Free Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

going on about how important it is to know where your food comes from. But the slaughter is hard on me—it’s always come after my birthday, once it’s cold enough that all the flies have died. This year, I hid inside my bedroom to avoid it but I forgot about the curing, which is still to come, and soon.
    Daddy also says, “There is no cure for schizophrenia.”
    Mama is staring at the oven like she can see the ham inside, even though there is no window. Just white enamel and an oven mitt hanging from the handle. Maybe Mama has been hiding in her room for the same reasons that I hide in mine.
    Maybe we can hide together.
    â€œTobias,” Mama says, “don’t get up. I’m fine.”
    Her words are heavy and slow, and she doesn’t once look at me, not even when she gets a glass from the cabinet and her robe brushes against the back of my chair. She fills the glass with water from the tap. Looking out the window, she drinks the water and fills the glass again before she shuffles out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and back to her bedroom.
    *  *  *  *
    After dinner, I go to get my homework, but my backpack isn’t where I thought I’d left it.
    I start upstairs to see if it’s in my room, but when I reach the top of the stairs I notice the door to Mama and Daddy’s room is open, when it’s been closed for days. Mama is sitting on the bed, leaning over, and she appears to be looking at something I can’t see.
    Her long blond hair is a curtain to hide behind.
    She has brushed it since she came downstairs, but it still needs to be washed. Daddy calls her hair strawberry blond, but Mama says it is dishwater blond. “Fig,” she says, “you’re the true blond, the one with the golden locks.” Only I have no locks, because Mama insists on keeping my hair cut short. I don’t really care—even if the girls at school make fun of me. And call me a boy.
    Short hair is much easier to manage, and Mama needs life to be a little bit easier than it is. If I can help make life easier, then it won’t take as much time for the medicine to start working.
    The floorboards squeak and Mama looks up. Her hair falls away and I see her face. Downstairs, the front door closes, and I know Daddy’s gone out for his evening walk. He says it’s to check on the animals, but Uncle Billy says it’s his time to get away—that Daddy’s done this ever since he was a boy. “We all have our rituals,” my uncle said, winking at me the way he always does.
    â€œFig,” Mama says. And she says my name like it’s the first time she’s ever said it out loud. Like she’s trying it out, and now she is smiling and her whole face brightens. Her bedside lamp is turned on, casting an amber glow on the room, and making her not look so pale.
    â€œDarling,” Mama says, patting the bed. “Come sit a minute.” While her words are still heavy, they are beginning to come faster.
    I do as she says.
    I try not to look at the naked fake Barbie in her lap, or my opened backpack, which I couldn’t see before. The entire room looks different from how it looked when I was in the hall. There are deep shadows in the corners, and the white bedspread is more worn than I remember. I run my fingers across the white, feeling the tiny bumps in the weave.
    Mama holds up the doll, and now I have to look. She turns it around, looking at the fake Barbie in a way that makes me feel like there’s something I can’t see that she can see clearly. “Did you get this for your birthday?” she asks, and her words are coming even faster.
    I nod, looking down. My knees poke out from under my skirt. My socks are bunched around my ankles because the elastic is worn. The scabs are almost healed, but I want to rip them off again. I can remember the way the blood felt. It was hot, and everything stopped long enough for me to really