Free Marrow by Tarryn Fisher

To be alone. To feel unloved.
    I get up and walk out of the kitchen. Out the front door. I’ll go get the cigarettes.
    When I walk past Judah’s house, he’s sitting outside in his chair, slapping at the bugs landing on his arms.
    “Hey Margo!” he calls. “Where you going?”
    “To say goodbye to Nevaeh.” And also to buy cigarettes.
    “Take me with you.” I don’t question him. I just walk up the pathway to his house and push his chair toward the street. He’s wearing one of the shirts I bought for him from the Rag—the one with the little hearts. It looks good on him, which makes me sour. I can’t even take him down when I try. He’s quiet as the wheels of his chair squeak across the pavement. One of his hands is up and under his chin as he looks off to the side. His eyelashes are black and thick. They remind me of broom bristles, and then I feel ashamed that I’m comparing a man’s eyelashes to broom bristles. He must have gotten those from his dad since Delaney is as fair as I am.
    “Do you have your groceries and shit bag?” he asks me suddenly.
    “Yeah.” I move my body so he can see it hanging at my waist.
    “Good,” he says. “There is a memorial for Nevaeh, over at her mom’s house.”
    I’m quiet for a moment. I wonder if he wants to go. I walk past the corner store where I usually buy my mother’s cigarettes and turn toward the main road. “Let’s go get her some flowers,” Judah says. There’s a Wal-Mart a few blocks up. I tell him that’s where I’m going. He points out a secondary pathway that’s not quite as bumpy as the one we’re on, and I wheel him over. As we walk, people call out to him.
    “Hey Judah.”
    “What’s up, Judah.”
    “What’s up, man. You look good.”
    “Wanna come hang out tonight? We gonna play poker, and Billy is bringing over his shit.”
    Judah declines multiple invitations to “hang out” and tells them he’s going to Nevaeh’s memorial.
    “Who?” they ask.
    “The little girl they found by the harbor. Man, where the hell is your head?”
    Their eyes darken at that point. Yeah man, that’s some shit , they say. Fucked up, that’s what it is. That shit happening to a little kid.
    Judah tells them to come to the memorial. He tells them she was one of us, and we have to go remember her.
    Everyone knows him. They give me strange looks, like I’m the one in the wheelchair. It’s because they don’t see his chair. Judah is Judah. How large does a person’s humanity have to be to look past their big, clunky wheelchair? I wonder how large I can make myself so that no one will see my fat, or my mother, or my ugly face? Then they’ll call out.
    “Hey Margo.”
    “What’s up, Margo.”
    “Looking good, Margo.”
    I give the back of Judah’s head a dirty look.
    We go straight to the toy aisle in Wal-Mart. I choose a stuffed unicorn, because I’d like to believe Nevaeh is somewhere better—magical. Judah wants to get flowers. He asks me to grab a bunch of rainbow carnations that he can’t reach. I hand them to him, and for a little moment our hands are wrapped around the same bunch of flowers. He squeezes my fingers like he knows I’m hurting.
    “Can you hand me the roses too?” he asks.
    He holds the flowers and the unicorn while I wheel his chair to checkout lane. After we pay, he hands me the roses.
    “These are for you,” he says. A woman walks by, her arms loaded with blue and white bags, and looks at us strangely.
    I must look dumbfounded, because he presses them into my hands and says, “I’m sorry about Nevaeh.”
    I clutch the roses, my eyes brimming with tears. No one has ever bought me flowers. I try to be normal as I wheel him out the door and back into the street. I won’t let go of the roses even when he offers to hold them for me. I don’t let my tears spill, or my heart spill. Tonight is about Nevaeh, and I won’t be selfish.
    Since the local news picked up Nevaeh’s story, there is a bigger turnout than I