The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2022

196 The Meadow hesitation—in a covered wagon with horses, and his velvet-blue eyes smiled. I tied his shoes and led him quietly down the back stairs so they wouldn’t hear. It was always better to be quiet after the nights when they screamed at each other, the rasp of our stepfather’s voice splitting the darkness, calling our mother names I didn’t understand. Some of those nights I would hear Sandy crying and tiptoe into his room, climb in beside him and rock him into silence. So quietly then, the back stairs to the back door to the screened-in porch with the broken step that I lifted him over. I remember the worn dirt path through the arc of magnolia and ivy and my brother’s tiny feet in the shoes I tied scuffling up the dry red dust. How far is California he asked, and I looked off into the distance as though calculating a wise and thoughtful answer. We were almost to the river bank with the sagging, splintered dock where the water ran deep and fishermen stood without moving in the pale light. It’s way on the other side of the river I said, pointing to the distance, and I could see the doubt creep into his face. Then I said—again thoughtfully—it may be too far to go today and it looks like it might rain. Walking beside me, he nodded back—also thoughtfully—and I could have cried at the beauty of his five-year-old eyes that were the same pure blue as the river water coursing down through the mountain rocks and pushing past us. The rush of noise it made reminded me of a night wind in a storm. But I knew that beyond the reed-studded banks just ahead where it curved out of sight, the river turned into shallows that would be calm and white in the sun. There was a trail that ran all the way around the dense undergrowth of the bottomland, but that was a long way and I had seen snakes there and it was easier just to slip into the river. I felt the cold of the water, how good it was against my skin and the warm sun that answered it on my face and neck. Bright yellowy light that made me squint and turn back to smile at Sandy standing at the very edge of blue river. I knew he was afraid since he could not really swim, and I was a ten-year-old blond mermaid who had no fear, so I couldn’t really appreciate his fright. I knew it was there but I could not feel it and that’s when I said it to him.

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