropped her—if his arms buckled and the chairs careened to the ground. She imagines her head cocked at a strange angle, her legs splayed, her life, and the one growing within her, over. But this gruesome vision is soon replaced by a feeling of pure delight as she surveys the tent below her. There are bicycles—circling unmanned as though steered by a phantom, with acrobats standing on their seats; there are fat orange fruits being tossed high and then caught, without fail, in buckets and baskets strapped to the hands and feet of a white-faced clown; women in evening dresses dance with one another, dipping and twirling to the beat of the snare drum until suddenly the color and cut of their dresses changes entirely, at which point they switch partners. The entire landscape below is a beautiful, outrageous dream.

The heat that has collected in the apex of the tent wraps around Hensley and gives her the impression that her head is also being held by a pair of strong, warm hands. As though someone has placed their hands upon the back of her skull and is pushing, slightly, gently, against her. Cradling her. It is in this moment—in a small but remarkable circus tent in southern New Mexico—that Hensley remembers her mother’s hands. Not just the way they looked—pale and perfect, like long, elegant gloves perched right on the ends of her slender wrists—but how they felt: the weight of them on Hensley’s forehead when she was feverish; the smooth, gentle protection her mother’s hand provided as they walked together on the city streets; the affection that was conveyed to Hensley each time her mother wiped a tear or stroked her back or smoothed her hair into its plaits. And even as her mother lay in her own sickbed—her eyes swollen and tired—she reached for Hensley’s hand and held it, reassuring her of something bigger than the illness, something more durable than flesh. And in this moment, Hensley understands.

I come from those hands,
she thinks.
That love is still in me. It is forever mine. And I can use it. I can claim it and embellish it and let it become something more
.
Something more than even me;
an unimaginable future.
Just as this man below has hoisted me with his hands to see this unimaginable circus.

As the man lowers her down to the ground, Hensley’s grip tightens and she is smiling. Berto looks surprised to see her so calm, so unfazed.

Hensley takes the strong man’s hand and curtsies as he bows to her his thanks. “You’re a natural, darlin’.”

“Thank you so much,” Hensley says into his ear. The crowd cheers as Hensley becomes one of them again.

“Maybe you should try the high wire,” Berto says as she stands beside him, beaming.

But suddenly, as though doused with cold water, she is clammy and nauseous. Her mouth seems to swell and her teeth are chattering uncontrollably. She makes her way through the crowd, excusing herself as she parts couples and families. Finally, standing in the darkness outside the tent, she bends over, heaving. Her skin is damp and chilled, yet her brow and neck seem to be on fire.

Berto is soon beside her, speaking words that are drowned by the ringing in her ears. Hensley does not want him there, but she cannot speak. The rippling in her stomach is violent and unstoppable.

As she retches, she places a hand on Berto’s chest to steady herself. He flinches and pulls away and only as Hensley wipes her mouth on her own handkerchief does she realize that her suspicion has been confirmed without a doubt: Berto has breasts.

The noise from inside the tent fills the quiet of the empty night. Hensley spits once more into the dirt and then moves away from the mess. Berto follows her.

They climb a small bluff that shields the circus tent from a strong easterly wind. At the top, the land in front of them recedes into blackness and the sky shimmers with an abundance of stars.

Finally, Berto places his fingertips on Hensley’s shoulder. “Please don’t tell your father.”

“My father?”

“I need this job. Please?”

“How long have you been . . . ?”

“My brother is sick. I had no choice.”

“Your brother?”

“We are twins. Luckily.”

“So,
he
is Berto. And you are?”

“Teresa.”

There is a moment of silence in which Hensley absorbs this revelation. The two girls then smile at their delayed introduction. Hensley gives Teresa her hand and they shake, intentionally shirking convention. “I’m sorry,” Hensley says, “about that. About touching you like that.”

Teresa smiles and her fierce eyes are momentarily gentle. “New York City, huh?” Their hands remain entwined.

Hensley nods and smiles. “Right. Very cosmopolitan.”

A cheer rises up inside the tent behind them. Another feat of amazement on this otherwise ordinary evening. The wind pulls and twists Hensley’s skirt.

“I should go,” Teresa says. “Are you feeling better?”

Hensley nods. “I’m sorry that you’ve seen me nauseated twice now. It’s so unpleasant.”

The two girls let the wind’s inarticulate noise fill up their minds. Finally, Teresa says, “What are you going to do?”

Hensley takes a deep breath of the dark night air.

“I’ve no earthly idea. I told my father. He suggested I return to New York.”

“Can you make a marriage there?”

“I suppose.”

“But is that what you want?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Then you are not in love?”

At the mention of the word, Hensley blushes. There is not a face that comes to mind, no warm memories of a kiss or passionate embrace. Instead, a phrase scrawls itself across her vision.
Your words, however, have created a self
. The man—faceless, far away—who wrote these words is the man who colors her cheeks and makes her heart race. He is the man to whom she wants to give more and more of herself, whispering secrets into his skin, giving him all kinds of words to hold on to.

But Hensley shakes her head, aware that she is prey to any fantasy of a life not her own. “Though it does not reflect well upon me, no. There is nobody. What is your brother’s illness?”

Teresa’s face shifts; her smile disappears. “We don’t know. He cannot move his legs. He is feverish some days. He has no appetite.”

“Have you sent for a doctor?”

Teresa shrugs. “We cannot afford to. But my mother has taught me a lot about medicine.”

“Your mother? Oh. Is she a nurse?”

“My mother is dead, Hensley. It’s just Berto and me.”

“Oh.” Hensley pauses. “Mine, too.”

“Yes. I figured.”

“Was she a nurse?”

“Of a sort. She delivered babies.”

The words echo in Hensley’s ears. “Oh,” she says, her arms crossing in front of her chest. An image comes to her mind of a dark-haired beauty like Teresa creeping across the night, her arms laden with baskets, each of them cradling a newborn and being placed gently at the foot of its mother’s bed. “And you know how to do that? She taught you?”

“I only know a few things about the body. Teas that fight infection. Treatments for fever. None of it seems to be working, though.”

Hensley takes a deep breath. How in the world will a baby—no matter how small—escape from her body? The idea of it is as preposterous as some of the circus feats she’s seen tonight.

Hensley makes a confession. “I had a visit from my own mother tonight. Up on the chair. It was as though I could feel her very hand on my forehead.”

“Sometimes it feels like that, doesn’t it? As though if we could just keep our eyes closed, they might actually be there, beside us?” Teresa reaches out her own hand. She places it on Hensley’s brow. Hensley closes her eyes. Teresa’s fingers are cool and slightly rough—nothing like her mother’s—but Hensley likes the way they feel. The scent of the landscape’s juniper bushes is carried to her on the wind. It has become a smell she now associates with this place. It’s as though there is a licorice factory nearby, churning out its sweet candy all through the night. But the licorice in the local grocery is hard and stale. Not at all like the kind that her mother used to greet her with after school some days: a brown bag full of beautiful, pastel pieces of licorice. Hensley always liked the way they looked better than the way they tasted. But now, as the sourness of her own vomit coats her mouth, she thinks that she’d like to try one again. A luscious pink one or a pure black one with dainty white sugar sprinkles. Hensley remembers her mother doling them out, one at a time, as they walked the long crosstown blocks.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Teresa says as she lets her hand drop from Hensley’s face.

Hensley opens her eyes and the girl is gone. Berto, however, is walking away from her, down the hill to the circus tent, with a perfectly manly gait. “Likewise,” Hensley shouts across the distance between them.