As I Breathe, She Lives

A red truck with peeling paint and cardboard taped over the sliding back window sits in our driveway. It’s the meat man’s, from the farmer’s market.

Except we're vegetarian. Healers.

At least, our mother is.

She only lets him in when we’re not there to ask questions.

He wears a wedding ring that she thinks I haven’t noticed, and brings her pretty dresses.

Millie is too young to ask about fathers—just six years old, to my fourteen.

I line up the mason jars our mother sent me to fetch from the root cellar—last summer's peaches, pears, and the berry marmalade she reserves for special occasions. I don’t know what we’re celebrating. Our birthdays aren’t for months yet, within two weeks of each other. We're both Virgos. Practical and cerebral.

Smart enough that I should’ve doubted our mother’s motives.

Millie can be a handful, but she can’t stay out here unattended.

I let a moment pass on the porch, unsure whether to wait or move on.

I twist the lichen-stained knob, but it’s locked. The drapes are drawn. Shadows move behind them, close enough to be one person—but I know better.

I press my ear to the door.

A needle pops as it meets vinyl.

Our music plays for him.

Millie spins in fast circles, face tilted into the dappled sunlight, highlighting the saddle of freckles across her tiny nose. Her chin glistens with canning juice from the jar of peaches she ate because, in her words, she's a "growing girl." Constantly hungry. Working her way through my old clothes—things I wore at ten. A full four years older than she is now.

“You’ll be a giant,” I say. “I will have to climb a beanstalk to find you!"

Millie laughs. “I won’t!”

"You will! I’ll find magic beans in the forest!"

"Please, can I go with you?" Millie clutches the yarn moppet I made for her last birthday from our mother's knitting scraps. It's blond, like she is. The shade of summer straw.

"I don't know.” I sigh. “It’s a long walk."

Millie is impatient. Her legs are short, and she's a terrible listener.

"But I walked to the market!” The farmer’s market is a mile away, and she complained the whole time. “And I can help!" Millie lifts the patchwork bag I've sewn her: a half-size version of mine, big enough for maybe some berries. She doesn’t care that it’s small. All she wants is to be like me. She clasps her hands. "Pretty please?"

Our mother's laughter trills from inside.

I don't know how long the meat man will stay.

I won’t leave Millie out here while he’s still inside.

"Fine, but you need to listen. Promise?"

Millie hooks her pinky finger with mine. "I promise."

I reluctantly lead her into the woods.

Dead leaves crunch beneath our sandaled feet. It feels good to be out of boots—away from the biting cold of snow and the hard labor of splitting wood.

Millie kicks along, humming our mother's bedtime song.

Startled wood thrushes take flight.

A squirrel scurries up a white oak, its cheeks fat with acorns.

I press a finger to my lips. "If you're quiet, we might see a deer."

Millie loves deer.

She tiptoes.

She stops singing.

It’s as close as I will get to peace today.

A rain-swollen creek rushes in the distance.

Speckled thrushes forage on the forest floor. I don't see them, but I hear them.

The ground grows soft. Mud tugs at the soles of my sandals. There is a trove of fungi here. I knew there would be after so much rain.

I dream of mushroom tarts, pot pies—dried mushrooms for winter.

​A woodpecker taps out an urgent message on a nearby tree.

I scan the canopy but cannot find it.

It’s the perfect task to keep Millie busy while I gather.

“Can you spot it?” I ask.

“I think so.”

“Tell me when you do, but don’t touch anything, especially mushrooms.”

Sponge-like morels sprout from dying elms. Apricot-scented chanterelles glow along the stream bank. I carefully collect them, savoring each discovery in the warm afternoon. A cascade of pristine lion's mane pours from the bark of a beech tree. Focused entirely on carving it away with my tiny foraging blade, I slowly become aware that something is off. The woods seem to have stilled, holding their breath around me.

No tapping feet.

No woodpecker drumming.

“Millie?!?”

I don’t see her.

A tightness spreads through me, like something invisible and heavy settling onto my chest. I call her again, louder this time, afraid that she’s lost—alone.

“MILLIE!”

I listen for footfalls. Cries for help. Giggles of a hide-and-seek game I didn't consent to.

I try to breathe. I can’t.

Her name dies in my throat.

I spot a broken branch. Flattened grasses. A void in a bed of partridgeberry.

I follow the recently beaten path.

Relief washes over me, the weight lifted by a familiar sniffle—the same one she gives every time I read the end of Peter Pan, when he must let go of Wendy.

"Oh, Millie—”

She assumes a tight squat, cradling something in her mud-streaked hands. Her cheeks sparkle with tears.

"What happened?" I kneel beside her, rubbing circles on her back. She shows me the black-and-gold butterfly—a lifeless mourning cloak with a torn wing.

"I didn't mean to,” she sobs. “Please, fix it!"

The memory of a man's voice feeds my doubt. He could have been my father or Millie’s. "Stop filling their heads with these ideas, Sage. They’re... nonsense!"

"I don't know if I can," I say. Not yet.

"You can!" Millie whines. "I saw you with the frog and the baby bird that one time."

With the help of our mother's energy.

I cannot say no to her.

“I’ll try,” I say. “Will you help me?”

She nods, sniffles, and sets her hand on my shoulder the way our mother does.

We count together.

“One… two…”

Three.

Warmth gathers in my hands as I ground through my feet. Into the moss, through the dirt, and to the center of the earth itself—one with nature, with Millie, with the butterfly.

"As I breathe, it lives," I whisper.

“As I breathe, it lives,” Millie repeats.

Over and over, we chant.

“As I breathe, it lives.”

The heat fades.

An inner voice warns that I’m not enough.

It’s all nonsense.

I wait for the flutter of butterfly wings, for the delicate creature to right itself on legs as fine as hair strands, but it remains pinned on its side. Lifeless.​

​“I can’t.” It kills me to admit it—to have to deny her.

“Please try again,” Millie says.

“Mother will help.” I gently place the mourning cloak in my satchel, where it will be safe. “As soon as we get home.”

“I want to go home now.”

"Soon." We haven’t been gone long enough for the man to have left—for our mother to answer the door without being angry at the interruption. I don’t know how to explain any of this to Millie, so I refuse to take her back. “As soon as we’ve checked for wild strawberries. You want jam, don’t you?”

"I. Want. To. Go. Home."

“I told you it was going to be a long walk. You promised you’d listen.”

"I hate you!”

I snatch her wrist and drag her beside me.

Millie wrestles herself free, folds her arms, and pushes out her lip.

I tamp down scrub brush and hold back thorny briars to keep her from being scratched as we walk in silence—me at a loss, and Millie stewing in her anger.

The whining resumes less than a quarter-mile later.

"I don't feel good," she says. This isn't a new tactic. "My stomach hurts."

It’s the Millie equivalent of "give me what I want, or else."

“You’re probably still hungry,” I say. “I’ll make you a peanut butter sandwich as soon as we’re home.”

“I don’t want a—” Millie doubles over. Forceful vomit spews from her mouth and nostrils.

"Millie!" I rush to hold back her hair. “I’m sorry, I thought you were …” Faking it.

My inner voice sounds like our mother. I won’t doubt Millie out loud.

Millie gasps between heaves, barely catching her breath.

She begins to cry. Ugly, open-mouthed sobs. Sick cries.

​How many stomachaches have I nursed her through?

How many flus?

Not for the first time, illness hits her fast.

I have no elderflower or yarrow to help her. No blankets for comfort. No mother for backup.

Millie collapses to her knees, retching clots of half-digested toast and peaches. Something yellow and unidentifiable.

"I need you to sit up, okay? Can you do that for me?" I work my hands under her knees, cradling her.

Her face pinches into a tight grimace.

She coils inward, her arms pressed into her stomach.

She's heavier than I remember her being.

An awkward load that I must carry home.

I tell my arms to hold tight, my back to be strong. I refuse to drop her.

Vines and branches scrape at my feet as I hurry toward our cabin.

My skin stings.

I know that I'm bleeding.

"Millie, please, hold on!"

A warm wetness seeps through her jeans. There's a foul smell. A tremor that might be convulsions.

Seconds feel like hours until our cabin comes into distant view.

I run faster, legs like rubber, knees about to buckle. My lungs burn. My arms are spaghetti.

The red pickup is gone.

Thank goodness.

“MOM!” I roll Millie toward me, shouting as I reach for the doorknob, terrified that it won't twist. "HELP!”

I expect our mother to materialize, to know the right thing to do—to fix whatever has gone wrong and be angry about it—but she’s nowhere to be found.

The door gives way to utter silence and the sooty odor of recently snuffed candles.

I lower Millie onto a twin bed in our shared bedroom, horrified that now, of all times, the meat man has lured our mother away. I am sure, even before I begin searching our rustic three-room cabin, that she isn't here. There isn’t any sign of her.

"Hang on, Millie. Hang on."

I don't know what's happened or what to do about it.

I race into the kitchen. Jars of herbs line the shelves next to the sink. I try to remember what each of them is for, which might work as a cure-all. I peel off my gathering bag, the strap like a hand around my throat. A mushroom spills onto the table; its gills are pure white.

I feel lightheaded, about to faint.

“No—NO. NO. NO.”

Even as I say it, I fear the worst.

The gills aren’t attached.

The telltale sign of a death cap.

I think about the yellow bits in Millie’s vomit.

Everyone knows not to eat yellow mushrooms.

At least, everyone who isn't six years old.

“Millie, did you eat this?” I present the mushroom, but she’s in no shape for admission. She’s twitching, her eyes rolled back to the whites, the color of urine.

Liver failure.

Our mother warned about this.

"Millie? Can you hear me?” I take her hand. “Squeeze my fingers if you can hear me.”

She gasps, gurgles, and goes still.

“MILLIE!”

I feel for a pulse but cannot find one. There’s no moisture—no breath—when I hold our mother’s hand mirror to her face. I press my ear to her chest, but it’s like holding a conch to my ear. All I hear is my own rushing blood.

Tears prick my eyelids. This is my fault. I shouldn't have let her come. I should have paid more attention. I should have made our mother come to the door. She left us without so much as a note. We're alone. Again. Who knows whether for hours, days, or weeks?

A feral scream rends my throat raw as it tears through me.

Millie doesn't react.

I rock her against me, weeping—great, racking sobs.

“Please, Millie. Please come back.” I sniffle.

All I want is to hear that she’s hungry, or bored, or wants to tag along. To hear her humming the bedtime song, or even telling me she hates me.

I don’t need time alone.

I need my sister.

Our mother's peridot necklace dangles from the footboard post of her bed.

She only takes it off for him.

I clutch the chain for strength, the stone like a pendulum over Millie’s heart, reflecting beams of green in the dying daylight. Shadows stretch into the corners. The hand-hewn wooden floor bites into my knees.

“You can do it.” Millie’s words echo.

I couldn’t then, but I have to now.

I close my eyes, my hands pressed together in silent prayer.

Heat gathers in my palms.

The rushing creek echoes in my ears.

"As I breathe, she lives," I say.

I feel the tickle of moss. The bristle of thorns. Cold mud on my skin.

The air is thick with the decay of leaves.

A bit of foam slips from the corner of her parted lips, the pale blue of a butterfly pea.

Please, Millie. Come back.

“As I breathe, she lives.”

The skittering of foraging thrushes surrounds me.

I become one with all that is.

I imagine our mother returning home, explaining to her what I’ve done—what I let happen to Millie.

I worry she’ll be angry enough to leave or to send me away.

“As I breathe, she lives.”

Warmth becomes heat.

I silence the man’s voice, whispering that this is nonsense.

We are healers.

My mother and I.

Millie will be, one day, too.

A familiar sensation stirs within me.

As I breathe, she lives.

Millie’s tiny hand twitches, like it does when she’s asleep.

I continue repeating the words until they become one word—a magic spell, a sacred wish.

Millie gasps.

Her eyelids flutter.

I press my ear to her chest and hear it.

Lub-dub.

Slow.

Fragile.

There.

LUB-DUB.

It grows stronger.

Beats louder.

Plays on repeat, the sweetest music.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I just listen.