Free Lay It on My Heart by Angela Pneuman Page B

Then I swallowed the pill, and the tube I was in was in me
. That’s the whole letter.
    It’s a warm day. The big leaves of the sycamores look limp and tired after the long summer. A red-tailed hawk shuttles between the steep rock walls. I try to imagine myself inside myself, with my own breathing and heartbeat like weather around me. The river lifts and settles, pressing the warped planks of the dock against my shoulder blades. The water smells oily. My father has told me that at one time Kentucky was under a large inland sea. That’s why it’s full of limestone, which is made up of millions of tiny skeletons of tiny fish. Now all that’s left of the sea is the river, which flows eventually into the Mississippi. For centuries the river has pushed its way over and through and along the rock, carving the gorge.
    I hear Phoebe before I see her, grunting softly as she makes her way down the grass bank, dusty yellow summer squash in each hand. “I forgot all about these,” she says. “We can eat off the fruits of our labor.”
    â€œTechnically, it’s not
our
labor,” I say, since my father is the one who kept up with the garden before leaving for the Holy Land.
    â€œTechnically, I found them and picked them. That’s pretty laborious.” She steps out onto the dock, holding the squash out to her sides to keep her balance.
    â€œYou’re wearing my jeans,” I say.
    â€œNot your new pair. Not the ones I made you.” She is wearing the charity box Jordache pair, which fit her better than they fit me. Under stress, Phoebe gets smaller and smaller. She has new finger-sized shadows between her ribs. My ribs don’t even show anymore, and above them my breasts just get bigger and more painful. Sometimes I think they’re going to keep on swelling forever, the way my father’s tomatoes do on the vine, splitting wide open if you don’t pick them in time.
    â€œDid he say anything about me?” Phoebe says, lowering herself to a crouch. Then she loses her balance and sits down hard. A corner of the dock dips into the river, picking up a film of water.
    I hold out the letter. “Read it yourself,” I say. Which is rude. Phoebe’s mouth turns down and her chin points. She will hold the face until she gets an apology.
    â€œHe misses being home,” I say quickly.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHe says he loves you.”
    â€œMaybe I should take a look at that after all.” Phoebe sets down the squash and holds out her hand.
    As she reads, I watch the surface of the water. Sometimes it’s a black-green sheet of glass, but today you can see the current, flexing and unflexing like a long muscle. Soon Phoebe’s mouth is doing the pre-crying thing, like she’s sucking on a piece of hard candy. I know I should feel bad about lying, but what I feel instead is angry.
    â€œI want you to close your eyes with me, Charmaine,” Phoebe says, tucking in her chin. “Lord, first of all we thank you for teaching us not to take our mental health for granted.”
    I try to pray what she prays, but I can’t. Then I try to start up my own prayer, but I am fully in the grip of my fallen nature, and the only words that surface are ugly:
Lord, make my mother shut up
.
    â€œWe also give you the glory for this fine day,” she goes on.
    Shut up, shut up, shut up
, I pray. I can’t help it.
    â€œHelp Charmaine and I to support each other with honesty and respect. Amen.” Phoebe raises her head. “I just thought he might have said ‘Look after your mother,’ or something. You don’t have to make things up.”
    A breeze stirs the leaves around us and they flip over, changing entire trees to a paler, grayer shade of green, then back to normal. “What happened with the rubber hand?” I finally say, cross because she’s the only person I have to ask.
    â€œHe’s a little confused,” she says.