The Music in the Bread

By Ray Boswell

Twelve-year-old Mercy defies her father's rule not to walk barefoot at home until he's refinished all the old floors. The splinter that sticks deep in her toe as a result becomes more painful as she navigates anger, guilt, and alienation. . . having withheld the truth from him. During Easter Vigil, through the healing of story-telling, tea-drinking, and a sail in the moonlight, we (along with she) are reminded of the limitless joy in creating from our hearts—which only happens when we love without conditions

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781953728159

Book preview

Chapter 1

IT IS MORNING. Lucent fingers tease the resistant darkness. Night’s blanket unravels, surrendering the colors of the universe. Light enters my room and kisses my twelve-year-old eyelid.

Not just yet.

Rolling away, I snuggle deeper into my grandmother’s blanket; her warmth and love surround me. Our furnace hears the house’s silent call for heat. A soft drone answers in response, rising from the basement, carried on its hot breath.

The summer basement is cool. My twin brother and I play in the cool as the furnace sleeps. Eddie and I are fraternal twins. He’s older by only a few minutes, and I’m taller. That may change soon.

We were able to hide together in the unusual closets underneath the winding staircase. We used to find time to discover all the hidden spaces and the treasures waiting to be uncovered in the attic. There is room to play, places to be alone, to read, or think; it’s paradise.

We’re allowed anywhere from the attic to the basement as long as we obey a few rules. Wearing slippers or sandals or something to protect us as we move throughout the house is the big one. Not all the ancient wood floors are re-finished. I’ve been told not to be careless and warned I could hurt myself.

Wood scent rides through the heat vents; Dad sanded last night. Rolling into my pillow, shutting my eyes, pulling the fresh cotton sheets tightly around me, I enter a lucid dream, the place between sleeping and waking. Fully awake in the dream, I see the first bird ever created flying into the first fog-covered valley. Mist lifts from the ground to meet the sunshine and begins to disappear, taking the bird and the valley with it. All has been replaced by vapor, gone but not all gone, as a bit of the mist remains within the vapor.

Eyes shut tight, stretching like a cat, I feel my pajamas push up past my ankles. Bare feet move down the sheets. Eyes opening to slits, I travel from the dream through the colors of the universe. I burrow into my pillow, willing myself back into dreaming. Party lights swirl around, or are they warning police lights or an ambulance? Unease forces my eye, not buried in my pillow, to open with uncertain hesitation. Rainbows are in my dream and swirling up my wall and part of my ceiling. They pour out of the icicles hanging from the edge of the roof outside my window. The freak storm arrived last weekend, bringing over a foot of snow.

Warm seasonal temperatures returned the next afternoon. Each day, more snow melts, dripping from my roof. Each night, it freezes, melts, and freezes; the drip, drip, drip of the snow creates the longest icicles. I look forward to the warmer weather and trips to the beach, but I’ll miss the icicle rainbows.

When I was only four, a wave crashed next to me. Droplets struck with a burst of colored light. I didn’t know that, when white light passed through water droplets, they released their colors. I thought the wave had broken and the rainbows were bursting out of the sand.

I learned later that, if you don’t yet know the truth, you make stuff up. The cold ocean spray and multicolored light frightened me. Water was everywhere, crashing onto a sandy beach, under the sun, surrounded by the wind. I ran to Dad.

As I was lying in the sand next to him, he whispered, The wind has an ancient Hebrew name. Her name is Ruah. Ruah is also the name for spirit and for breath. How could three things have the same name? It was harder than choosing whether it was windy sand or sandy wind that sticks to me. It stings my bare skin.

I scootch closer into Dad. He is sleeping on the beach; his body shields me. Snuggling, I hear another wave crash. I feel safe. His heart beats; mine, too. He breathes; I breathe with him. Dad’s my shelter from the sand when it’s mad and tries to sting me. He is shade from the sun when it’s too strong for me. He is my protector.

When I was even younger, I ran down a hill and jumped into his waiting arms. I ran completely innocent of what I was doing. I didn’t know I might fall and hurt myself. All I know is I love my dad, and he loves me, and I feel safe. I don’t know why. Before I fall, he catches me, lifts me high, and hugs me. It is like being caught by a wave in the ocean. Dad would wade out into the waves, and I would hold onto him. I am tiny in his arms, holding onto his neck as he holds me. A wave comes. He jumps up, and we rise safely together above it. As it passes, we slowly sink down together. We wait for the next wave to come. Dad is warm, and the ocean is cold. Without him holding me, I would be cold, would drown. I don’t know drowned, don’t know breath or death. I am innocent because I don’t know, haven’t lived, any of that. I know laughing and love.

Back on the beach, lying in the sand, another wave crashes. Is it trying to wash away the beach? A gull cries; a dog barks. Dad’s arm moves to engulf me. He becomes a cave. Is he sleeping? He begins to tickle me, and I laugh.

Dad taught me I could do things, so I believed I could. Not always with words—he offered more than words, more than thoughts. As I grew, I chewed on all of this. Sometimes I spit it out, not liking the taste. Other times I chewed and chewed and chewed, finally choosing to swallow, and it became me, or in a rare instance I became it. I understood most of it right away. Some was not knowable right away—being a seed planted waiting for its season.

I choose to wake from this dream, and the memory of my four-year-old self fades. I leave the beach behind, to return into my older self, wrapped warm and safe in my grandmother’s blanket. Yawning and stretching, I almost wake. Then, with practiced ease, I will myself back into light sleep-dreaming, returning to my classroom, my playground, the beach.

Mom and I are collecting shells. The sand is hot under my bare feet. I move closer to the water. A wave moves up the beach, cools my toes, then pulls back, taking sand from under my soles. I ignore the warning. A bigger wave crashes around me, taking more sand. The world is shifting beneath me. Mom is beyond my reach. I fall, and my shells wash away.

We return to find a family of three staring at the beginning of one of my better sandcastles. There is a large main castle with a road leading to another, smaller castle next to a main gate entrance. The wet sand has dried. The kingdom sparkles in the sunlight. Putting down my shell bucket, I begin to work. The father’s watching me, trying to figure how I’m doing what I do. The boy might be seven. He stands between them.

Who taught you to do this? the father asks, trying to be heard above the rolling waves and screeching gulls.

I shout, My da. He’s home working. Pointing towards our blankets, I shout, That’s my ma reading. She looks up from her book and waves. That’s my brother sleeping—he stayed up way too late last night.

His son’s watching me dig a new hole for another castle. Then looks up at his father. The man fidgets; he’s uncomfortable.

I call above the beach racket, Wanna help? The gulls rise with a clamor and hover. Then as one bird they fly off, taking their racket with them.

The need to shout is gone. Our voices partially join as well as rise