Marsh is not swamp.
Marsh is not swamp.
Then within the marsh, here and there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests.
because decomposition is cellular work.
There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.
The morning burned so August-hot, the marsh’s moist breath hung the oaks and pines with fog.
Kya wanted to holler out but knew not to rouse Pa, so opened the door and stood on the brick-’n’-board steps.
Her tall figure emerged now and then through the holes of the forest until only swatches of white scarf flashed between the leaves. Kya sprinted to the spot she knew would bare the road; surely Ma would wave from there, but she arrived only in time to glimpse the blue case—the color so wrong for the woods—as it disappeared.
Jodie, the brother closest to Kya, but still seven years older, stepped from the house and stood behind her. He had her same dark eyes and black hair; had taught her birdsongs, star names, how to steer the boat through saw grass.
“Ma’ll be back,” he said. “I dunno. She’s wearin’ her gator shoes.” “A ma don’t leave her kids. It ain’t in ’em.” “You told me that fox left her babies.”
Jodie wasn’t nearly as sure as he sounded, but said it for Kya.
THE SHACK SAT BACK from the palmettos, which sprawled across sand flats to a necklace of green lagoons and, in the distance, all the marsh beyond.
Eyes downcast, the brothers and sisters shrugged.
The two older sisters cooked a supper of red beans and cornbread, but no one sat to eat at the table, as they would have with Ma.
Kya couldn’t eat. She sat on the porch steps, looking down the lane. Tall for her age, bone skinny, she had deep-tanned skin and straight hair, black and thick as crow wings.
Most dawns, smiling wide, Ma hugged her—“Good morning, my special girl”—and the two of them moved about the chores, dancelike.
Nodding like she knew.
Then, the hustle of getting everybody up and fed. Pa not there. He had two settings: silence and shouting. So it was just fine when he slept through, or didn’t come home at all.
THE NEXT MORNING, Kya took up her post again on the steps, her dark eyes boring down the lane like a tunnel waiting for a train.
He wanted to say something to get her mind off Ma, but no words came, so they watched the swimming shadows of water striders.
After Ma left, over the next few weeks, Kya’s oldest brother and two sisters drifted away too, as if by example. They had endured Pa’s red-faced rages, which started as shouts, then escalated into fist-slugs, or backhanded punches, until one by one, they disappeared.
She smiled to hide the letdown, and he patted the top of her head, gently shushing her to be quiet: if they didn’t wake Pa, they could eat alone.
She dashed into the kitchen, thinking Ma was home frying corn fritters or hoecakes. But it was Jodie, standing at the woodstove, stirring grits. She smiled to hide the letdown, and he patted the top of her head, gently shushing her to be quiet: if they didn’t wake Pa, they could eat alone.
As he stepped up beside her, she didn’t look at him but kept her eyes on the roiling waves.
She almost turned to him, but didn’t. Wanted to beg him not to leave her
She almost turned to him, but didn’t. Wanted to beg him not to leave her alone with Pa, but the words jammed up.
there. Run deep in the marsh, hide in the bushes.
Kya wanted to holler out that she may be young, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew Pa was the reason they all left; what she wondered was why no one took her with them. She’d thought of leaving too, but had nowhere to go and no bus money.
“This little piggy stayed home,” she said to the waves.
She sank onto his mattress, watching the last of that day slide down the wall. Light lingered after the sun, as it does, some of it pooling in the room, so that for a brief moment the lumpy beds and piles of old clothes took on more
She sank onto his mattress, watching the last of that day slide down the wall. Light lingered after the sun, as it does, some of it pooling in the room, so that for a brief moment the lumpy beds and piles of old clothes took on more shape and color than the trees outside.
All her life the room had been warmed from baking bread, boiling butter beans, or bubbling fish stew. Now, it was stale, quiet, and dark. “Who’s gonna cook?” she asked out loud. Could have asked, Who’s gonna dance?
She lit a candle and poked at hot ashes in the woodstove, added kindling. Pumped the bellows till a flame caught, then more wood.
When light from the quarter moon finally touched the shack, she crawled into her porch bed—a lumpy mattress on the floor with real sheets covered in little blue roses that Ma had got at a yard sale—alone at night for the first time in her life.
More comforting than three blind mice with a carving knife.
Up and out of the house before he rose, she lived in the woods and water, then padded into the house to sleep in her bed on the porch as close to the marsh as she could get.
where his left femur caught shrapnel and shattered,
that Monday morning, Pa pointed to a crumpled
MA HAD ALWAYS SAID the autumn moon showed up for Kya’s birthday. So even though she couldn’t remember the date of her birth, one evening when the moon rose swollen and golden from the lagoon, Kya said to herself, “I reckon I’m seven.”
Surely Ma would come back for her birthday, so the morning after the harvest moon she put on the calico dress and stared down the lane. Kya willed Ma to be walking toward the shack, still in her alligator shoes and long skirt. When no one came, she got the pot of grits and walked through the woods to the seashore.
“It’s my birthday,” she told the bird.