Free Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani

help or complaint. She died when my mother was only twenty-one, a year before we were born. To us, Josephine Marie was only another face of the past on the wall of pictures that hung in my mother’s living room. Straight regal chin, knitted white sweater, wire specs that slid to the end of her nose; she smiled for the camera like a Mona Lisa. What did she know and take with her besides her recipes?
    Cara and I fought over the name Josephine like kids fight for the last piece of candy.
    We fought over the name long after we were kids.
    “When I have a daughter I’ll name her Josephine,” Cara told me matter-of-factly as we sat at her kitchen table sealing invitations to her wedding.
    “I love that name, too,” I said, licking a gluey flap. “I’d always thought I would name my daughter Josephine.”
    “I guess you were wrong,” she said and straightened the messy pile of cards before her.
    “What if you only have sons?”
    “Then I have sons,” she smiled tensely. “But you still can’t have the name.”
    “Why?”
    “I would find that too upsetting,” she said as if that made a bit of sense.
    “You do realize how ridiculous you sound?”
    “I guess so,” she said, retreating. “I just can’t imagine it any other way.”
    At last, we decided the eldest should have first dibs. Cara had first right. She said that if I had a girl child before her, I’d better not take the name.
    *   *   *
    “The world doesn’t stop for you,” I heard Mike say once. But it does in a way; it stops. Your old world stops for you when you aren’t there.
    Did Grandma put her plastic curlers in her hair that morning? Or, was the dog next door still barking.
    “We are almost there,” Mom said when she saw that we were both awake. Her eyes were tired. Only Mike knew where we were headed. He’d picked our trailer out months before. He said it had a swimming pool and there were lots of other kids to play with. I saw Mike tickle Mom’s knee under the dash and I kicked Sister. “Gross,” I mouthed.
    “Stop it!” she yelled and pulled away.
    “Do you want a crack?” Mike raised his voice. His neck got big when he ate and when he yelled. A thick line lumped up and down when he bit down to chew things up. I thought: he wants to chew us up. A crack sounded like a new kind of candy bar to me, like a Whatchamacallit. Sister’s eyes got wide. I saw mine get wide in hers. Her face was my mirror.
    We didn’t know what a crack was. But soon we’d know, not because we got them, because we never did, but because a crack was so often offered.
    “Honey, really,” Mom said quickly.
    “Sorry,” he said to both of us.
    “I don’t hit my children,” she said. “I will be damned if anyone else will.” Mom stared at Mike across the car. I guessed Mom knew what a crack was. “Honey, I was just saying,” Mom apologized.
    “Let’s not talk,” Mike interrupted, and the rest of the drive was quiet.
    *   *   *
    The South is full of swaying pine trees and buzzing cicadas. To my ears it sounded like a jungle of fast-ticking clocks and TV static. Every house in the Pines was actually a parked trailer, metal siding covering the wheels beneath. This was temporary housing until Mike earned a house on base. Our trailer was mostly dirty white with dark brown trim at the roof and a little bit of orange on the sides. It was striped like a racecar and doublewide. There were cinder blocks stacked up as front steps.
    We all waited on the top step as Mike tried to unlock the door. The knob stuck, so he karate kicked it open. It was dark inside even though it was sunny outside. I noticed the windows rolled out with a crank instead of up with a push. When Mom turned the lights on, big black bugs ran for the corners to hide. “There are bugs the size of my hand crawling up the walls,” Mom screamed.
    Mike made a phone call. “We want them gone now,” he said.
    He really meant us, I thought. I looked outside. I didn’t want to be a