Free Cicada by J. Eric Laing

on trying to impress upon her that dogs responded best to short, one to two syllable names.
    “If you’re interested in a goldfish, we’re having a special this week. Bowl, gravel, one bottle of food and one fancy goldfish of your choice all for three dollars,” she said, concocting the deal off the top of her head.
    “Really?”
    “Mm-hmm,” she confirmed through pursed lips.
    From out back, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Jumbo barked ceaselessly as those two were wont to do.
    Buckshot let his hand creep up to the wad of coins and the single one dollar bill burning in his dungaree pocket.
    “How long that special gonna be for? Just the week?” he asked.
    “Well...no. For the rest of the month, I do believe,” she answered cautiously, testing whether or not that would be ample time for the boy to acquire the money.
    Buckshot didn’t pedal home as madly as he’d come. The disappointment of his fish-less predicament transformed his legs into leaden spaghetti, and, as a matter of fact, it was all he could do to keep his bike upright, so slow was his going. He wobbled back and forth with each lazy push against the pedals. At least twice he was honked at for so carelessly meandering along the shoulder of the road. As he went, his mind remained preoccupied with calculating just how many more days of his weekly allowance it would take to make up the difference he lacked between his three dollar goal and the one dollar and thirty-cents he currently possessed. The school year was over and so he couldn’t save his milk money anymore. The weekly allowance he’d been promised for helping around the farm full time was his only means of income. But that had yet to start coming in. A dollar a week meant his goal was at least two weeks away. Two lousy weeks . An eternity .
     

Chapter Nine
     
     
    She’d not found sleep until the wee hours, and, as a result, when Frances eventually did manage her way out of bed earlier that day it was much later than usual. By that time both Buckshot and John had slipped away. Buckshot was gone off to be disappointed that his secret goldfish was still beyond his financial grasp and John had disappeared to spy on the funeral of Raymond Stout for reasons that even he had trouble comprehending.
    Frances fretted over her son’s whereabouts and fumed as to her husband’s. She wandered into the kitchen with the intention of fixing herself a late breakfast, but after her distraction sent a coffee mug tumbling off the shelf and onto the floor, shattering into a blossom of ceramic shards, she collapsed down into a chair and became lost in thought. Around her feet the field of white ceramic slivers went ignored.
    She and John had first met so long ago that she couldn’t recall doing so. It just seemed that he’d always been in her life, beginning as an obnoxious little boy pulling braids and leaving earthworms in lunch pails for girls such as her to discover. Although her earliest recollections were sketchy, with the passage of years the ephemeral memories of John coalesced in her mind and her memories of him became more pronounced. There had been the night when she was nine or ten, when he’d come to a church social with the chicken pox. The boy’s hands had been sheathed by his mother in an old pair of socks to deter his scratching, Frances still recalled. The other children had teased him, of course. A week later, Frances, as well as several of John’s previous tormentors, had also become speckled with his infection.
    Of the other early memories Frances was most aware of the death of John’s brother, of course. Not surprisingly, that was the event that brought the girl’s future husband to her full attention. He was no longer the little boy who too often sat behind her, distracting her studies with his immaturity. Instead, he was the solemn young man who grieved a tragedy of romantic proportions. Or so Frances had once imagined. John had been transformed into a heroic figure in his