Free Nearer Than the Sky by T. Greenwood Page B

hands, a tube that is connected to Lily’s bottom, a bag of water at the end like the kinds you see on All My Children when someone’s in the hospital. And Ma is kneeling next to her, her hair spilling like lemonade across one shoulder. She is pushing the tube into Lily, holding her butt to keep her still. But Lily doesn’t scream, she only grabs handfuls of orange carpeting from the bath mat. I can see it between her fingers. Hold still, baby. Hold still.
    I stand in the orange-daisy yellow, bare-bulb light of the midnight bathroom and stare at Ma’s hands working quickly, making that tube disappear. And I know that whatever Ma is doing to Lily is worse than anything she might do to me if I wet the bed.
    I must have made a sound, because Ma turns her head and sees me there, stands up so quick she bangs her head on the light bulb. “Shit,” and it is swinging and the light is flashing off and on like when Daddy plays Monster in the living room at night (until Ma reminds him about the lightning). Then it goes completely dark and Ma is cussing softly. And then all I smell is the dark, awful smell of excrement. The terrible, earthy smell of when the dog next door gets loose and messes in the yard, the stink of the bathroom after Daddy on Sunday mornings. I feel my stomach turning and then I can’t hold it anymore. The pee is hot on my leg. It runs all the way down one side and then pools underneath my foot.
    I feel Ma’s hands on my back pushing me out the door. I’m giving Lily her medicine, Indie. Go back to bed. And she is pushing me so hard that she must not even notice that I wet myself.
    When I am back out in the hallway, the light goes on again under the crack in the door, and Ma is whispering to Lily. It’s okay, honey. You’ll be better soon. Everything will be okay.
    In this particular dream, I cannot find the puzzle piece that explains what Ma was doing to Lily inside the orange daisy room in the middle of the night. So, instead I grab a dark jagged piece from the puzzle box and make it fit into that crack under the door so I don’t have to see the bright light or hear my mother’s apologies.

I got up early, just past six o’clock, but Rich had already left for work. Lily had squeezed fresh orange juice with oranges from the tree in the front yard. There were eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce and fresh paprika sprinkled on top of perfectly round poached eggs. Freshly ground coffee with real cream.
    “What time do you want to go to the hospital?” I asked.
    “Rich said he’ll take you when he comes home for lunch,” Lily said, refilling my juice glass.
    “You’re not coming with me?”
    “I really can’t leave,” she said. “I should stay here with Violet.”
    “Why doesn’t Rich watch her?” I asked. I held my fork tightly and stared at Lily, who would not look at me.
    She shook her head. “Besides, you’ll just pick her up and bring her back here. The hospital’s close. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. Ma knows I’m not coming.”
    “Did you talk to her?” I asked, wondering how I could have missed this conversation unless Lily was on the phone with Ma in the middle of the night.
    “I called the hospital this morning to find out what time they were going to discharge her. They said she’d be ready at noon.”
    “I really wish you would come with me. I’m not sure I want to do this on my own.”
    “You won’t be alone,” Lily said, smiling. “Rich will go with you. Ma likes Rich, though I have no idea why.”
    I watched her to see if she might give in. The hard veneer of her expression did not change. She merely blinked her eyes quickly like she always does when she wants to dismiss something.
    I poked the sharp tines of my fork into the resistant egg, and the yellow center ran thickly over the pink disk of Canadian bacon and perfectly toasted English muffin. But when I raised the forkful to my lips, I couldn’t eat. The egg white made me nauseous and I set the fork