Free The Unraveling of Mercy Louis by Keija Parssinen

category for the less-than-nothings? It would be a PR nightmare for clothing brands, all those self-esteemy parents in a tizzy over the message being sent to their shrinking daughters. Thankfully, Mama isn’t one of those parents; she’s too caught up in her own body woes to concern herself with her daughter’s. Which is just fine with Illa. Because so what if she wants to be light as cotton candy, a puff of cloud that can soar on the wind? What is so wrong with wanting to be small? It means you’re that much closer to invisibility, and invisibility can be a superpower. Her entire life, Illa has relied on it to protect herself. So long as she kept under the radar, no one could see to hurt her.
    Mama calls from the base of the stairs: “Illa?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYou coming down? I need my shot.”
    â€œYup,” she says, mildly annoyed to be rushed on what is, after all, the first day of her summer vacation. Still, she knows the shot is time-sensitive; how often has Dr. Lawrence warned her to be sure to administer the shots at the same time every day, speaking slowly like she’s a little girl or perhaps a nonnative English speaker? Meanwhile, she’s never missed a dose, has been a damned shot-giving machine.
    She slips through the bedroom door and jogs down the steps, where Mama waits for her at the base of the stairs. Taking hold of the wheelchair’s handles, she pushes Mama toward the kitchen. The television is tuned to one of those morning news shows where the anchors wear jaunty skirt suits and talk about fad diets and celebrity books. When Mama talks about these smiling women, she uses their first names as if they’re personal friends.

    â€œCome here, girl,” Mama says, pulling Illa into the hard plastic arm of the wheelchair in her version of a hug. That’s when Illa gets a sour whiff, the unmistakable smell of an unwashed body.
    â€œMa, stop.” Illa squirms free in knee-jerk distaste.
    â€œAh, yes,” Mama says. “Can’t be taken for a mama’s girl.”
    â€œRight,” Illa says, pulling a grapefruit from the fridge and slicing it open with a serrated knife. She remarks the pleasing tug of the knife’s teeth against the fruit’s peel and wonders if this will be the most satisfying thing she does all day. During the summer, her allowance goes up to cover the extra hours she works, but it isn’t enough to compensate for the boredom. These endless summer days, just her and Mama, the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds, the card games abandoned for long naps from which they both wake grumpy and dry-mouthed.
    â€œThey’re talking about that baby,” Mama says, pointing at the TV. “Turn it up.”
    Sure enough, one of the anchors, the blond one, is standing in front of a map of Texas, pointing to the little red dot in the southeastern corner of the state. Illa finds the remote and cranks the volume.
    â€œSome of you will remember a couple years ago when we reported on the baby born at the prom in New Jersey left in the trash by its mother, who kept on partying. Well, we have a story almost as horrifying, this time out of Texas. Yesterday a fetus was discovered stuffed into a beer box in a convenience-store dumpster . . .”

    The woman goes on to say that the discovery has shocked Port Sabine, a deeply religious, severely economically depressed swampland presided over by the sprawling Sands Oil refinery, the fourth largest in the nation. She rattles off some depressing statistics about unemployment, teen pregnancy, poverty, and pollution. “This isn’t the first time the town has known tragedy,” the anchor starts, doing that weird frown-smile they must learn in newscaster school when they’re trying to reflect gravitas. On the screen, the photo of the crumbling Pleasure Pier with its decrepit carousel and sagging Ferris wheel is replaced by that all-too-familiar shaky