My Drowning Read Online Free

twicet.”
    â€œYes, you are, Otis. I can’t do it all by myself.”
    â€œI chopped that goddamn wood all day till I got blisters. I don’t see why I have to do everything.”
    But Daddy said, “Get your ass out there like I told you.” Otis stomped out the door, the screen slamming with a ringing echo.
    â€œI need to beat that youngun’s ass,” Daddy said thoughtfully, sopping the last of his coffee onto a biscuit. “Give me some more coffee.”
    Nora poured. On the radio played a song I knew, I could hear myself singing it under my breath. Daddy rolled his cigarette and smoked it. He tapped the ash on the biscuit plate. The coffee steamed as he lifted the cup.
    MAMA WENT TO bed. Nobody asked where she was. Everybody knew.
    Sometimes, most of the time, Daddy would linger by the fire, and he and Carl Jr. sipped whiskey or moonshine, and smoked cigarettes, and listened to the radio. Sometimes, Daddy went in to Mama.
    Tonight he stood by the fire awhile. Nora tended the flames to keep them burning, adding logs judiciously, mindful of our stock. Carl Jr. passed through with a last bucket of water. “Well’s about to freeze, like Nora said it would.”
    Nora set the water tub near the stove to keep it from freezing. She would stoke the fire before we slept and let the warmth drain out of it through the night. She and I would sleep out here tonight, in Uncle Cope’s bed, since he hadgone to his daddy’s house for Christmas. I liked the thought of sleeping in that bed. We would have extra blankets and the warmth of the dying fire, and clean sheets that Nora ironed.
    I went to bed in my cotton nightgown. Nora slept beside me, close. I could see through the grates of the stove into the embers of the fire. The silver dishpan and pitcher caught the orange reflection. Either I slept or I became hypnotized. All night I dreamed of doors opening and closing.
    THE BABY BOY drifts through the house on a current of air. I am riding behind him. The lifted edges of the baby’s shroud lap my face. I have become able to fly through the agency of the dead baby boy, and we are one cloud together. I have the feeling I may be as cold as the baby. We float down the hall, over Daddy’s work shoes, into the bedroom, where Daddy is lying on top of Mama in a strange huddle, and Mama sees us over his back, rises up, and screams.
    ON CHRISTMAS MORNING under the tree, between the empty lanterns, appeared a toy pistol for Joe Robbie and a small doll for me. A bushel of apples stood among the lower branches. Otis got a toy, too, I forget what.
    I held the doll in my hand loosely. Joe Robbie pointed the gun at my head.
    He took the doll, and I sat beside him while he stroked the skirt.
    I turned the pistol over and over in my lap. I liked the shape. Carl Jr. showed me how to hold it.
    The fox had frozen on the shelf in the back room. I wandered in there when no one noticed. The rigid carcass lay onthe flat surface, legs jutting straight in the air. A moulded pink tongue sprawled over yellow teeth. Frost had formed on the snout. Clearly dead, but for the eyes, which had a glint of fire.
    We ate leftover beans with ham. We used syrup and sopped it up with biscuit. We ate twice, plus biscuits in the morning. Daddy drank coffee with sugar the whole day and never stirred from the fire. He sipped whiskey through the long afternoon, listening to the radio till the batteries were weak.
    By the end of the day Joe Robbie screamed if I touched the doll. I sat dumbfounded beside him. The gun meant nothing to me, but, truth be told, neither did the doll.
    The apples were the best gift. I ate until I was sick from them. I ate as many apples as I could stuff into my belly. Never before had there been so much of a food that I could eat all I wanted. I ate the apples until I could hardly move. I lay flat on my back through the cold afternoon, in an ecstasy of digestion.
    Nora fought with Mama about my doll.