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friends and allies
there are those who think that I'm strange
they would box me up and tell me to change
but you hold me close and softly say
that you wouldn't have me any other way
- ‘Anchor’ by Mindy Gledhill
It’s been three days since the fight. Since she heard more screaming and hollering from her ma and papa than she ever heard before — and that was a lot. Sometimes they’d shout so much that she’d hide somewhere other than her room just so they couldn’t find her easily and start in on her, too.
Under the pile of blankets on the floor of the linen closet. Behind the boxes stuffed into the utility room. The cabinet beneath the kitchen sink.
Usually, though, it seemed like they forgot she existed at all. She’d stay hidden away for what felt like hours, gripping her blanket and hoping they wouldn’t find her. Sometimes, though, she wished they would.
Look for her. Remember that they had a little girl. Even if it meant that both of them yelled at her instead of each other.
It’s been three days since her ma took papa’s shotgun from the closet and pointed it at his face.
Belle didn’t see her ma pull the trigger. Didn’t see what happens when a grown man gets a face full of buckshot. Didn’t see half of her papa’s head painted against the wall in red with chunks of hair and flesh and brain and bone.
She heard it, though. She heard the closet door crack against the wall when her ma must have flung it open. She heard the rack of the shotgun. She heard her papa swear and shout even louder than before. And then she heard the explosive boom of the gun firing. She thinks she heard her papa yawp before everything went quiet except for the ringing in her ears.
Belle heard her ma stumble into the kitchen. Heard her banging open cabinet doors overhead. Heard the thump of a glass bottle on the countertop. The sound of pills rattling against plastic. Her ma’s threadbare slippers thwapping against the linoleum floor until it was a muted shuffle across the carpet in the living room.
She had squeezed her eyes tight and gripped her blanket tighter. Her ma wouldn’t come looking for her; if she didn’t care enough to remember to put food on the table, she wouldn’t care enough to look for the little girl quivering beneath the sink where it smelled like rotten food and sewage and Borax.
She stayed there until her stomach hurt from hunger, until she was too afraid to leave and too afraid to stay. She stayed until she heard the whoop whoop of a police cruiser and somebody knocking on the door. She stayed until a woman with bright red hair and gentle brown eyes crouched down and coaxed her from her hiding place.
It’s been three days since the sheriff — Nicole — wrapped her in a Purgatory Sheriff’s Department jacket and covered her eyes and carried her away from her broken home. Three days since Nicole and Waverly kneeled on the dusty old floor of the sheriff’s office and asked her if she might want to live with them — for as long as she wanted or needed. Three days since they asked her what she wanted.
(And she so badly wanted to say yes . So desperately wanted to think that maybe these two people would remember she exists. She wanted to dare to dream of love and security and family.)
She nodded. She hadn’t known how to ask for what she wanted. She still doesn’t really know how, but Nicole and Waverly are patient and kind and gentle and she isn’t yet sure what to do with that. She’s never spent much time with adults who care .
And so she clings to Waverly because everybody in Purgatory knows of the Earps. Because her eyes are sometimes green like Belle’s and she has so, so many books and she allows Belle to look at them all. And Waverly sings and dances and acts silly and happy in a way that Belle has never known.
She clings to Waverly because Waverly wasn’t there three days ago. Wasn’t at her house to see the mess and the despair that permeated every inch of it. She clings to Waverly because she thinks maybe Waverly won’t see the grief etched into her skin or the melancholy that presses down on her tiny shoulders like the weight of a world that she’s never even seen.
Because Nicole saw it and Nicole looks at her with heartache in her eyes. She sees the marks left on Belle’s soul during those first four years of her life. She sees into the dark corners where Belle tries to hide. Sees her pain and anguish.
Because Nicole sees her and it terrifies her.
And today — today they ask her if she would like to meet some of their family this weekend. Because they try to have dinner together at least one Sunday a month because family is important and so is the reminder that you’re not alone in this world. The idea sounds nice to Belle’s ears, but she’s not sure what it means in practice. She’s not sure what going to a Sunday dinner with family looks like, and she’s not sure how it’s supposed to work since it isn’t her family.
She’s not even sure if she has a family anymore.
But then Waverly says they can bake cookies to take and that Gus always makes too much food so there’s always leftovers and that in the summertime they build a fire and roast marshmallows and make s’mores. So Belle agrees to go, and Nicole promises her that they’ll leave if she starts feeling uncomfortable or unsafe at any time.
Nicole sees too much of everything, Belle thinks. The good and the bad and everything else that holds a person together or makes them fall apart. It’s probably why she’s the sheriff.
But Belle agrees and on Saturday night after Nicole and Waverly have gone to bed, she sneaks downstairs and opens the new box of crackers in the pantry. She takes an entire sleeve and puts the box back on the shelf before tiptoeing back to the bedroom where she sleeps. She hides the crackers with her socks in the dresser before making sure that the beef stick she took the night before is still in the drawer beside the bed.
“Still there,” she confirms. Satisfied, she climbs beneath the sheets on the bed, pulling her pigeon blanket up to her neck and letting her thumb slip into her mouth.
She doesn’t dream that night. No nightmares of a monster under her bed or the sound of a shotgun ringing in her ears. She sleeps soundly.
And then Sunday arrives and it’s been five days since the fight. Five days since… since.
They drive and drive and drive — it feels farther than Belle has ever gone before — to the place that Nicole and Waverly call the homestead. There’s a mailbox that says ‘Earp’ and a rickety old fence and an even older looking house. There’s smoke billowing from the chimney and even from here, standing beside the truck, Belle can hear the sounds of people inside.
They let themselves in through the front door with Nicole on her left and Waverly on her right. She braces herself to meet a brood of Earps and Haughts.
Except Belle is confused. Because Nicole had said family and Waverly had said family but the people in this room don’t look much like either of them. Because there’s a man with a Pokémon shirt and another with a shiny badge on his hip. Because one of them looks like a cowboy with a big mustache and a little girl at his side. And then there’s an older woman with short, curly hair and then a woman with hair like a mare.
It’s overwhelming. This many people. Belle tenses and drifts even closer to Waverly.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she hears Nicole whisper.
Belle wants to agree. She wants to go back to their house and sit next to Calamity Jane and disappear into a story of a land far away from here. But then the little girl starts walking toward them, and Belle grips Waverly’s hand a little tighter and pulls her thumb from her mouth.
“Who are you?” are the first words out of Alice’s mouth when she finally bridges the space between them. It isn’t an unfriendly greeting but it has all the elements of her mother’s tact. Because in the three years since she returned to Purgatory, Alice Michelle Holliday has most definitely proved herself to be Wynonna’s daughter, picking up sass and snark like it’s encoded in her genes.
(It has to be. The kid is an Earp, through and through.)
Belle looks up at Waverly for reassurance and receives it in the form of an encouraging smile and a nod. She doesn’t let go of Waverly’s hand when she takes a baby step forward. It’s an anchor in a sea that she isn’t sure she wants to navigate, but Waverly holds onto her just as securely and Nicole, who chases the monster away at night, is just behind her, too.
She thinks maybe that she can try to be brave. At least for this minute.
“I’m Belle,” she says, and while it’s a quiet introduction, it’s clear and certain.
Alice nods slowly, her blue eyes looking from her aunts to the little girl in front of her who’s still too small for a four-year-old. “I’m Alice. Wanna play in my room?” She tilts her head to one side, curious and waiting for a response.
Because Alice understands. She knows what it’s like to be in a new situation, understands that things feel weird and a little scary, even if you think you might be able to trust and know the people around you.
So she offers her hand to Belle and Belle decides she can try to be brave a little longer. Her small hand lets go of Waverly’s and she reaches out to the older girl, who reaches right back and leads her up the stairs. She pulls a sheaf of copy paper and a box of crayons off the child’s desk in the bedroom that’s painted baby blue. “Do you like to draw?” Alice asks, and Belle shrugs.
She reads a lot but Alice doesn’t have very many books on the bookshelf, so she doesn’t say anything about reading. She likes looking at pictures, so maybe sitting down to draw them could be just as fun.
Alice dumps the box of crayons into the middle of the room and sits cross-legged on the floor, already scribbling away. Belle is more hesitant, and she looks around the room carefully, taking in the details of this other girl’s life. She’s drawn to a photograph in a frame on the bedside table, and she carries it to Alice, who stops coloring when she sees what Belle brought over.
Everybody that’s downstairs is in it with Alice sitting on the cowboy’s shoulders in the middle of the picture. “That’s my dad,” she says. “Everybody calls him Doc but his real name’s John Henry.” She takes the time to cycle through the names one by one, telling stories about Dolls and Jeremy and Gus and her mama. “Wynonna,” she grins. “She’s Waverly’s older sister.”
“What about Nicole and Waverly?” Belle inquires when Alice doesn’t offer up any information about them.
“Aren’t you living with them?”
Belle shrugs. It’s only been five days. Five days since the fight that brought her to this exact moment in this house far away from town that feels a lot like a home.
“Only five days,” she mumbles, as if that explains it all to the older girl.
And Alice shrugs and doesn’t question it because her mom had explained a little bit to her, and she doesn’t get it entirely but she knows that Aunt Nicole and Aunt Waverly are good people. She tells Belle as much. “Mama says Aunt Nicole is her best friend. She’s the one that made sure I was safe after I was born because there were bad people that wanted to use me to hurt my mama and Aunt Waverly helps me with my homework now that I’m in first grade. They even took me to the big city last year to see The Nutcracker .”
Belle doesn’t know what that is but it sounds fancy, and it must be a big deal if they went all the way to the city to see it. So she nods like she knows how special the trip must have been and fidgets with a yellow crayon near her shoe.
Alice sets the photograph aside and stares at Belle in a way that makes her want to squirm away and hide. “Any other questions?”
She does have one more, but she’s embarrassed to ask it and she doesn’t want Alice to yell at her or call her stupid. But Alice watches her without impatience in her eyes and she’s nice enough to share her crayons and let Belle into her room. So Belle nods slowly and makes herself stay brave a little longer.
“What’s a Malteser?” she asks.
And Alice’s eyes grow wide and she opens her mouth in shock. It’s a little dramatic, though perhaps not surprisingly so given she’s the six-year-old daughter of Wynonna Earp and Doc Holliday. Not that Belle knows that or even knows what that means.
“You don’t know what a Malteser is?” Alice near squawks. Her face twists into something funny and Belle can’t help but laugh. The sound surprises the both of them, but Alice just smirks and pulls another face that makes Belle giggle again. “Maltesers are malted milk balls,” she finally explains three belly laughs later. “They taste like a chocolate milkshake.”
“Oh.” Belle nods and files the information away for a later time. Maybe Nicole still has some to share, she hopes.
The rest of the afternoon is spent drawing and coloring in silence until there’s a soft knock on the door. Belle reaches for the loose pieces of paper and tries to organize them into a neater pile and frantically begins to gather the crayons to return them to the box.
Alice stares at her. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up so we don’t get in trouble,” she whispers quickly.
And then the door opens and Belle freezes in place, ready to flinch and scamper away when the yelling starts. But it never comes because Wynonna just sticks her head through the doorway and tells them, “Food’s on the table, kids.” She’s gone just as quickly, heavy boots plodding back down the stairs.
Belle is still frozen, her heart pounding and her shoulders tense.
“It’s okay, Belle,” Alice whispers because she may have her mother’s wit and penchant for guff but she has the empathy of both of her aunts. “We’re not in trouble and mama doesn’t care if I have the crayons on the floor as long as I pick them up before bedtime.”
It takes a minute but Belle slowly begins to relax. “She doesn’t yell?” she murmurs, a quiet sense of wonder in the softness of her voice as she considers the possibility of a mother that doesn’t scream.
Alice shakes her head. “Only when Doc or Dolls does something stupid. Sometimes she yells at Nicole but Nicole yells right back and they’re always fine the next day. I don’t think any of them have ever yelled at me. Not like yell-yelled.”
“So we’re not in trouble?”
“Only if we make mama wait any longer for dinner. Gus doesn’t let anybody start eating until everybody’s at the table.”
And Alice holds out her hand again, patient and waiting as Belle gathers her courage and smothers the fear that’s so quick to churn her stomach. She grins when a smaller hand slips into her own. She has dimples like Wynonna and blue eyes and dark hair like Doc and a goodness in her heart that’s been fostered by all the people downstairs that she calls family.
“C’mon,” Alice says. “It smells like pot roast tonight.” She leads Belle by the hand back downstairs and into the dining room where everybody is crammed around the table. They sit side by side and Alice chatters on about her day and school while Nicole and Waverly and Doc talk about Led Zeppelin and classic rock. Wynonna and Dolls rib each other playfully about something or another and Gus half-listens as Jeremy waxes poetic about the newest movie he’s seen. And when Alice sees that Belle has already cleaned her plate, she asks Gus for another helping and teaches her that the rolls are even better when sopping up the juices.
It feels a lot like how Belle imagines having a family might be.
Still, she’s afraid to hope. To dream of this for herself. To think that maybe this could be hers. Because a man from something called Children’s Services explained to her that she is in foster care now, that Waverly and Nicole are looking out for her until they can figure out something more permanent. Because those words sounded a lot like, ‘Don’t get comfortable.’
She’s afraid to hope, but she tries to commit this evening to memory in case it’s the only time she ever gets to know what she could have had. She’s four; she’s not stupid. She knows that not everybody gets a happy ending like in her books. Real life doesn’t work that way.
It’s been five days since everything changed. Everything still feels topsy turvy beneath her feet but tonight — tonight feels a little more like solid ground, and she finally allows herself to breathe.
-
“Waverly?” Belle asks once they’re back in Nicole’s new truck. Her stomach is full of pot roast and cookies and apple pie. She swings her legs in her new booster seat, wriggling until she gets comfortable. “Why d’you call Xavier and Jeremy family?”
Waverly catches her eye in the rearview mirror as Nicole reverses the pickup down the gravel and dirt road, turning back toward town. “Why wouldn’t I, Belle?” she says.
And Belle furrows her brow as she considers the question. “Wynonna is your sister and Alice is your niece. That means you’re related to Doc because he’s Alice’s dad. And Gus is your aunt. But you’re not related to Xavier or Jeremy. They don’t look like Nicole either.”
Nicole reaches across the center console for Waverly’s hand, and Belle’s eyes follow the movement. How they reach for each other and share looks and touches that seem to say a whole lot without any words. She has only lived with them for five days, but she sees it everyday. Her ma and papa never reached for each other like that.
“Family isn’t always about being related by blood or marriage,” Nicole answers. “In fact, the best families are the ones that we choose with the people that we love, who show us love in return. Family can mean brothers and sisters and moms and dads, but it can also mean friends and allies.”
“Allies?” Belle isn’t sure that she knows what the word means, so she repeats it with a question in her tone.
Waverly nods. “Allies are the people that support you.”
“Like Alice?” Belle wonders if a person can be an ally after you’ve met them only once. But Alice is nice and patient and she didn’t make Belle feel stupid or bothersome. She thinks Alice could be an ally. Maybe even a friend.
“Like Alice,” Nicole concurs. “I think she makes for a pretty good ally.”
“Does that mean she could be my family some day?”
She tries not to hope. Tries not to wish for these people to be her family because she can still hear the words of the man from Children’s Services ringing in her ears.
(A lot like the sound of a shotgun blast and the last yawp of a mean, mean man.)
Nicole hums, a thoughtful expression on her face as she considers her response. “Belle, I think that you deserve whatever family you want, as long as they love you as much as you love them. And if that means all of those crazies back in that house? Well, I don’t think you could do much better.” She squeezes Waverly’s hand in hers. “I know I am so incredibly lucky to be a part of this family, and that includes you.”
“Me?” Belle squeaks, and she tries to squash down the hope of possibility.
“If you would like that, we will do everything that we can to make it happen,” Waverly tells her, and her words are strong and sure and without any hint of untruth or deception.
Because it’s been five days and already this little girl has won them over. And they know it won’t be easy or anything close to it. They know it will take time and effort, both with Belle and with CPS and the provincial government. But Nicole knew. She knew when she tucked that little girl against her chest and carried her away from that crime scene that this case would change her life. And Waverly trusted her and trusts her still because Belle snuck into both of their hearts in a way that they never could have imagined.
Because it’s been five days and already they know.
It’s about families of choice.
And they choose Belle.
(And all those adorable psychos, too.)