Wire Mesh Mothers

51

Mistie heard something, someone, scream, and she tried to open her eyes but they were glued shut. It sounded a little like Mama screaming.

“Valerie!” Mama had screamed and Daddy had said, “Shut your face, you wanna be thrown in prison?”

“Valerie!” Mama had screamed, and Mistie had cried, a higher sound that blended with Mama’s into something like a song. But the screams and the cries were all Mistie recalled, the wailing voices in the kitchen in the apartment in Kentucky.

Daddy had said, “It was a bad liver. We can’t help she had a bad liver.” And he had buried her somewhere where no one could find out it wasn’t a bad liver.

That was all Mistie knew. It was too far away, Kentucky. It was too long ago, Valerie.

The scream came again. Mistie scratched the glue from one eye and looked out in the fire-lit barn where the teacher was standing over the girl, and it was the girl who was screaming.