Free The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters by Timothy Schaffert Page A

rushing to her head as the river flowed beneath her, Mabel felt that her only connection to earth was the little bit of pain from her father’s grip too tight. By the time she turned eight, she’d gotten too big, too heavy for her father’s bad shoulders ruined in high school football. She sometimes begged her father, and her mother would scold her for begging, and she’d end up wasting the afternoon pouting, wishing she was only five or six again.
    AS MABEL drove back home, she opened the glove compartment to look for a box of Hot Tamales left from the last time she went to the movies, and she saw a newspaper clipping she’d saved for Lily. One of the old farm women, who knew Mabel’s habit of collecting tragic stories, had given the clipping to her a few weeks before.
    Mabel read the article as she drove, holding it up to the dashboard light. A ten-year-old girl was taken to a therapist for something called rebirth therapy that involved wrapping the girl in blankets and pillows. The therapist twisted the girl up in the blanket to represent the womb and pressed on the pillows to simulate labor contractions. The girl suffocated and died.
Troubled
, the article said about the girl. “
The therapy is intended to enable troubled children to heal from past trauma.
” Mabel was sick thinking about what miseries the poor little girl had endured, probably again and again, at the hands of irresponsible adults.
    Mabel drove the pickup right up to the side of the bus, leaving the headlights on. She stepped up into the bus and up to the mattress, where Lily, covering herself with a sheet, squinted and held her hand up to the light.
    “Lily,” Mabel said, pushing aside the mosquito netting and kneeling beside the bed. Jordan grumbled in his sleep and rolled over.
    “Sweetie,” Lily said, wiping some tears from Mabel’s cheeks with the palm of her hand. “Sweetheart.”
    “I have an idea. I just thought of it as I drove up, just now.” Mabel paused for effect, taking hold of Lily’s arm. She’d never been more serious about anything. “A foster child. We could take in a foster child. You know, some fucked-up little mess who nobody has ever loved. I mean, I just thought of it just now, but it’s so friggin’ perfect.” Mabel, distracted by her new idea, didn’t care what Lily did or where she went. Mabel wanted to go up to the house immediately and scrounge through the shop for children’s toys, for little dresses or pants. She wanted to get a room ready for her new, miserably sad son or daughter.
    “Jordan,” Lily said, shaking at him. “Go turn off those headlights.” Jordan crawled out of bed in his boxer shorts and sleepily kissed Mabel on the top of the head as he passed her. “Lie down here,” Lily said.
    “I can’t, Lily,” Mabel said. “There are things I want to do up at the house.”
    “They’re not going to let you have a kid,” Lily said. “You have to meet income requirements and stuff. You have to have stability. You’re too young. I mean, someday you’ll make a great foster parent, but now you just need to lie down. Come on, I’m tired.” The bus fell into darkness as Jordan put out the headlights. Mabel heard Lily making room for her on the mattress.
    “No,” Mabel said, “no, Lily, see, that’s where you’re wrong. There are more of these fucked-up kids than they know what to do with. And, see, I’ll take anybody in. It doesn’t have to be some cute little kid, I’ll take some bitchy fourteen-year-olddrug addict. I’ve got a lot to offer somebody like that.” Mabel felt winded from her argument, but she kept with it, her voice weakening, her breathing hard. “I’m not too young. I had to grow up really fast.” But she knew she didn’t sound convincing.
    Jordan got back into bed on the other side of Lily, and Lily took Mabel’s arm, pulling her in. Mabel, too tired to object, and still in her shoes and her dress, lay beside Lily. She lay on her back, feeling Lily’s