Free Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie Page B

camera with her eyes half-closed. I’ve never seen anyone like her, my momma.
    Rain patters the roof hard, then harder, until the sound is roaring over my head and all around me. The storm is here. It drowns out the whispering as I push my hands into the memories to select the next one.
    The snapshot I am guided to jerks me up by surprise and sets my hair standing on end. Micah’s face is swollen and he has bruises on his arms and legs. I’m bruised, too, and my hair is whacked into a whopping mess of ugly. Our mouths are turned down and it’s as if all our spirit is sucked right on out of us.
    I turn it over to read, “Look what I done to your young’uns, baby sister! Ha! That’s what you get for stealing Jackson from me.”
    I taste pennies and sour nasty churns up my throat when that summer slams up against me. The picture makes me madder than a nest of hornets.
    All a sudden, I want to burn the whole mess of memories into ashy piles of nothing. I could just spit fire and burn this damn house down with everything in it. I could walk away, wait for the rest of my life to happen. The curtains dance, the wind rushes to rustle the papers, the moon shines on all the evidence. I sass out, “Stop it, Grandma. I’m doing the best I can!”
    I stomp my foot. I shake my fist into the air. I’m a woman who’ll howl at the moon. I slam the door hard as I can slam it. It shakes the doorframe; it shakes the rafters, the house and the ground beneath me rumbles and roars. I holler out, “I hate you! Rot in hell!” I’m a little girl all over again with no more sense than to scream at ghosts. But I’m a grown little girl with the power to scream out my mad. I’ve had that scream in me for far too long. I have.
    I stand in the middle of my room and wait for something to happen. I sense Aunt Ruby laughing at my messy hair and clothes, my liquor-coffee breath, my sweaty-flushed cheeks, my memory-struck face. I lean out the window, let the storm cool me, soothe me, the mists bathe over me, then I turn in a strong full circle, stamping my feet. When I stop, I’m alone.
    No ghosts dare face me now.
     

Chapter 8
    That woman is a terror
    I was feeling cat-lazy, flopped on the hallway floor doing a connect the dots puzzle, half listening to Daddy putting ice in a glass and Andy giggling to himself in his room, when I heard Momma’s whiny baby voice.
    “Fix me one, too. I’m hot and tired.”
    “Coming right up.” Daddy had his I’m-happy-even-though-I-hardly-smile voice.
    “Hurry up. I got an idea that’ll settle our worry-bones.”
    I slid on my stomach to the doorway to peep and listen.
    Daddy put Momma’s glass on the coffee table and sat on his green chair. “What’s up?”
    She took a big swallow, fell back on the couch, and put the glass against her forehead. “I don’t have a speck of time to myself around here.”
    “Oh come off it.”
    “And you’re always gone off somewhere.”
    “I’m home every night in time for dinner.”
    “Oh whoopee dee doo! My husband comes home for supper. Oh, I mean dee-ner . Didn’t mean to get all hicked up.” Momma crossed her eyes. “He-yuck he-yuck, I’m from Wes’ Virgeener.”
    “Katie . . . ” Daddy ran his hands through his hair making it stick straight up.
    “I’m stuck here alone with three kids.”
    “And I work all day.”
    “We used to have fun.” Momma flapped her legs open and shut, then lifted her skirt up and down, fanning herself.
    “What do you want me to do about it?” Daddy stared into his glass.
    Momma sat up straight. “Let’s send Virginia Kate and Micah up to Ruby’s for the summer. Her boy’s gone off to some camp for stupid kids.”
    I froze right up, inside and out.
    Momma said, “She won’t take all three, but she can handle the two older ones, after I reminded her I took care of Pooter-Boy when she had her vacation.”
    Daddy finished his drink and stood up. “That woman is a terror.”
    I took in a big breath, left it