Ivy Leaves Journal of Literature & Art — Vol. 86

F I C T I O N 83 devoted sister who stayed behind. She had charged off to college nine years ago, leaving Berlin behind. Why should he think about her?

Her uncle shoveled a forkful of green beans into his mouth. “Don’t look so surprised. I half-raised you.” He paused and pointed his fork at her.

“You seem to have turned out fine.”

“Why shouldn’t I have?”

Her uncle laughed. “You were a rambunctious child.”

“Not really.” Izzie almost told him that he had never understood her, not in the eight years she’d lived with him.

“Not really?” Her uncle laughed again, louder, and Jason looked over.

“You chased my cows.”

Case in point, thought Izzie, but she didn’t bother to say so. He would only laugh harder if she told him what she was thinking that day. That time she chased the cows was shortly after she’d moved to Berlin. Before then, she’d never been to church, but her aunt and uncle insisted that she go. At Millersburg United Methodist Church one of those first Sundays, the minister preached on the old covenant God made with Israel. He described the sacrificial law. If you wanted God to forgive you, the minister said, you brought a cow to Him and killed it for your sins.

He never got around to explaining the new covenant. Later that afternoon Izzie tried to lasso a cow. Driving by in his pickup, her uncle caught her on horseback, the cows running in confusion. She refused to tell him why she did it and received a spanking in silence. At age ten it made sense.

“I just took everything literally,” she said.

“What’s this cow story?” Jason said, but she ignored him. It was just another reminder that their lives were so separate.

“But Isabelle,” her uncle said, “I just heard the other day that they’re looking for a middle school teacher over at Flat Ridge. Thought I’d tell you.”

Izzie leaned back in her chair. Was that her uncle’s way of asking her to come back to Berlin? And if it was, did she want to come back? Ohio did have a feeling like home. When she saw the curves of the land, the little towns that thought themselves important, the cows with their calm ambivalence, she felt a nostalgia like homesickness. But it was a homesickness that lacked a home.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

Even as she said it, she knew she could never live in Berlin again. For her, it was tainted. She would never just see cows and barns and relatives.

Behind them she would always see what brought her here—the lies and unfaithfulness and death; and the brother who tried too hard to do the right thing.

“What cow story?” said Jason, and her uncle launched into his side of the story.

The next morning, Izzie and Lydia shared the bathroom mirror.

Lydia was applying makeup, and Izzie was trying to straighten her hair.

“So,” Lydia said, “have you forgiven me for getting married?”

Typical Lydia, Izzie thought. Opening a conversation with candor.

“There was never anything to forgive. I’m just scared for you.”

Lydia turned toward Izzie, one eye complete with eye liner, the other