them when they were hungry, bandage their skinned knees. I didn’t mind. Most of the time, it was no more trouble than caring for puppies.
On burning summer days, when the sky stretched along with the hours and scalded air leached clouds from the endless blue, we’d stay inside. Harl hated being cooped up—his skin was baked brown as clay from all his time outdoors—but even he’d settle down if it meant Ma would tell us tales of our seafaring ancestors, folk whose ships had led them astray, stranding us in this landlocked county. He loved those ones most, Banjo’s son. Stories of heroes and betrayals. Of men thriving against all odds.
The way I remember it, Banjo mostly observed all this without comment. He wasn’t fussed about what we wore, or that we didn’t go to school—said he reckoned a lady with Ma’s talents was well suited for teaching her own children. With Banjo, Ma never had to worry about being contradicted or criticized. Not so she could hear it, anyway. He was easy to smile when the mood struck, open with his affections—even with me, his brother’s daughter. Even with Bethany, who was born a year after he and Ma split the first time. And so too with Miah, who followed her sister into this world ten months after Banjo’s boots found their way back to our porch. Yes, even Miah got her share of his love, though her black hair and tawny coloring screamed she wasn’t of his stock. Dandling the brown babe on his knee, Banjo never said a word: the grins she and Ma wore all his doing.
Sometimes, that was enough.
When it wasn’t, his opinions were no louder than the front door hinges squeaking open. Quiet as footfalls receding down the gravel path to the highway.
“Wendy’s dress fits you pretty nice,” he says now, trying small talk.
It doesn’t. The collar is too high for my neck. I have to wear it open, ruining the aesthetic of having a long line of buttons up the front. The bodice and sleeves hang loose, emphasizing the swell of my belly, the sag in my bust, the scrawniness of my arms. And I’m swimming in heavy red drapery, skirts swinging too low around my distended waist. With her curves and her deep brown hair, Ma could pull this dress off. But after so long with Mister Pérouse, I know I’ll never again wear her creations comfortably.
“She seemed so upset … I thought it might help her relax.” As if, after three years, I could’ve zipped back into her life like nothing had happened between costume changes. I look down and shrug. “And you don’t notice her blood as much on this fabric.”
He raises his eyebrows. I tell him Ma wore this dress when she revealed what it was to be a woman in our family. Fabric red as the moon bloods she told me to tuck away where no one could touch them. Don’t tell a soul where you hid them, she’d said, handing me rags for the task. Out here, blood is power. It ain’t just a bond. Ain’t just what gave you my eyes and Harl that great cleft in his chin. Leaning so close I could smell her lavender soap, she took my hand, pressed until I felt the throb of her pulse. There’s folk out to take advantage of that red tide, baby. Wrong folk and cold. Keep them rags safe, like you do yer kin. Yer blood carries our secrets, our stories. Our future. Believe you me; it’s gonna hold our memories long after my body is dust.
“Well,” Banjo says, shifting in his seat. His eyes trace the mess of Ma’s mouth. His hands clench to keep from wringing the blood-soaked cotton stuffed between her gums, to keep from wiping and wiping until her face is clean. “I s’pose I should take her. Keep her from turning to dust too soon, hey?”
He doesn’t smile though his tone is friendly. I hold his gaze, lock onto it.
“Not yet,” I say, getting my thoughts in order, my voice under control. “I need to tell you this. My tongue—my lips need to shape these words, need to push them out. I can’t send it in a letter. Paper is too flimsy to carry the weight of Ma’s head in my lap, the history in my belly.” I tear open the useless buttons on my bodice, lift my camisole to reveal scars dotting my swollen abdomen. Dozens of puncture wounds