Iona Moon by Melanie Rae Thon

like that and I’ll show you a farmer’s daughter . That’s what Jay’s father would say, and he should know. He’d seen the insides of enough mouths. Jay knew what Andrew Johnson Tyler would say about an abortion too. He was a medical man. After all. Nothing but a cluster of cells at this stage . He’d pull on his pointed beard and think so hard that his hairless scalp would wrinkle halfway back his skull. I know a doctor in Boise. Owes me a favor too .
    But it was no use thinking about what his father would say, because Muriel Arnoux wasn’t going to have any abortion. Jay had waited for her outside the church. She never did get up the nerve to talk to the priest. She said, “I confessed to God and he gave me his answer.” Jay looked at her white ankle socks, her thin, pale calves. “I was praying, Jay; when I opened my eyes, I saw Jesus hanging on the cross behind the altar and he couldn’t see me because his eyes were carved. Jesus has wooden eyes and won’t ever look at me again if I do this.”
    Jesus . Jay heard his father’s words on that topic. The Catholics drive their girls crazy, all that muttering and confession, fondling beads and crawling into a little black booth with a priest, being forgiven so they can go out and sin again. I never knew a Catholic girl who wasn’t touched, half in love with her priest or ready to die at the feet of Jesus .
    Muriel called and told him to come by at eight. “And bring the money.” Her parents had found a place for her to stay till the baby was born. She wouldn’t tell him where it was. “Out of state,” she said, “no one will know me.” He had two thousand from his grandfather in Arizona, but he told her he only had five hundred. “Bring it all.”
    â€œYou’re getting off cheap,” Muriel’s father said. “I’d take it out of your hide if I had my way.” He had a potbelly and pug nose, burly arms from loading freight for thirty years. Muriel’s mother sat in a blue armchair, blowing her nose. The chair was covered with plastic that made farting noises when she moved. She looked like Muriel: all the curves turned to rolls of fat, milky skin gone pasty, ankles swollen, but the same clean, small hands. The girl was locked in her room, forbidden to come downstairs while he was in the house. Jay imagined her, kneeling, fingering beads, naming the sorrowful mysteries, seeing her Jesus nailed to the cross. For me, Jay, he died for me, for my sins. And look what I’ve done .
    â€œYou’re never going to see my daughter again. You understand that?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œThe money, Mr. Tyler.”
    Jay pulled the crumpled envelope from his pocket.
    â€œYou know how old my daughter is?”
    â€œYes, sir, I do.”
    â€œAnd she’s gonna have her first child. She’s gonna let that baby go, and she’s never gonna be the same again. Five hundred dollars just bought you your freedom, but I’ll kill you and go to hell without regret if you ever come near my family again.” Above the mantel hung a painting of Jesus, not yet crucified but already heavy with knowledge, his white robe parted to expose a brilliant heart. This Jesus had beautiful hands, delicate and pale, but the heart was ridiculous, the shape a child would draw and much too large.
    Muriel’s mother blew her nose so hard she really did fart. Jay held out his hand to Mr. Arnoux. It was a stupid gesture, something his father would do, his way of saying he understood how troublesome women could be. Muriel’s father showed him the door.
    Jay knew that if he turned and looked up, he would see Muriel at the window, her palms flat on the pane, waiting to mouth the words: I’m sorry, Jay . She was sorry about everything. Sorry about being born and sorry about being female. Sorry she let him do it and sorry she