Free Sorrow Floats by Tim Sandlin Page A

next to the Dutch Master box turned cash register.
    The coffee cup kind of quivered in both my hands. “Taking drugs isn’t healthy, Dot, no matter what that Mexican says. God wants us to drink whiskey.”
    Dot laughed like I was kidding. “What can I get you, Maurey? Max went to the dentist after the breakfast rush, so I’ll fix it myself.”
    “Nothing but coffee, I only need coffee.”
    “Pooh on that, girl, you need nourishment. Why don’t you freshen up in the ladies’ room while I whip us up a snack.”
    Dot coming close enough to criticism to suggest I freshen up was the equivalent of Lydia telling me I looked like something the cat threw up.
    “Yeah, maybe I will,” I said, “but no food. I don’t want your food.” I took my coffee cup to the John. As I passed the counter I stopped to look at the Don Juan book. The cover showed a man and a cactus in burnt orange and burro brown. It was just the sort of drivel Park would have changed his life over. Myself, I distrusted all guru types. None of them wore jeans.
    ***
    In the bathroom I stripped down for a tick check. From what I could see of myself it was easy to understand the shock flash I’d caused Dot. A week like the one I’d just gone through is tough on the old body. A coma, or wherever I spent Monday afternoon through Friday morning, is great if you’re trying to lose weight but hell on the complexion. Only color on my entire body came from these bags under each eye. They were the same burro shade as the man’s blanket on the Don Juan book cover.
    I haven’t been much for long gazes into mirrors since the self-inflicted haircut a couple months after Dad’s thing. During the shower at Lydia’s I’d kept my eyes on my feet, right where they belonged. In the Killdeer can I discovered brand-new, never-seen bones—mostly around the hips and sternum. My eyes looked like peach cross sections with the pits removed.
    At fifteen I’d been regarded as the prettiest girl in the valley. Maiden aunts and horny politicians said so all the time. “Maurey, you’re the prettiest girl in the valley.” The only good to come of my downfall was to all those mothers who once said to their dogface daughters, “Just you wait. About the time you bloom she’ll be mud on a boot.” They must be dancing in the streets by now.
    ***
    I came back to Dot sitting across the table from just what I didn’t want—a rib-eye steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits, and a quart glass of tomato juice.
    “I said I didn’t want food.”
    She doubled her chubby fists around the salt and pepper shakers. “You aren’t leaving this room until that plate is clean.”
    The urge was to dump it all on the floor and say “The plate’s clean,” but Dot’s round face was such a study, with her chin out and her eyes blinking. She reminded me of a mama sage hen that spread her wings and attacked my shins once on the trail to Taggart Lake. The hen hissed and spit while her babies peeped in tiny bird panic. One swing of my hiking boot and I’d have kicked that chicken to kingdom come, but bravery in the helpless always gets me, especially if the helpless is a mother. I went way back around the other side of the creek and scratched the hell out of my legs on wild rose bushes.
    This time I sat down and cleaned my plate. It was really good. The steak was char rare running in blood, the mashed potatoes straight real stuff with lumps, no flakes added as a buffer. The biscuits were hot and homemade, and if they gave a Nobel Prize for gravy, which they should, Dot would have to learn Swedish.
    It was the first time in ages I’d taken pleasure out of anything more wholesome than Yukon Jack and masturbation. Dot held on to those salt and pepper shakers the whole time I ate. I think she’d committed herself to violence if I didn’t cooperate, and the relief from my not calling her bluff struck her silent.
    I felt softer. “Dot, what do you think I should do?”
    She watched me drain