Free Snakeskin Road by James Braziel Page B

to say other things, but her arm tensed and Mazy pulled back.
    “I’m not feeling too well,” she answered the girl, the lie rehearsed and ready.
    “Me either,” Mazy said, and when Jennifer reached over to touch her, Mazy didn’t move and neither did Jennifer’s guilt.
    “I’m sorry,” Jennifer said, and Mazy nodded, but that didn’t help either, so she asked, “Have you been to your cousins’?”
    “No.” It was Lavina who answered. She was still watching the crowds push slowly to the tents. “It’s not really good once you get outside the square, especially for a journey that long.” She marked a direction with her finger. “They’re up north. They’ve set up shelters in the north, too—that’s what I heard. A place close to Lincoln, but we haven’t chanced it,” and she rubbed the back of her neck, rubbed the sweat into her jeans. “I did find a place to sleep. It’s too hot right now and too much daylight. People could follow us. But in evening we’ll go over. Can you make it?”
    Jennifer nodded.
    “It’s better us three than you by yourself. You still got that glass?”
    Jennifer pulled it carefully from her pocket, then slid it back, and as she did, her arm caught on the stationery box wrapped underneath her shirt.
    “No one’s taken it,” Mazy said, pointing at the box like Lavina had pointed north, that same response of touching at the air. “What’s inside?”
    And Jennifer grabbed the squared edges to hide them deeper and fuller, make the box invisible somehow, as if she could make these things invisible. But she had already turned Mazy away once.
    “Letters to my mother in Chicago,” she said. “Would you like to write something?” She got the box out, pulled the top off.
    And Mazy bit her lip, gazed down at her hands. The skin had already shriveled along the backs of Mazy’s knuckles like ditches the river channels carved into slumped beds, then left to dry, not at all like Mazy’s face, still full over the knobbed bones, those same bones so pronounced on Lavina.
    “No need for letters, her mama’s right here,” Lavina offered. “Besides, she can’t write. I never put her in school.”
    “It was a long time before I went to school,” Jennifer said. “In fact, I was older than you are. I bet you can draw.” She took out the small notebook and pencil and handed them to the girl. She closed the lid and gave the box to Mazy to use as a desk.
    “Ma’am?” Mazy looked up at her mother, pencil flat to the paper.
    “Of course, you can draw. Go ahead. She can,” Lavina said to Jennifer. “Loves to. I keep notepads just for Mazy, but they’re in our suitcase on the bus. No good now.”
    “I’m not trying to upset you,” Jennifer said.
    “You’re not upsetting
me.”
Lavina crossed her arms and hooked her thin neck back, indignant at what Jennifer had said, or had she been caught off guard? Jennifer wasn’t sure.
    Mazy stopped drawing and looked at her mother again.
    “Go ahead, Mazy. Show Jennifer a picture.” She waved her hand at her daughter. “She’s good with faces. Besides, you might be doing that all day, which is more than we’ll be doing. I’m not mad,” Lavina chuffed. “There’s too much else to be mad at. The government, for one. And all these people—it’s damn making me claustrophobic. I wish they’d just move out.” She shooed a hand at the crowd, rubbed the back of her thin neck.
    “Just in case someone decides to mess with us …” She pulled up her shirt to reveal the butt of a knife, her stomach drawn and the bottom of her ribs showing. Jennifer noticed a scar across her stomach like a long worm.
    “You see that?” She turned in closer to Jennifer. “That’s where they pulled Mazy out of me, and Lord,” she grimaced, “I know what it’s like to be sliced into. And holler? Lord did I holler. ‘Won’t feel a thing,’ the doctor said. ‘Okay, Doctor. Okay.’” She nodded. “Let me tell you, didn’t know what the