When I Say

"What's the point of this? He's not wise at all," my little brother piped up, distracting me as always.

"That's enough," My father cut in sharply. He was a man of few words, taking the phrase strong, silent type to a new level.

Other than a rare moment behind closed doors, my mother was the same way.

We were healers in those days; it was the family business. Town lore had painted us as special, and, lacking other resources, Great Uncle Fenway had latched onto the idea.

And so, we not only became full-time healers, but we gained an important status in our small, one-light town.

But no one wanted to talk about how it even happened. It was just supposed to be something I accepted as a member of the family.

"Isn't it just a crock?" I asked my mother one evening as she tied my tie for me. "We don't really do anything."

She shook her head. I didn't know what her answer was. Was she shaking her head to agree that we didn't do anything? Was she shaking her head to tell me I was wrong?

She never answered my questions. Nobody did.

I hated that.

"He's not going to be able to do it," Spartacus said in a sing-song voice, barely looking up from his a homemade fidget toy he'd fashioned out of tinfoil and some string. My mother reached out and silently put her arm on his leg. In our home that was considered a major suggestion to change your behavior.

It was a dumb name they had given him; Spartacus. Not that mine was much better. Spartacus and Jeremiah Dumpkins, the boys from Maple Ln. But no one made fun of us; not even once.

They have so much ammunition, I thought. Our weathered-clothing, always plucked from the local consignment store, and only on the occasion that we had grown out of the previous second-hand clothes we'd been wearing. Our bagged lunches- constantly reeking of pickled vegetables and unfamiliar spices.

And Spartacus, with his ears, the kind that stuck out in a comical way.

Maybe if someone would bully him he wouldn't be such an asshole, I thought. But I always felt guilty when I had those mean-spirited feelings, so I tried to suppress them.

We held our even-tempers in high regard and never showed much emotion through the steely-gray eyes everyone in the family shared. Except Aunt Noreen, whose eyes were a glistening emerald. It was easy to pick us out in a crowd- not just from our donation-ready clothes, but from our demeanor; we had been taught early to keep a certain type of temperament. Even Spartcular, who was decidedly mischievous, remained calm and steady without many reminders.

Our home was modest, but we did have a lot of land. Unkempt land that would not grow even the easiest vegetable or the most low-maintenance flower.

"Nothing can grow here anyway. It's part of the covenant," Aunt Noreen would say, but I don't think anyone took Aunt Noreen seriously. It probably just needed some chemical-based product we couldn't afford.

The farm had been in our family for years. It was practically its own compound; There was a large two story house, but it had been burned down before we moved in. But there were only a few of us and we made do with the rest of the structures; the old church that had been converted into our small house, a dilapidated barn with the heavy lock on the door, and of course the small puke green shack at the back of the property where Great Uncle Fenway lived until recently.

Now it was occupied by Aunt Noreen, who mostly mumbled odd statements to herself and subsisted almost entirely on stew that no one in the family liked, but that we still ate every Thursday.

This Thursday was a more formal affair. With Uncle Fenway's passing, it was my turn.

My turn for what? No one would tell me.

Not as if I had much to compare my life to, but it didn't seem that my schoolmates went home to anything similar. I caught glimpses of their cell phones, but didn't dare ask for that or any other technology.

It was too risky to get involved with any of them on more than a surface level; the looks on my parent's faces when I had not gone to the library that one day in the seventh grade when my substitute teacher had decided to show a movie.

I vowed never to make that mistake again; I packed my things up at the first sign of a sub and mostly minded my own business, reading during lunch breaks.

"Is it against his religion?" the new girl had asked Margie Sumner, who had somehow sat behind me in every class since the beginning of time.

"They don't allow it," I heard Margie whisper.

"Don't allow what?" the new girl asked.

To which Margie replied, "Anything."

The new girl tucked her hair behind her ears, bewildered. I knew better than to turn and look, but instead breathed calmly, taking in the gentle perfume of Margie's Kiwi Dream Bath and Body Work's spray.

Name brand products were unholy, Aunt Noreen insisted, and made every concoction we had at home from tooth-brushing powder to ointment. I really had nothing to compare it to, but the family stayed relatively healthy and this apparently saved on costs. I'd first seen a stick of deodorant in the locker room. Mine was a solid rock-like material but it worked alright. Better than most of the guys.

I was always amazing at the products people had, though, even on their person. Plastic tubes with lip pigment, disposable containers of fizzy beverages... I'd only been inside the general store a few times- usually picking something up for my parents, and we always stuck to the essentials.

Most places frequented by my peers were across town and we did not take the bus under any circumstances. My parents had a car, reserved for picking up groceries every two weeks, and of course, the errands they never told us about.

We knew better than to ask questions. But now it involved me

What am I supposed to be doing, I thought to myself, staring at the potato.

Everyone had gotten dressed up, and with no explanation they'd placed it in front of me on the old wooden table.

Spartacus didn't even look surprised. Did he know what I was supposed to do?

It was an old test of wisdom, Great Uncle Fenway had explained, on his deathbed, and three days after laying him to rest, it would be my turn for the miracle.

Am I supposed to be moving this with my mind? Baking it with heat emanating from my fingers?

I had never seen any miracles in my home, except for the sheer miracle that we managed to survive without electricity about a third of the time due to my parent's refusal to keep up with earthly responsibilities like bills.

Aunt Noreen raised an eyebrow at my mother and she shook her head.

"What?" I asked.

My mother put her hand on my arm, the only thing more serious than her putting her hand on my leg. But it seemed like a pretty appropriate time for questions, so I asked again.

"What are we even doing here??"

Without thinking, I stood up, accidentally sending the potato off the table with one angry arm sweep.

I froze in place, but shifted my gaze to my father, whose expression did not change.

I had never seen him yell, which made him even scarier.

I stood in place, considering heading off to my room.

No one moved.

Spartacus hiccuped..or maybe it was a chuckle. He was a child, after all. Even raised in a home like ours, children cannot completely disregard their nature.

But at 17 years old I was ill-prepared for the real world, and maybe I was not part of the family miracle at all.

"Do you feel it?" My mother asked.

"I don't feel anything," I said.

"Not you," my mother said, turning to Aunt Noreen.

I looked at my green-eyed aunt. She smiled, revealing a newly broken tooth.

"How did that happen?" I asked.

My mother looked at me, beaming with pride.

Back in the small room we shared, Spartacus plopped down on his simple wooden bed frame.

"That was weird, he said.

"When did Noreen break that tooth?" I asked, more to myself than to my little brother.

"You did it. Didn't you?" Spartacus said.

I shook my head. "There's no way."

"What do you think," Spartacus said. "They broke the tooth so you'd think you did something?"

I considered it.

"I was joking," Spartacus said.

"How is breaking a tooth an act of healing," I asked, and my brother shrugged.

Had I broken my aunt noreens tooth? And how? By the power of my annoyance? And what about the potato? Was it just there so I'd have something to throw?

I had never really believed in magic or miracles; could I have been wrong?

Downstairs, my mother whispered with my aunt.

"Do you think he bought it?" my mother asked.

Noreen smiled a broken-tooth grin. She pulled out some homemade salve and put some on her sore gums.

"I hope he bought it," my mother said with a sigh.

"You've given him every reason to believe," Noreen said.

My mother hesitated for a moment, and then spoke. "I'm lucky he got our eyes... even though his real fathers were brown. Two people with the same eye color don't have a brown-eyed child."

"See? Miracles do happen," Noreen muttered.

"What do we do about Jeremiah?" My mother asked. "He doesn't have the family gift."

"Well is Spartacus Henry's real son?"

My mother glared at her sister. "Oh course he is. It was just that one time, Noreen. We weren't even married."

My mother sighed, thinking of how she would someday tell me the story of how I didn't actually break Noreens tooth. How my father, who was not actually mine at all, had to see me as gifted so he would not know about my mother's infidelity.

It wasn't the first lie woven into the fabric of our complicated family history.

But I didn't know any of that. All I knew what that I finally belonged. I put on a coat and asked my parents if I could go for a walk to reflect on what had just happeend. They didn't have to warn me not to go far. I never left our property- I just went to the barn, which had an old lock on the front door, but nothing on the weather-torn door in the back. I lay back on the hay looking up at the slanted ceiling- studying the patterns in the wood.

I thought I heard someone in there with me, but it was just a wise old barn owl. But was he wise at all, or was he just pretending?

Were we all just pretending?

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