Excerpt
“When
the baby----” I start, but Mama’s mouth smiles in a silencing
way.
She
keeps touching her face, the way she always does when she’s
anxious. So much so that, lately, sores have appeared along her jaw.
It’s as though she’s in there, somewhere, still a mother enough
to worry----but part of her mind and soul have been taken. As if her
body isn’t her own anymore.
I
know how she feels.
I
close my eyes, wishing myself away from here. One day it will be just
me and my baby, Anna. A better life, one day soon. God, please let it
be one day soon.
Mama
chews at the scabs on her lips and nods to the hills across the
street, to the waves of wheatgrass seeded with wildflowers. Closer to
the road, poppies grow in bright clusters that make the roadside more
vibrant, even in the dull light of our cloudy day.
“You
used to play in those fields,” Mama says.
I
don’t say anything. Mama doesn’t mind if I’m quiet. I just have
to nod along as she tells her stories, as she lives in the past,
talking about how Pa used to take me to the carnival and how Pa used
to braid my hair and how Pa used to take me to see the horses. I
think it makes her feel better.
I’m
old enough to know I should be angry with her. Old enough to think
she could’ve stopped him. But I’m not mad, and I don’t blame
her. It was the Darkness that did this to our family. They took Pa
when I was twelve. Made him different, first with his unnerving
stares and discomforting touches. Then something more. The Darkness
blinded Mama, or trapped her somehow. But the Darkness never took me.
Well,
not directly.
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