It’s my turn. The wind darts through my costume, pressing my nipples uncomfortably against the polyester. I stand in swirling snow on the Griffin’s lawn. Six forms sit on the porch. They look like Halloween decorations many of us have on our porches. Burlap bags in the shapes of witches, vampires, ghosts. Filled with raked autumn leaves, old newspaper, hay.
But here, only three of the shapes are filled with these things. I try not to look too closely, afraid of figuring out which form contains what. I step up to one of the shapes propped lopsided on the porch. The hood of my costume falls over my eyes. Does Death contend with this? Fabric tripping his worn feet, snow blinding his hollow eyes?
I blink away moisture. Lift my scythe. I had practiced swinging the day before, making sure I could do it easily without bouncing the side of the blade off its target. I suck in a lungful of freezing air. Shake my head to shift the black hood from my vision.
“
I step onto the porch. The shapes in front of me are still. They sag forward into the chairs they’ve been tied to. I lift the scythe into the air and bring it down quickly. As I do so, I notice that the dusting of snow on the porch floorboards is already tinged with pink, like a spilled cherry snow cone. I can’t stop the scythe’s momentum. It strikes the burlap, slices through with ease, and I feel the slight resistance of (newspapers, leaves) against the blade. The blade sticks. I yank it out, turning quickly so that I won’t have to see anything (leaves, newspapers) that might spill out.
I pick another target and swing.
I hear a low, muffled moan. I close my eyes. Let the snow blow against me. I can’t tell which bundle the moan comes from. I hear it again and force myself to walk away.
Maybe it’s not a moan. Maybe it’s just the wind through the trees. I can’t know, not for sure. I can’t know, and the sound of liquid splattering on the snow behind me…
I walk faster, careful not to trip over my cheap black robe. The warm lights of my home draw near. I see the glow of the television through the window. The scythe is light in my hands, and I stop suddenly and plunge the blade into a snowdrift to clean it off. What if I had put it in the garage only to have my son find it the next day, freshly stained?
When I enter, Lydia is calling his name. I shake snow off my costume. There are blisters on my hands.
“Darren?” Lydia comes into the kitchen as I slide my costume up over my head. “Have you seen Darren?”
“He’s not in his room?”
“His jacket’s gone. His hat, his gloves.”
I look at her, search her face. She can’t be serious. She can’t be—
I race out of the house without a jacket, sweat shiny and freezing on my skin. I run to the bottom of the driveway. “Darren!” I call. “Darren!”
Daytime reveals unpicked apples, fragile as glass, hanging from brittle branches. There is a subtle shift in white where the earth meets the sky.
Down at the Griffin house, the snow is piled thick, and the six bundles have been hauled away. There is no trace of trick-or-treaters in their driveway or on their lawn. One of their cars sits on the curb cocooned in white.
School is called off due to the storm.
Darren is still not home.
Finally, our phone rings. Jill Bryant’s name appears on the caller ID, but there’s a long pause during which she only breathes.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says, “but we had to do it.”
My fingers grow numb on the phone. “What are you telling me?”
“I want a peaceful, quiet neighborhood to raise my daughter,” she says, her voice trembling. “That’s all.” She hangs up.
I run out onto our driveway and call and call my son’s name until my voice grows hoarse and useless.
Spring is a long time coming.
A Healthy Glow
It’s a hard life here on the farm. Harsh winters. Summers hot and dry as ash. Crop failures. Disease. Sven drinks too much. Gets a bit too loose with the tongue and fists. I have the marks to prove it, and I know for a fact there are marks on my brain from some of the names he calls me. But I’ve got my babies. Thank God I’ve got my babies. Whenever things get me down, I just look at my belly, see and feel the little kicks and wiggles, and know that life ain’t so bad.
I’m working on number eleven now. You’d never guess Sven was so potent from the looks of him. But I’d guess he’d say the same about me. Calls me Fertile Myrtle. Calls me worse things, too. But it’s gotten easier and easier to tune him out. He’s just a bunch of white noise, like a fan on low, it’s blades whirling in endless circles just to move a little air from here to there.
I don’t let him touch me when I’m with child. Least not in a biblical way. He still touches me in other ways. The back of his hand. The heel of his boot. He leaves bruises most of the time, but I tell him, “You stay away from the baby.”
“What you care about that for?” he asks. “What you care if the baby gets a little taste?” And he smirks, like he’s daring me to say something more. Usually I hold my tongue, and the times I can’t, I turn enough so that the bruises land on my sides and back. But he doesn’t hit as hard when I’m with child. And that’s a good thing.
There are nights he comes to bed after drinking in the barn, drinking that terrible moonshine whiskey Matt Hemple makes, and lays his head on my stomach. He likes to feel the baby kick against the side of his face. I stroke the back of his head. It’s the only time he lets me touch him without hitting back. I almost love him then.
Almost.
And sometimes he comes up with names for the baby. Silly, desperate names, like he’s grasping, trying to get a hold of I don’t know what.
“How do you like Criminy?” he asks.
“What kind of a name is Criminy?”
“It’s a good name.” He stands there a moment, his eyes blank and bloodshot. Then he goes back to the barn. Tends to his tractor or his cows. Like he woke a moment from a dream, and then the dream grabs back hold of him.
Number eleven.
What shall I name him? Or her? With the others, I started out with bible names: Matthew, Luke, Mary, Ezekial. Then I went with Presidents and their wives: George, Ronald, Nancy, Jackie. And the last two, Johnny C. and Reba, I named after my two favorite singers.
I think if this one’s a boy, I’ll name him Jesus. Not Hay-Seuss, like a goddamn Mexican, but Jee-sus. As in the Son of God. As in crucified, died and gone to Heaven.
Sven’ll think I’m blaspheming, but I’ll just tell him to go to hell. And then I’ll ask him, “Don’t you want your son to be named after the Son of God?” He’ll hit me. I’m sure of that. He’ll punch me a good one in the face.
But not in the belly. Never in the belly these last weeks with child. It’s the one power I have over him. The one thing I have that he doesn’t.
He’s got his tractors, his crops, his barn, his booze, his fists, his tough talk.
But I’ve got the womb.
And goddamn, if there’s nothing he wants worse than this child…
This baby in me — I feel it kicking now. Mostly at night when I’m lying in bed and Sven’s snoring next to me. I feel it moving around, like it’s dancing to the beat of my heart.
When I put my hand on my belly, it calms me. Makes me forget for a moment the aches and pains, the
