The last time Virginia had been home she was seventeen. Now closer to 30, she crossed the sun-drenched verandah and poured a glass of Shiraz for herself and handed a glass of water to her mother, Loretta.  The buzz of mosquitos was audible. Loretta sat in a wicker chair, her tanned, leathery fingers tapping faintly on the rim. The flowered cotton at her mother’s neckline lay damp in the humidity and Virginia’s worn khakis clung close to her sweating legs.  She stood with her hands on the withered rail of the verandah, looking out.
            The land surrounding the house seemed to be caving inwards. It stretched out almost a mile to the closest road, which ran down the western end of the county. Grass shifted into water as soon as it began, creating murky pools of water of surprising depth. The setting sun made the puddles of marsh water in the yard seems to be strewn with gold, making it more beautiful than Virginia remembered, more authentically Southern.  She noticed the thin shadow her figure cast below the verandah, and how the shadows exaggerated the slight but uncontrollable tremor of her hands clutching the glass’s stem. This afternoon she would become a godmother.
            “Snowbird on the right,” her mother said.
            Loretta pointed towards the west, where a whooping crane waded in one of the puddles of marsh water.  The bird was almost five feet tall and its pure, white feathers seemed untouched by the muck of the marshland.  Its slender neck was arched into an S-like shape, and its head was turned downwards, hunting.  Loretta set down her glass of water and reached for a pair of binoculars that she kept handy for avian sightings.  Virginia sighed, and swatted the mosquitoes away from her bare arms.
            “Did you know they fly almost 2,500 miles from Canada to come back home every year? Some birds.”
            Virginia considered saying that the whooping cranes didn’t think of the Gulf Coast as ‘home,’ or that her mother shouldn’t compare her choice to never return to the route of a migratory bird, but the heat was stifling. Virginia took a deep sip of the red wine as Loretta handed her the binoculars. She raised the binoculars to her eyes and watched as the crane’s head disappeared into the water, and popped back out again. Its legs reminded her of the wooden sticks she’d throw into the Hudson for her dog, Ollie, to fetch on the short, tired evenings Dave and she spent counting sand and trying not to wear the things left unsaid between them in their expressions. The crane waded past a sign marked, ‘Private: Keep Out,’ and paused, its head arched over the surface of the water. The bird’s golden eyes caught Virginia, and she realized that its head, which had looked black from a distance, was lined with brilliant red feathers. Its head disappeared into the murky water. Mosquitoes buzzed around her ears.
            “How is Dave?” her mother asked.
            Virginia’s lips tensed and she brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes.
            “I hear he’s doing well.”
            “Oh?”
            The pond surface rippled and the crane’s red head remerged again, holding a minnow in its beak.  The scales of the minnow flashed silver in the light as the bird tore its wriggling prey in half with the grace of a natural predator.  The hunt was finished. Virginia shuddered and finished her glass of wine.  Loretta motioned for Virginia to come closer to her, and she crouched down beside the wicker chair.
            “Cranes mate for life, you know. Better than most of us can say for ourselves. Oh, look,” Loretta said.
            Holding the binoculars tight to her eyes, Virginia followed the crane’s golden eyes with magnified lenses as it waded to a little cove, where there was a patch of grass. The crane lowered a sliver of the minnow into the grass, and a golden, fluffy chick waddled out from behind a furry cattail.
            Virginia felt her mother’s hand touch her head and weave through her hair, and a feeling of warmth swelled in her chest that she had not felt in some time.  Loretta peered into the sunlight, smiling in the direction of the bird. Virginia put the binoculars down and the two watched the brilliant white crane feed its chick from a distance.  Loretta leaned back into her chair, but Virginia remained tense, watching.
            “What happened with you and Dave?” Loretta asked.
            Virginia’s brows twitched slightly, inwards. It was a habit of hers she had assumed in childhood.                                                                                                  “Oh, a lot of things happened…I guess it’s for the best, this way.”                    
            “So, you’re not together anymore?”
            “No.”
            “Maybe you two just need some time, to think about things, work things out.”
            “The wedding’s off…I can’t turn back time to fix what happened, no matter how much I wish I could.”
            Virginia glanced at her mother’s watch, which had a green frog in the center.
            “Well,” she said, “we should get going. The christening starts in an hour.”
            “All right. Give me a moment to find my keys.”
            Her mother stood up, picked up the empty glasses, and headed inside. Competing alternate explanations flitted through Virginia’s mind as she wondered how she could have better explained how her relationship with Dave deteriorated, how she spiraled out of control and couldn’t even take care of her beloved Olliedog, how relieving it would feel if she had a chance to explain the shame and self-disappointment that she felt for being the one at fault. But she couldn’t, and she never would. Things had never been like that in their family. They just went on.
            The snowbird disappeared behind a bunch of green reeds and the afternoon light began to settle into dusk. Virginia stared into the spot where the bird had been, and then followed her mother inside.

            Though Virginia’s recollection of the one-story ranch house her parents lived in had faded over time, she still felt accosted by an imperceptible change in decoration and design.  A beige sofa with mauve throw pillows had replaced the cracked leather chair where she had sat on her Dad’s lap as a child and fed him olives, and there were people she didn’t recognize in the photo frames, places she didn’t know her mother had been.  As she looked around, she realized that there were no photos of her father in the room, and in the spot on the mantle where his urn of ashes used to be, there was a glass vase of sunflowers.  She turned away, towards the door. The room as a whole felt incomplete, almost foreign. There was nothing physically left for her to hold onto except for a few old VCR tapes stashed in the entertainment center that her mother must have forgotten to throw out. Virginia felt her mother’s leathery hand on the small of her back, and looked up as she jingled car keys in front of her face.  Suppressing a glare, Virginia followed Loretta through the rest of the small house, but paused in front of a doorway.
            “My old room! What did you end up doing with it?”
            Virginia opened a door from the narrow hallway and stepped into her old bedroom. The walls had been repainted a light shade of purple with white trim.  A dream-catcher with white, long feathers floated over a crib nestled in pink and white blankets.  A pillow sized for a child’s head with a fluffy lamb etched onto it lay in the center; the lamb’s eyes wide open as if in expectation of its new dreamer. Her mother fiddled with the keys.
            “Oh, you know, we found a use for it,” she said. “I suppose it’s all a bit much, but Lydia barely has time to sleep with a three month old baby so I figured I’d help out, take care of her some nights. Wait until you see her – those cheeks!”
             A photo book with large, obnoxious cursive writing marked, “Important Moments in Your First Year of Life” lay on top Virginia’s old bureau.
            “Sweet of Lydia to ask you to be her child’s godmother, considering that you’ve been gone so long,” her mother said.
            Virginia leaned down and picked up an old ticket stub sticking out from underneath the furniture.  It was dated May 5th 1997. She attempted to wade through the memories in of that year in her mind, but her reminiscences of the concert and of much else of her adolescence were as murky as the marsh puddles in the yard. She stood up, and dropped the ticket stub in the trash. It was better that way, not to remember.
            “Yes…very sweet of her. Hey, did you keep anything from my childhood? Toys, books, clothes?”
            Loretta had busied herself with rearranging the order of the pillows in the crib.
            “Not really, honey.”           
            “Not even my journals?”
            “We recycled them. Better to help the environment in some small way than have them sit around here gathering dust. I did read a few.”
            “You did?”
            “Yes, it wasn’t anything special. Not sure why you wanted to keep them, unless you were secretly planning on publishing a famous memoir someday.”
            Virginia’s brows twitched inwards again, and her gaze shifted away from the faded ticket stub in the trash towards the crib. She smiled weakly.
            “You know me too well, Mom.”

            As they drove back up the winding road through the puddle-strewn yard, now dark and humming with the thrill of cicadas and bullfrogs, Virginia closed her eyes and let her arm hang out the passenger seat window. The night air here was so soft, silken. The silence was permeated by the gentle sounds of living things, not relentless cab honks or car tires screeching. Virginia breathed in deeply, calmly for the first time since her relapse.
            “Dozing off at eight P.M.! I thought you were a night owl,” her mother said.
            “Some things change with time.”
            “And some don’t,” her mother said, sharply veering to the left to make the yellow light. “You don’t look so well, Virginia. You’re pale and you’re skinnier than ever.”
            “I’m trying to bring back the Kate Moss look, it’s all the rage in New York.”
            “Well, that doesn’t explain the splotches under your eyes.”
            “I’ve always had dark circles.”
            “Yes, but…the veins are broken. See. Right there on your eyelid. It’s red.”
            Virginia shook off the last of the calm that had stolen over her.  Her head was aching. She wished that she had poured herself a second glass of wine earlier.
            “Mother, if you’re trying to say something, just come out and say it. I’m not up for one of your song and dance shows right now.”
            Her mother was silent. Virginia sighed.
            “I wish you had come to visit me in New York. All those years. I missed you.”
            “Oh honey, you know I wanted to.”
            Her mother frowned, and paused at the light.
            “I can never remember whether to take a left or a right here…oh yes, left. Marcie’s house is to the right.”
            Virginia leaned back in her seat and let her arm hang out the window.  She knew that her mother knew was feigning confusion to avoid continuing having what could be an unpleasant conversation with her daughter. As the car slowed for a stop sign, she sat up and recognized her sister’s house from the postcards she and her and husband, John, sent her each Christmas. It was plain, tannish building of no particular distinction except for a white wreath hanging on the door.
            “Looks like Lydia and John have already left,” her mother said. “We must be running late. We’ll meet them at St. Lucy’s.”
            “St. Lucy’s…I don’t remember a church called St. Lucy’s.”
            Her mother laughed.
            “I don’t think we ever went to church when you were younger, not even for Christmas! But now, I come here probably two, three times a week.  Such a friendly congregation.”
            “How did you find about it?”
            “Oh, you know, the AA meetings are held here.”
            Virginia became acutely aware of the bottle of vodka she had hidden at the bottom of her purse before leaving the house.  She had brought a few bottles as soon as she had landed in Austin, figuring that this was going to be a stressful trip and she would need a little help dealing with her family.  She hadn’t bought that much, just enough to ease the pain of coming back to a home that she never felt belonged to her.  A home that had rejected her.
            As she looked at the narrow town streets and the people ambling down its sidewalks with careless grace, she felt completely alienated from her hometown.  She looked over at her mother in the driver’s seat. She never felt like she was enough for her, or for anyone, really.  When she was a child, her mother relentlessly pushed her to succeed, to be the opposite of what Loretta herself had become: an abusive alcoholic with droopy eyes who spent days crying and yelling at soaps on TV.  Virginia remembered how she had excelled at everything she put her mind to as a kid: music, sports, academics, popularity.  Everyone said, there’s a girl with a bright future. She’s going places.  Then her mother disappeared for a couple months and it all fell to pieces.  Her teachers, friends, even her family abandoned her.  They didn’t understand that she had given everything inside of her, everything she had in hopes that it would make her mother happy, that she would get better, and it was all for nothing.  Virginia was empty.  A shell of a person. So she left for New York and never came back, until now.
             The car paused at a stop light, and she saw a couple sitting on a bench together, laughing, and thought how with Dave things had been different. Dave didn’t ask for more than she could give him, and she had been able to relax without the comforting numbness of alcohol in his arms. She felt at home with him. But then the wedding plans ate away at them, and their relationship became swallowed by the wants of others’ –No, we can’t have the flowers like this because So-and-So won’t like it, but we have to buy the cake from Magda’s because we promised her and yes, the invitations have to be sent out by Thursday it doesn’t matter that your name is spelled wrong—it was enough to make anyone drink.  Old issues resurfaced. He told her he'd leave her if she didn't stop drinking, and paranoia struck. She accused Dave for being as controlling as her mother had and disappeared on an alcohol-fueled binge for a week. When she finally dragged her bruised and battered body back home, she found a note in his handwriting taped to the kitchen counter and Olliedog was gone.
            Virginia thoughts turned back to the hidden alcohol in her bag, and if there was a bathroom she could sneak into before the service.  She had a bar of chocolate, mints, and a jar of peanut butter to disguise the smell of liquor on her breath, so there was no need to worry about her secret being discovered. But beyond the endless rationalizations, which she could conjure out of nothing in mere moments, she knew why the bottle was there. Why it was always there. And the horrible feeling of it being empty.
            A surge of resentment swelled up inside her like a writhing snake as she watched her mother pull into St. Lucy’s and smile effortlessly at the priest, who waved at her in return.  This was all her fault. If she hadn’t grown up in a household with an overbearing alcoholic for a mother, she might never of had grown to struggle with the problem herself. Never have lost her job. Never have lost Dave and Ollie. She thought of the snowbird, of its white feathers untainted by the dirt and grime of the marsh, of the golden chick.  She could have known purity.
            The stepped out of the car. Father O’Doull walked up to greet them.
            “Loretta! You’re looking well today!”
            Her mother smiled and locked the car with a beep. The priest put his hand on Virginia’s shoulder.
            “I hear you’re becoming a godmother today!”
            Virginia brows furrowed slightly, and her mouth opened but she said nothing. Her mother stepped forward.
            “Yes, she is, and we are so excited!”
            “Such a tremendous occasion. One to be remembered forever.”
            Virginia forced a friendly smile. She felt exhausted, drained from a day spent searching for the right things to say.
            “Yes, yes. An honor.”
            “Now,” the priest said, “if you’ll follow me inside, I think the service has already begun…”

            The inside of St. Lucy’s was small and spare. The last of the setting light poured through the oval windows and illuminated the red undertones of the mahogany pews that looked a simple brown at first glance. A large painting of Jesus healing the sick in Capernaum hung over the altar, which was covered by a white cloth and ornamented with two burning candles on either side. At the left side of the altar, a large stone font of holy water stood, and to the right was a golden crucifix.  The proud parents were standing by the stone font, their hands interlocked. Virginia walked up and stood beside her mother and sister, watching as John playfully lifted the baby, swathed in her white christening gown and cap, into the air. The little girl’s blue eyes darted about the church in wonder and then met Virginia’s, whose hands were clammy and slightly shaking. Loretta was right. She did have cute cheeks.
            “With this holy act, as I am now on the point of commencing,” the priest began, “I beseech those present to unite themselves with me in prayer for this child, that the Lord who now takes him into the number of his elect may preserve him, and evermore defend him and strengthen him with his grace, that he may grow up to be both the joy of his parents, and a worthy member of the Christian church. Now, what name shall be given to the child?”
            “Rose. Rosaline Emma Jones.”
            Lydia’s eyes were wet as she lightly took hold of Virginia’s hand.
            “I’m so happy you’re here, Virginia. You’re my sister and you…you should be her godmother.”
            Virginia felt her heart quicken. She looked at her sister’s tearing eyes, and then at the puffy baby fat cheeks of her new niece. She took her hand from Lydia’s and reached into her purse for a tissue to wipe her sister’s eyes, but her hands fell instead on the cold glass of the vodka bottle. Her hand froze. Her glance fell upon the crucifix hanging above them. How could she be a godmother to her sister’s child? She couldn’t even take care of herself, or her poor dog.
            The priest turned towards Virginia.
            “You will be responsible for the child in this next part. And now I ask thee, Rosaline Emily Hunter, dost thou desire to obtain eternal life in the church of God through faith in Jesus Christ?”
            Virginia froze. She felt untethered to her body, as if parts of her had swam out and lost themselves in the desires of the people around her.  She could feel her mother’s excitement, her sister’s motherly pride, even the priest’s tiredness. She could feel everyone but herself. She looked down at the baby in her arms and began crying.
            “Lydia, I….”
            The priest seemed annoyed.
            “And now I ask thee, Rosaline Emily Jones, dost thou -”
            “Just give us one second, please,” Loretta said.
            Loretta turned to face Virginia and ran her hand once again through her daughter’s hair in an effort to calm her.
            “Virginia. My dear. I know you’re struggling right now. I know because I struggled myself. That’s all I was saying earlier. But you have a responsibility to do this. Lydia has put her trust in your and asked you to be an important part of her daughter’s life. If anything, God forbid, happened to Lydia and John, you would take care of her. Just say yes.”
            Virginia’s head was swimming. She looked away, towards the stained glass windows. A dove frozen in its painted flight towards Heaven turned her thoughts towards the snowbird, silently wading through the murk of the marsh, immersed in the perpetual movement of life that no stained glass window could capture. Her eyes refocused on the innocent baby in her arms.  Little Rose stared up at her without any sort of preconceived judgment, and in the moment, she knew that original sin was a myth made by men because she was holding purity in her arms.
            “I can’t. If something happened to Lydia and John…I couldn’t be responsible for her. Not right now, at least. I’m so sorry.”
            Without a further word, Virginia handed the baby to Lydia, picked up her purse with the bottle inside and walked out of the church. She could feel Lydia and John’s eyes on her, staring at her in disbelief and disappointment. As she left the church and the church door slowly shut behind her, she heard the service slowly resume and trailing echoes of the priest’s voice murmur, “Let us pray.”

            That night Virginia drove to a city some distance away and forgot herself. As she lifted the delicate rim of a cold martini glass to her lips, she felt the depths of her abdomen pull her into that first sip; she felt an animalistic hunger for obliviousness, for the slow and tormented extinction of her identity.  She laughed with the bartender at jokes she did not listen to, and savored the sweet pain of liquor burning down her throat.  She ordered another drink and another; she wanted to drown in each glass, to make love to it, because it saved her from feeling.  She danced with a man whose clothes were silken and soft but had no face, she let him kiss her and hold her until they lay naked together in the rumpled sheets of his apartment, and then she left.  She tossed her shoes into a trashcan –what use had she for shoes? – she wanted to feel the pavement dig into her bare skin and make it bleed. She dreamed of used needles lying in the grass like venomous snakes.

            That night Virginia did not come home.

            Nor, the night after.

            The cattails were whispering summer hymnals as the sun rose on the third day. Beneath the broken arch of an oak tree on the side of Interstate 30, in a shallow puddle of diaphanous marsh-water, a woman in tattered khakis slept. She was cradling the dead body of a whooping crane that looked almost comically large in her arms. Its thin legs were crushed into odd angles, and tire marks of dirt and blood violated its snow white wings. Flies buzzed above.  Virginia awoke. The golden chick was in her pocket, cheeping at her. She gently laid the body of the mother crane down onto the ground and decided to bury it, along with the empty liquor bottles surrounding her.
            When the task was finished, she slowly walked back to her mother’s one story ranch house. Her mother glanced at her and said nothing as Virginia showered and changed into clean clothes. Lydia and John dropped by and Rosaline’s pink face peeked out from her baby carriage. Loretta held her in her arms and cooed and clucked at her new grandchild with the loving care of a healthy and able grandmother.  Virginia knew Lydia was hurt from her decision, but she also knew that with time, the hurt would sink into the marsh puddles as all the rest had.
            That afternoon when the setting sun lit up the marsh puddles with gold, she sat down in verandah and looked to see if the whooping crane’s mate would return to its nest. But the male bird was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was hunting in another field for food to feed its chick; perhaps it had abandoned its nest, after realizing that the mother and its chick had disappeared. The crane had no conception of sin or purity. It simply existed. The snowbird’s natural grace came from doing what it needed to do, what its instincts told it to do.  The golden chick in her pocket chirped. It was hungry, and she wasn’t sure if it could live without its mother, but there was hope. She would call the bird sanctuary in the morning and ask if the chick could be raised in captivity. Night descended and darkness enveloped her, but it did not scare her. In a habitual movement, Virginia reached into her empty purse, and then set her hands firmly back on her legs. The swamplands around her echoed with sound. The cicadas rubbed their wings together as if counting the seconds in each minute, and the bullfrogs bleated. Then, in the distance, she thought she heard a low whoop-whoop. And for the first time, Virginia felt her self awaken.