mother’s grave.
She dug with renewed fury. Her stomach was cramping, but she couldn’t stop. When the soil got too hard she chopped it with the ax and then scooped out the dirt. She knew that graves were supposed to be six feet deep. That was impossible. She wouldn’t even be able to get herself out of something that deep. She began to bargain with her conscience. How deep could a twelve-year-old girl be expected to dig? She was up to her waist now. She wanted the shape of the hole to be perfect, and it wasn’t.
“What are you doing?”
Teddy, on the porch steps, in his pajamas.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked. He nodded. “Hungry?” He nodded. “There’s a little cereal left. I’ll be finished soon.”
Teddy went back inside, his question unanswered. But he knew.
Helen began digging again. It was really hot, but the soil under her bare feet was cool. Sweat ran into her eyes. Suddenly she sat down, totally spent. She needed to eat. She needed water. Jill would have told her these things. Now she could almost hear her mother’s voice. She would come in from playing and lunch would be on the table. And that would never happen again. Because of God.
Her feet dangled into the grave. It was deep enough.
Helen went into the kitchen. “Is there any cereal left?”
Teddy shook his head guiltily. Helen thought about her mother’s mayonnaise and tomato sandwiches, with the crusts cut off. Chocolate yoghurt. Pringles. Chicken noodle soup. None of that. There was nothing in the pantry except lentils, and even that would be gone in a few days. There was a piece of ham in the fridge and one of those Laughing Cow cheeses wrapped in foil and shaped like a tiny piece of pie. Everything Helen ate would be taking it away from Teddy, but she didn’t care. Or maybe she did. She wasn’t sure where her relationship with Teddy stood anymore, now that there was nobody else.
Teddy was looking at her with an expression she recognized as awe, or something like that. Amazement. Because she was so dirty, probably. Then he looked away, into his empty cereal bowl. “Thanks for burying Mom,” he said.
“I haven’t buried her yet.”
“I know.”
When Helen had finished the cheese, she and Teddy went back outside and stood over the grave. “It’s not very deep,” Helen said.
“I think it is.”
“You do?”
Teddy nodded.
Helen went back into the house. Once again the smell greeted her. She took a dishtowel from the stove handle and wrapped it around her face like a bandit. “Go to your room for a while,” she told Teddy.
Helen walked down the hall and opened the door to her parents’ bedroom. Her mother’s mouth was open. She was blue like the porcelain lamp on her bedside table. There was a trail of blood all over the sheets and in little dried rivulets from her eyes and ears and nose. This is what God did to my mother, Helen thought.
Jill’s hand was so cold, like it had been in the freezer. How could a body be so cold all by itself? Everything about Jill was hard and rigid and cold, and her body seemed to be bolted onto the bed. Helen pulled the sheets back and her mother’s nightgown was all in disarray. Helen started to cover her, but then she told herself, This is not my mother anymore. This is a big clumsy object. Stinky. Dead.
Helen grabbed Jill’s heels and turned her body toward her. The entire body moved like a plank of wood. The arms were in some odd familiar gesture, as if Jill were about to receive a present or she was offering an embrace. Helen pulled her mother toward her, turning her eyes away as the nightgown rode up Jill’s body. Suddenly the entire body came off the bed and slammed to the floor, Jill’s head hitting the bed frame so hard on the way down that Helen heard the skull crack. Helen wanted to scream, but then she told herself again, This is not my mother. This is not my mother.
When she got to the hallway she turned the body around and pulled it through the kitchen and onto the back porch. She rested for a moment, then she went into the hall closet and got Teddy’s football helmet. She put it on her mother’s head. Then she pulled the body down the steps, the helmet bouncing on each one.
She paused on the edge of the grave. She was