Free Nether Regions by Nat Burns

afternoon’s tea. You’d best get on with what you’ve got to do before you get yourself in trouble.”
    Clary rose and strode out the kitchen door. Sophie leaned back in her chair and laughed ruefully.
    * * *
    “We sure are glad you’re sticking to the old ways, Miss Sophie. Your grandma saved my daddy’s arm with nothing but a bandage and some root herbs. And this after Doc Franklin had given up on it.”
    Myria Pulet’s smile was big and infectious, and her dark eyes gleamed with joy even when she was sick or in pain. Sophie had seen her through many highs and lows during the past twenty years.
    “I’m glad too, Myria,” she replied, packing up unopened gauze packages and surgical tape and taking a seat at the kitchen table. “There’s a whole lot more to healing than just doling out medicine. You’ve got to work with nature.”
    Myria leaned to push gently at the bandage newly fastened to her right calf. It was a stark white against the dark chocolate of her skin. “How long you reckon it’ll take for this to heal?”
    “Now, Myria. What do we always say?” Sophie chided gently.
    Myria smiled again and laughed, embarrassed. “Seven days. Don’t ask until seven days.”
    “That’s right. The good Lord made the world in seven days according to the Bible. It’s foolish for us to expect any more than that.” Myria’s grandchildren, playing in the cabin doorway, attracted Sophie’s attention. Poor as dirt, they were nevertheless happier than anyone would have a right to request.
    Kinsie, the youngest girl, was playing with a cricket that had wandered inside. Clearly understanding that a cricket in the house means good luck, she was endeavoring, squatting on chubby toddler legs, to coax the departing cricket back inside.
    “Let it go on, Kinsie baby. More will come.”
    Kinsie swiveled to look at Sophie. The other children stilled and studied her as well.
    “More crickets?” Kinsie spoke well for her age, although a pronounced lisp accented her S sounds.
    “Ummhmm. You can’t force him to stay. It stops the magic, you know.”
    Raleigh, six years old and unusually affectionate for a boy his age, crawled into Sophie’s lap and wrapped one skinny arm about her neck. With breath scented from morning cereal, he addressed her in a very adult voice. “You mean the crickets won’t come back, right?”
    “Yep, they won’t come visit if you take away their free will. We all like that free will, don’t we?”
    “Free will,” agreed Kinsie, rising and watching the cricket crawl outside into the morning sunlight.
    “Why do you have Raleigh today, Myria?” Sophie asked, cupping the boy’s chin with one hand and examining his face. “He’s not sick is he?”
    Myria rose and walked carefully into the kitchen. “No. Just a triflin’ mama. She wouldn’t get outta the bed in time to get him ready for school.” She lit the gas fire under one of the stove burners and blew out the match with an emphatic grunt.
    Sophie looked at Raleigh, somnolent on her lap and thought of his mother. Floray, Myria’s daughter, was as good-natured as her mother, but depression and hopelessness attacked her often. Divorced from a common-law marriage, with four children and a job at the local CVS pharmacy, Floray had a solid foundation for her feelings.
    “What about the other girls? Did they get there?”
    “They got up and ready all right, but no one wanted to fool with him or the baby.”
    “Did Floray ever get up?”
    Myria nodded as she separated tea bags into two mugs. “She brung them over. That Sterling was here again. He come with her. I just don’t like that boy.” She sighed and leaned one ample hip against the counter, folding her arms into a protective pretzel across her body. She gazed out the kitchen screen door into the bare dirt front yard. A few pale petunias bloomed raggedly in urns just off the leaning front porch. She seemed to be studying them.
    “Is that Fletch and Mary’s boy?”
    Raleigh,