My Drowning Read Online Free Page B

through the woods that surrounded the house, you came to Moss Pond, where the woods were full of bobcats, snakes, and even bears. Nora and I made the trip together. I savored the black surface of the pond, the reflection of pine and sky. Nora in general disliked my company but preferred it to that of our brothers. Carl Jr. and Otis never invited us when they went fishing, but whatever they caught, we cleaned. I learned first to scrape the scales from the sides of the fish and later to cut the fins neatly at the base. Spines in the fins were sharp as needles at the ends and drew blood from careless fingertips. I worked as hard as I could but nothing I did ever pleased Nora, who herself moved with neatness and efficiency that I admired. Nora sawed off the fishheads and gutted the silvered bodies, scooping out mysterious soft masses that clung to her fingers. Cats yowled and marked the door, trying to climb inside, whenever we cleaned fish.
    Mama’s belly had swollen with a peculiar roundness, hard and smooth like a ripe squash. Nobody told me why. Because it was summer, we worked on Albert Taylor’s farm in his cotton field, or weeding in Ruby Jarman’s garden, or topping and suckering tobacco for Mr. James Allison, whom everybody respected because he was rich. I worked along with the rest, weeding and plucking on my hands and knees.Because I was so small, I could not hold a hoe to chop the cotton, but I pulled up handfuls of weeds that the hoe couldn’t reach. At night we were all exhausted, but especially Mama, and Nora boiled hot water for her to soak her feet. Nora made supper, dry beans most of the time, maybe with fried fish, and we ate near dark or after dark, in the first cool of the day.
    Mama began to talk about a new little baby in the house. She no longer dreamed about the dead baby boy, as if he had stayed behind at the Low Grounds. Nobody gave me the connection between the blossoming of Mama’s belly and the coming of a new baby; I was left to wonder.
    Daddy had quit being a farmer. People were after him for money, something about the farm, so when people came looking for him, Mama would say he wasn’t home even when he was. Daddy became a logger like Carl Jr. and worked when he felt like it. Other times he sat in the house. Here he had no fields to wander in, only the white-dirt yard in which no grass grew. He wandered among the trees there, or walked to the pond.
    Daddy and Carl Jr. listened to the war on the radio, between spells of country music. The war was a great thing, like a cloud. I was not sure which country was our country, but there was a lot of talk about what our army ought to do. My daddy and Carl Jr. pursued this discussion amicably and laconically, in their own manner.
    â€œI think we ought to go over there and whip their asses.”
    â€œYou’re right about that.” Daddy nodded his head as if he had thought about this a lot.
    â€œWas you in World War One, Daddy?” Otis asked.
    â€œNo. I ain’t that old.”
    The radio played as long as the batteries lasted. We listened to the Carter family, Grandpa Jones and his wife, Little Jimmy Dickens. Nora sang along with the music while she boiled water to wash the dishes.
    Because I was older now, I had more chores. I hauled wood a piece at a time to stack beside the stove and fireplace. I climbed on an old chair to pump water, as much as I could carry in a bucket. I dried dishes and stacked them to put away.
    On wash day I gathered clothes. Mama and Nora built a fire under the washpot and we filled the tubs with water while Otis chopped wood. Mama moved awkwardly, now and then placing a hand at her lower back. She and Nora sorted the sheets, underwear, workshirts, skirts, socks, all that we gathered from the bedrooms. Mama added the clothes as the water heated, tamping the cloth into the pot with a tobacco stick. The boiling took a long time, and Mama tended the fire with my help, directing me to shove