The Reservoir Read Online Free

her crinkled face. “Just a week, I think,” Tommie says.
    “Come in and I’ll get you some dinner,” she says. “Or are you expected at Aunt Jane’s?” It’s an old routine—he’ll eat a little something, even if only some cold biscuits and last year’s canned peaches. It’s just after noon, and though his stomach is gnawing him, the idea of eating anything makes him feel nauseated.
    “I am a little bit hungry,” he tells his mother. He sits at the square table in the kitchen and pushes a stack of papers and books out of the way to clear a space. A broom leans against the other chair as though she has been cleaning just now, yet the dust and dirt seem little changed since the last time he was here. The water stain in the ceiling looks bigger.
    Tommie’s mother sets a plate of cured ham and applesauce in front of him. “I wish I had some coleslaw to go with it. I know you like it. But I can put a pot of beans on. I just have to light the stove. The wood’s already in there.”
    “No, Mama, don’t. This is all I want. I don’t have a taste for beans right now.”
    “I have to put them on for your father’s supper anyway. You’re so thin, and you work so hard. Let me just look at you.” She leans back and peers up at him through the half-light. Her hair is still a rich chestnut, her eyes clear and filled with love for her favorite son.
    Tommie shakes his head and inquires after her health. She removes a pile of clothes from the other chair and sits down and starts telling him the details of her last bout of illness. “And your father’s joints are mighty cruel to him. I expect it’s rheumatism. The doctor says it’s gout, but look at how thin he is. The liniment is some benefit, but the pills don’t help much.”
    Tommie has heard all this before; he picks up a carved wooden object on the table and asks his mother what it is. She laughs and shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she says. “Something your brother carved. I think maybe it’s a bear. He says it’s a mythical animal. What do you think it is?”
    Tommie studies it a moment. “Could be a boar, or a bear. A mythical object?”
    “Willie says he’s taken to carving things when he feels like his mind is wandering away from him. I thought that was a curious thing to say. I don’t think he’s been the same since he broke off with Fannie Lillian.”
    Tommie stares at the carved animal. “That was years ago,” he says. “He’s had lots of girls since then.”
    “Lillian was what they called her. Wasn’t it?”
    “Yes, that’s what they call her.” He does not take his eyes off the figurine, and it seems to him to be changing shape there on the table, sprouting horns and moving toward him. He feels suddenly so tired he can barely keep sitting up.
    “What is it, son?”
    “What?”
    “Looks like something’s bothering you.”
    Tommie shakes his head. He flashes to an image—ripples on the dark surface of the water. “No, I’m just a little tired.” He can hear the clanking of heavy machinery. Where?
    “Go on back to the bedroom and take a nap. Nobody’ll disturb you.”
    Tommie tells her that Aunt Jane is expecting him soon, and his mother smiles sadly. “Thanks, Mama,” he says. He kisses her good-bye and tells her he’ll be around in a few days and that he’ll get Willie to bring her some wood and fix her roof.
    When he heads out the bright day has suddenly gone cloudy and cold the way it will in March. It’s a mile up the Trace, along fields and woods, to the turnoff for Cedar Lane; a buggy driver stops and offers him a ride, but he politely declines. He and his mother used to look at catalogues and picture books together and fantasy what it would be like to live in a big city or sail to a foreign capital and visit the castles and museums. He knew he was her favorite, and after Charles died she seemed to become even more attached to him, as though she could make up for the lost love by loving him even more. His