“Protest,” Gemini said. As he talked, he tore a piece of brown bread into many smaller pieces, and rolled the pieces into tiny balls, and then ate them, sparrowlike. He explained that Dice and his contacts were planning a log blockade, a sit-in and a hunger strike, all over the enormous site that the coal people had burned and wanted to rip up, almost two thousand acres. “We’re just trying to get in the way,” he said.

I’d never seen a protest like that. What had Isaac and I been doing, running around taking photos and stealing food from my mother’s kitchen for the squat? I felt ashamed for thinking our work had been so important.

“Is everyone going?” I said.

“A few people need to stay behind.”

“Can I go?” I wanted to prove myself to the family. I wanted to put my body on the line for nature—like Dice had said, not just recycling and LED bulbs, something more essential. I imagined telling Isaac about the blockades and the pipe arms.

Gemini wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I knew Dice had arrived by the sudden quiet. The family members put down their silverware. I wondered if they just did it naturally—and if one day I’d find it natural. He stood in the doorway, surveying us. Slowly he made his way around the table to me. He placed his hands on my shoulders. My skin was burning from that feeling where all emotions run together and all I feel is heat. His fingers were warm through my shirt. He smelled like ash. “Let’s welcome this young woman,” he said. Two dozen faces turned toward me, and I felt stupefied by their bright curious gazes. “She’s a good one,” said Dice.

“We know it!” said Sara.

“Her name will be Harmony, if she wants to stay,” Dice said. He squeezed my shoulder and I felt limp. I could feel my heart flickering in his palm. Quietly, so I almost couldn’t hear him through the ringing in my ears, he said, “We will never limit you like your mother did.”

My eyes filled with tears. I wondered if my mother had limited me or betrayed me or let me down. Not exactly, not specifically, but that didn’t make Dice’s grip on my shoulder any less true, and I began to forget how much I loved the flecks of rainbow twirling off those diamond earrings, my inheritance from her, her love of small beauties. The family watched me expectantly—and there was Bay, watching too, willing me to nod, to agree, to acquiesce. I felt myself crying. I may as well surrender, I thought. The gale came into me, and blew all my doors and windows open.

* * *