Free Effigy by Alissa York Page B

word better suited to a skinny creature with hair falling out in clumps than to this bed-load of lard I have become. If only it were true fat and not fluid. Do you know I pressed the pen to my forearm before I began writing and the pit is still there. If I could reach my sewing basket and pluck out a needle I should be sorely tempted to auger holes in this flesh of mine. In any case it would do no good. The fluid does not run like the water in a creek but settles like that in the creek bed. I am drowning yes but not in water. In mud.
    Dorrie there are times when I can scarce pry up an eyelid and why should I wish to when all about me I see nothing butdisorder and dirt. The girl has made her mark on the place all right. You would not recognize the kitchen. The last time I managed to drag myself out there the sight gave me such a pain up under my ribs I was certain I should faint dead away. Do not think me ungrateful. I know it is she who turns me in the bed and lifts me onto the pot and washes my most secret parts without a single unkind word. But must the cloth she washes me with always be left to moulder in the basin when it ought to be rinsed and wrung out to dry? Must the sheets when she finally comes round to changing them always be stiff and scratchy straight off the line? Must they be grey?
    Do you remember how white you and I brought the linens out my girl? Mother’s little laundry maid. The first time you helped me pin pillow slips and tea towels to the drooping line I so looked forward to fixing the pole and hoisting the laundry high. I was certain the sudden fluttering would delight you. Forgive me Dorrie I should have thought. I never would have dreamt a child of seven years could cover such ground. It took all the breath I had in me to catch you and gather you up wailing in my arms.
    You were always such a help to me. Even after you started work on your animals you never once troubled me with your mess. I don’t believe I picked up so much as a curl of down or a tuft of fur. The girl could take a page from your book. I can see her out the window now standing on a potato plant watering in the full sun. But why concern myself when I feel certain I will no longer tread the earth by the time she’s grubbing up her stunted crop.
    Dorrie can I hope to set eyes on you before I die? I do so hate to harp but you are three years married now my girl and you have never once come home. Will Mr. Hammer not allowit? You never say if he is a good husband to you. You write so seldom and when you do your letters are so very thin. Always you mention your latest specimen. I believe a badger was your last. The rest I am left to guess at.
    Daughter are you well? Have you one friend among Mr. Hammer’s other wives or perhaps among their children? You were a child yourself when you married him after all no matter what your father claims. Dorrie I cannot bear to think of you living as your mother does in the midst of others and yet alone.
    Is Mr. Hammer kind to you? Does he treat you with any sort of care? He did not impress me overly with his character. You will know this Dorrie. You will have heard me argue the point with your father. That was before he gave up all right to the title by bartering you away.
    My girl I should not write this but I do. On my wedding night I bled so I believed I was dying. Your father No I shall call him Mr. Burr from here on. To think I ever called him by his Christian name. Lyman. I have not spoken it aloud in three years. I shall never do so again.
    On the night of the day that saw me sealed to him Mr. Burr rose from the bed and left me to my bleeding saying it was not for a man to have knowledge of such things. The flow stanched in the end but not before I had watched myself turn pale as a lily in the mirror that stood across from our bed. The same bed I lie in now. So many years I shared this rickety iron boat with that man. So many nights I woke to his howling and lulled him back down only to lie