Alyssa

“I’d like to be buried in a dirt mound,” Opal said. Zorrie bit her lower lip again. “They bury all kinds of things in there. That’s where you can find pottery and oyster shells. Child toys too, nice ones with jeweled beads. There are also quite a number of sundry charred articles, each wearing its own black coat. It would be warm and quiet in a dirt mound. You could lie there a long time. The snow could fall and cover the whole wide world and there you would lie.” “I like that,” said Zorrie. “ ‘Out of this sun, into this shadow,’ ” said Opal. “That’s pretty. Is that something you thought up?” “Well, Zorrie Underwood, that’s more or less by an author. You will not find it in the Bible. It’s not in any devotional. I used to like to say it the other way around, ‘Out of this shadow, into this sun,’ but that is not the way the author wrote it down. It’s harder the way she wrote it, but prettier and more true. Sometimes I get under my blanket and pretend that’s where I already am. Under the ground, I mean. I told Phoebe Nelson what I do sometimes, and now she does it all the time. Maybe now on Friday afternoons we can do it with your music.” “Wouldn’t that be too noisy?” “Oh, no, we would play it soft.” Zorrie looked over at the bed with the gray blanket and imagined what it would be like to have warm dirt piled on top of her. No coffin, just dirt. Warm and soft. The King crooning quietly while she melted away. “I had a friend they put into a coffin not too long ago. But it was a nice one, I’m told. All fresh and white. I’ve got another friend who might be going there soon,” Zorrie said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” “They were ghost girls. Over in Ottawa, Illinois. I guess I was one for a while too.” “Ghost girls, Zorrie Underwood?” “Because after work we would glow in dark places like movie theaters.” “Or like in my cave!” “Yes, just like that.” “Why, that’s a beautiful thing.” “Yes, it was. While it lasted. For a short while. A long time ago.” “Don’t you glow anymore?” “Not in many a year.” “Maybe I’m a ghost girl, then, too.” “Maybe you are.”
― Laird Hunt, Zorrie

“For a moment, as if the years had been set aside and they were back in his classroom, she had an urge to raise her hand and ask Mr. Thomas if truth was hard and impervious or soft and easily bruised, but instead she reached for the sewing kit and let the small smile that formed on her lips at the thought of raising her hand after all this time serve in place of what might have been an interesting answer.”
― Laird Hunt, Zorrie

“Hard to say,” Hank said. “I’ve never known a son who admired his father more, that’s the truth. But the truth there gets shipwrecked on the shores of their old family complaints. I know that remains the case. That Opal he lost is still more or less the blood beating through his veins.”
― Laird Hunt, Zorrie

“If the ache of Harold’s absence descended on her during the quiet months, she would take a rag to it with her mind and rub. Over the years, this approach so drastically diminished the frequency with which Zorrie thought of Harold that she eventually worried there might be some fault in it, especially because now when he was mentioned by one of her neighbors or she chanced upon an undiscovered fishing lure or belt buckle she hadn’t yet learned how not to notice, the burn that had always hit her at the back of the chest was gone. This lack of any painful reaction—a lack she had so longed for—struck her, now that it had arrived, as too complete. It made her feel she had taken it all too far. You came to terms with things, but not by carrying them out to the field and burying them under the beans. Mr. Thomas had long ago told her class that “the encumbering elements of our histories must be spoken aloud, at least in the caverns of our brains, if we wish for them to take up wings.”
― Laird Hunt, Zorrie