The Monster Who Gave Me Wings

I squatted outside the hospital doors, finishing the last bite of a day-old flatbread, before finally dialing my granddaughters number.

She was the golden ticket out of Red Rock County, the only one whod flown out the second she got her college acceptance and never looked back. The only letter shed sent informed me she was cutting ties, but she would wire my support payment every year.

The line clicked open. I had meant to tell her I was sick, that soon Id forget who she wasa joke to finally give her some peace. But the words caught in my throat, twisting into the familiar, bitter demand: ...Ella, when are you going to send this months money?

A cold laugh hissed from the other end.

Getting soft in the head, old man? I wired it at the beginning of the month, just like always. What is it, not enough for the coffin fund yet?

I leaned against the hospital flower bed, a thin stream of saliva running down the corner of my mouth.

Ella was a success, all right. Our countys finest. She even knew I needed a coffin.

Ellas grown-up voice was nothing like the little girls.

Squatting there, I suddenly remembered walking her to the village school when she was six. Shed clung to my legs, shaking, her tiny voice choked with sobs: Grandpa, I Im scared

Her voice had been soft, just like her mothers, sweet and sticky like slow-dripping molasses.

Now, this voice. It was cold. It was hard.

If she pitched it right, it could probably leave a bruise.

I peeled my lips back, letting the drool slide down my chin. Yeah. This was the voice of a phoenix that had flown out of the dust. Crisp. Efficient. Unapologetic.

I swallowed. A strange surge of pride made my throat ache. Ella, your voice it changed.

There was a brief pause on the line. When she spoke again, the tone was the same, perhaps even colder.

Lets stick to business. The money is there. Just check your balance and dont call me again.

I mumbled, Oh.

I wanted to say something else. Tell her about the awful noise from Cal, the County Officials new motorcycle, or how the wild magnolias on the back hill were late blooming this year, or how my mind was getting foggier by the day, how after over a decade, I could barely remember her face.

But the words died before they reached my lips. It wouldnt be right to tell Ella any of that.

Alright then. Thats that.

I tried to mimic her clipped tone, making an abrupt end to the call.

The dial tone buzzed in my ear as I slowly pushed myself up. My legs were asleep, and I stumbled. Cal, the County Official, whod driven me here, caught my arm. He sighed. Hank, why didnt you tell her anything?

He pulled out his own phone. Let me call her back. Just tell her about the sickness. Someone needs to know, Uncle Hank.

I slapped his hand away, my voice booming with a strength I no longer had.

Tell her what? The city doctors say this damn thing is a losing battle! Why bring her back here?

The wind kicked up, bringing the scent of hospital sanitizer and old fryer grease from a nearby food cart into my face. I sniffled, suddenly remembering making flapjacks for Ella when she was small. Shed always complain about too much onion, pouting and refusing to eat it.

Now, I wondered if Ella still ate grease-soaked flatbread.

Cal steadied me, a look of exasperated pity on his face. Uncle Hank, your temper no wonder my mother says you were stubborn as a mule when you were young.

I grunted. Your mothers right. Only the stubborn and the hard survive in this county.

Cal fell silent, pulling out a crumpled cigarette. But youre sick, you cant just

Cant just what? I cut him off, straightening my back. My Ella is a respectable woman now. She sits in an office with air conditioning. Why would I drag her back to this?

A siren wailed in the distance, a long, mournful sound that twisted my insides.

This county raises people, and it eats people. Her mama was the chewed-up husk left behind. Ella finally finally flew away, her feathers clean and shining. What happens to me is my business. It has nothing to do with her.

Come on. Lets go back to the shack.

My old place is still standing. When the time comes that I cant move

I didnt finish the thought.

When that time came, Id take care of myself, clean and simple.

That was the best way.

The phoenix can fly as far as she wants, but she must never look back at this dirty, hard, thorny lump of earth. She had to stay clean and keep flying forward.

She couldnt end up like her mother, Violet. When I was seventeen, my parents arranged for me to take a bride, June, from a neighboring settlement.

My folks made the call, and I had no say. The men in this part of the county were, mostly, awful.

When I saw June arriveher eyes full of fear and tearsI knew I couldn't treat her like the other men treated their wives. I treated her like a person. I was good to her, believing life would eventually get better.

A year later, we had a daughter, Violet.

My Violet was a good girl from birth.

I swore then that my Violet would not go down the same road as her mama. I didnt know much, but I knew an education was the only way out.

So I worked myself to death to keep her in school. She was smart, always at the top of her class. Her teacher said she could be the first girl in the county to go to a major university. I thought books could take her away, to a place I couldn't see but knew was good.

But when Violet was seventeen, on her walk home from school, she was cornered on the dirt path behind the hill by Roy, a trashy local who couldnt get a decent wife.

When I got the news, I grabbed my machete and ran to his place. My Violet, she was always so gentle and compliant. How could she have fought him off?

But my own father grabbed me, wrestled me to the ground, and after a long silence, spat out a single sentence.

Youre bringing shame on us. If this gets out, how will our family ever show its face in this county again?

He told Violet she had to marry Roy.

I went insane, lunging to kill that animal, but my father and my brothers pinned me down. My mother stood nearby, weeping, and June was nearly fainting from shock and grief.

But in the end, my mother was the one who cried as she pleaded with me:

Let it go, son, let it go Our girl is ruined now. If she marries him, at least shell have a roof over her head. Its better than everyone pointing and whispering.

June looked at me, her eyes hollow with despair, her lips trembling, unable to speak. They had been worn down by this damn world, believing that a womans reputation was worth more than her life.

But I didnt agree!

My father tied me up, strung me from the rafters, and whipped me with a belt. I cried and screamed, begging him to let Violet go, to send her away, anywhere.

He didn't listen.

Violet stood nearby, utterly bloodless, her eyes empty.

When they finally cut me down, she walked over, knelt by my side, and gently touched the wounds on my face.

Then she said:

Daddy, stop fighting. Ill marry him.

Ill marry him.

Those three words nailed me, and my Violet, to the coffin.

Less than a year later, Violet was gone. She died giving birth.

That day, it seemed like everyone in the county came by. They stood in my yard, cracking sunflower seeds and spitting.

One said Violet had a low-born spirit, always trying to be some big scholar; she was cursed and it killed her. Another said a woman with no talent is virtuous, that she should have just married when she was supposed to, and that trying to get an education meant she deserved what happened to her on the way home.

Later, I took a knife and went to that man, Roy. I gave him every last penny I had to take Violets daughter back.

He despised Violet's baby because it was a girl; he wanted to sell her off. But I didn't care.

She looked so much like Violet! Just one look at her, and my heart turned to bitter, burning ash.

The baby didn't cry or fuss. She just stared at the world that had swallowed her mother, her eyes wide and dark.

I sat with her on the old plank bed where Violet used to sleep. My only thought was that I couldn't let her become a second Violet.

That thought burned like wildfire, drying up my tears and hardening my bones. I became the most fearsome mule-headed old man in the county, guarding her fiercely.

The truck stopped at the edge of the county.

Cal helped me out. Uncle Hank, were home.

Home?

I looked up at the familiar, yet alien, county, at the silent old oak tree by the road.

This was never a home.

It was a graveyard. It buried June, it buried my Violet, and it damn near buried Ella.

Ella, like her mother, had a soft disposition from birth.

And that was my biggest fear. It kept me awake all night, every night.

I was terrified she was too pretty, that she would attract the wrong kind of attention, that she would be like her motherswallowed whole, skin and bone, by this hungry place.

I raised her in constant terror, never letting her out of my sight.

But then one day, she was coming home from school. A group of men loafing by the county entrance gathered to mock her.

Well, lookie here, Ellas growing up into a big girl.

Yeah, couple more years and shell be ready for marrying.

Ella stood there, helpless, her face flaming red, unable to squeeze out a single word.

The men laughed harder. One of them actually pushed his simple-minded, drooling son, who was squatting by his feet, toward Ella.

Ella, why dont you be my boys wife? You give us a grandkid, and Uncle will treat you like a daughter.

I stood around the corner, watching her silently. Her lips trembled. Her body shook.

But she couldnt even utter a clear No.

She couldnt even find the strength to push away that dirty, grinning idiot who was rubbing against her.

A surge of pure evil rage shot from my soles to the top of my head.

I charged out, grabbed a porch stool, and slammed it down on those loose-lipped bastards. Ella screamed, her voice shaking, Grandpa!

You crazy old fool, Hank!

Youre so old youll kick the bucket any day now! I was just offering to take Ella in so shed be protected! I was helpingyou!

That last line made my heart clench.

Yes, I was old.

I might not be around to protect Ella.

And then, she would surely go the same way her mother did.

I looked at Ella, who was crying so silently you could barely hear her. At that moment, I made a decision.

She had to learn to be covered in thorns, to protect herself.

I was too old. I was running out of time. That evening after dinner, I held her down and hacked off her hair into a choppy mess. I stuffed all her little dresses into the stove.

She cried hysterically, but she only shrank into herself, just calling Grandpa over and over.

I refused to give her a moments tenderness. She started working harder around the house, trying to appease me.

Shed sneak glances at me, her eyes void of resentment, filled only with an almost primal dependence and submission. But the more she tried to please me, the more timid she became, and the more hateful things I spat at her.

I wanted to see her leap upto point her finger and curse me, even to throw something at me.

Anger was life; it was a shield.

What terrified me was her gentle, compliant nature. In this poor, hungry place, that was a weakness that would get her eaten alive.

I began to escalate my methods.

I brought home a large, black dog from the next county over.

Ella had been afraid of dogs since she was small. She backed against the wall, pale-faced, looking at me with pleading eyes.

I released the leash without a word.

The black dog snarled and lunged toward her.

Ellas scream caught in her throat. She kept calling for Grandpa to save her.

I stood in the doorway, my hand resting on the rough wooden frame, my nails digging in until they hurt.

Ella finally choked on her screams. She looked at me one last time, then abruptly squeezed her eyes shut. Her hand scrabbled along the wall until she found the heavy wooden plank we used as a carrying pole. She swung it with all her might at the dogs head.

In that instant, my body went slack, and the broken nails on my fingers stung.

Ella slowly opened her eyes and looked at me again.

But this time, I knew something in her eyes had changed.

Ellas need to please was gone, replaced by a cold silence and avoidance.

The stone in my own heart finally settled.

She no longer needed my lessons. She was hardening.

I caught her once. That worthless local from the next county was whistling at Ella while she hung laundry.

The fury flared up in my chest instantly. I grabbed the plank by the wall, ready to rush out.

But Ella was faster.

She picked up the empty wooden basin at her feet and slammed it hard into the mans side.

The sputter of the motorcycle engine stalled for a moment, then revved up in annoyance, and the man sped away, weaving down the road.

I stood there, the plank raised, frozen.

Ella went inside, expressionless.

She hadnt said a word.

But I saw it: the ice in her eyes.

Tears welled in my own eyes at that moment.

But I was also strangely elated.

Even without me, my Ella could protect herself.

Ella went to high school, smart as her mother. Her teachers said if she kept up her grades, she was guaranteed a university spot.

A new round of gossip started in the county. The same things theyd said about Violet. They said Ella was cursed, that she was aiming too high, and would likely fall to her death like her mother.

That day, I went door-to-door with my machete, leaving a slash mark on the doors of a dozen houses.

Finally, I stood at the county entrance, my throat hoarse as I yelled:

The way my Violet diedeveryone in this county knows the truth! Some of your tongues tasted my daughters blood back then, and now you want to lick my granddaughter clean?

Im telling you! Half my body is already in the dirt! If any of you so much as think about messing with Ella, I will wipe out your whole damn family! Try me!

The county went silent.

But the next day, I went to the little town where Ella went to school. I found a job washing dishes. I had to be closer to her.

Every night, in the deep dark, Id curl up on a makeshift bed of benches and slowly, painstakingly, count the money Id earned. Ella would need even more money when she went to the big city.

Ella was a quick study. Her grades were stellar. She was braver now. I kept wishing for the day she would fly far, far away.

But then, Ellas teacher contacted me through Cal.