rocking chair humming to the baby. It wasn’t long before Shannon and then Clay Jr. was overtaken by sleep as they were young and had had a big day.
Sometime during the night, Shannon woke up enough to hear her daddy say something to Mommy, and his voice sounded funny. Didn’t hardly sound like Daddy. “Jus’ a little drink, honey. Won’t hurt you none.” And her mommy laughing a little, saying back that she didn’t want none and he better quit because he’d had enough. “Aw, c’mon, honey. I brung you flowers, didn’t I? An’ I got this new jar I jus’ got today. Thought I’d break it out. Oughta be real good.” Shannon pulled the cover over her and drifted back to sleep again, what she’d heard completely leaving her mind as if it were an illusive dream.
Shannon woke to the bright early morning light and looked across to Mommy and Daddy’s bed. It was Sunday and she couldn’t wait to go to Sunday school. She sat straight up, an alarm going off in her head that something was wrong. Mommy and Daddy were always out of bed when she woke up. It was way past daylight and Daddy was always up and out by daylight. Turning over and kicking the cover down off her that she had pulled up sometime during the night, she reached across the bed and shook Clay, Jr. He swatted at her, not wanting to be bothered. Shannon swatted back.
“Lookee, Clay! Daddy’s not up yet. Is he sick?” Shannon knew the only time she stayed in bed was when she was bad sick.
Clay, Jr. rose up on his elbow and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, looked across to where indeed his daddy and mommy were still lying in the bed. In a stupor, yawning, he climbed over Shannon and staggered the few feet across to Mommy and Daddy’s bed. A chill raced through him and he shivered as a cool breeze from the side window blew against his nearly naked skin. He shook his daddy’s shoulder and nothing happened, so he shook it again. Daddy wasn’t moving but Mommy was making some kind of moaning sound like she had a bellyache. Her eyes were closed, though, like she was moaning in her sleep and she looked awfully peaked. Little Nathaniel, who was lying on the other side of Mommy up against the wall, was still asleep.
“Daddy! C’mon, Daddy! Wake up! It’s time to get up!” Clay, Jr. pushed harder on his daddy’s shoulder, shoving him a little closer to Mommy. Daddy didn’t answer him and Mommy stopped moaning, a little bubble of pinkish spit coming out of the side of her mouth. A small breath escaped through Mommy’s lips and the bubble busted. Nate woke up and started fussing, moving toward Mommy. Shannon, standing beside Clay, Jr. saw the baby’s small fingers clawing at Mommy’s nightgown, wanting to be fed.
Shannon didn’t know what to do about baby Nate, finally climbing over her daddy who was stiff as a board to unbutton her mommy’s nightgown so Nate could eat. He scrunched down over Mommy and tried to take the nipple into his mouth. Mommy still didn’t wake up even though little Nate was trying hard to latch onto her tit. And Shannon was trying to help the baby get hold of the nipple, but she couldn’t do much. She started crying, then screaming, shaking her mommy, and when that didn’t help, she finally resorted to hitting her in the face with her tiny fists.
“C’mon, Mommy,” she whined. “Please get up.” Then more forcefully, “Wake up, Mommy! Nate’s awake!” Mommy was dead to the world, as she had heard her daddy say a hundred times. Nate let go of his mommy’s nipple and started crawling over her and Daddy. But Clay, Jr. grabbed him before he could fall, and got him down off the bed. He sure didn’t eat very much.
Shannon turned and stared beseechingly at Clay, Jr. He just stared back at her, his face wet with tears, not knowing what to do. Daddy was cold. And he didn’t look like Daddy. His face was all screwed up like he’d been eating crab apples and there was something that looked like dried blood at the corner of his mouth. Clay, Jr. made Shannon feel Daddy’s face which was usually covered with sweat at this time of year, but he was dry and cold like a smooth rock they’d picked up off the creek bank.
And they got really scared. Their mommy and daddy always woke up if you even touched them and they didn’t know what to do, looking to each other for answers they did not have nor could have known. The bed smelled funny and stunk like one of Nate’s poopie diapers.
“I gotta go and git Uncle Clive, Shannon. Daddy ain’t never slept this late since he got back from the war. He’s gotta be awful sick. And Mommy won’t wake up neither. Whatsa matter with ’em?”
Clay, Jr. remembered their daddy coming home after the war, but Shannon could only remember bits and pieces. Mommy told her that Uncle Clive had helped them out a lot when Daddy was gone and that Mommy’s younger brother, Shelmer, come and stayed with them most of the time, doing the work Daddy always did. Seemed like Shannon could remember Daddy coming down the lane, carrying some kind of bag over his shoulder and being dressed all in white, but Mommy said that she couldn’t remember that because she was just two when he come home. Somebody must have told her that and she just remembered the telling is what Mommy said. But Shannon knew better and finally quit trying to convince her mommy that she did remember Daddy coming home.
“Ya can’t go, Clay!” Shannon couldn’t stand the thought of Clay leaving her there with Mommy and Daddy still asleep. “I’ll be scared all by myself. It’s too far to Uncle Clive’s house. ’Sides, we gotta change Nate like Mommy does.” Shannon had never been left alone in her life. And how could she change little Nate’s diaper? She knew it had to be changed because Mommy changed it every morning as soon as he woke up.
Shannon and Clay, Jr. got the baby up on their bed and made him lie down. Shannon looked down at the sopping diaper in the rubber pants and started crying harder, turning and begging her mommy to wake up, but it didn’t do no good. She knew to take the rubber pants off, get a dry diaper down off the line strung across the room at the foot of the bed, fold it, pin it on and then put the rubber pants back on. The dirty diaper went in the bucket outside the door and he had to have pooped the way it was stinking in there. Shannon knew how to change the baby. She was just too little.
“I gotta go get Uncle Clive, Shan! I got to!” Clay Jr. cried. “He’ll know how to get ’em awake.” Clay, Jr. wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “You gotta stay here and watch out fer Nate.” Clay, Jr. was scared to death it was something real bad, something besides them just being real bad sick. You could wake somebody up if they were just sleeping. He had to get Uncle Clive around there!
“I wanna go, too!” Shannon shouted. “Claaay!” But Clay took off out the door in his under shorts and bare feet in the cool morning air. He had to run up onto the ridge and around the road to get to Uncle Clive’s house, but today he took off around the side of the mountain through the woods the way Daddy sometimes went. It was shorter that way. They didn’t have any young’uns but Uncle Clive would be out of bed. He had chores to do before him and Aunt Dorie went to church.
Shannon started to run after him, but then she thought about baby Nate being there by himself if she did, and as young as she was, knew she couldn’t leave him. She was bawling her eyes out, but set about changing the baby’s diaper. She got the rubber pants and the diaper off, with Nate gurgling and reaching up to pull on her dark brown locks hanging down on his little chest when she bent over him. Nate was such a happy baby and never cried unless he was hungry or sleepy. He hadn’t pooped. But she could still smell the stench of it in the room. Her little nose wrinkled up. Maybe he just farted. She was glad she didn’t have to change no poopie diaper. She could do this if he’d just quit yanking on her hair. It hurt something awful. Pulling her hair out of his chubby fists, she threw it back over her shoulder where he couldn’t reach it.
By the time she climbed up on the bed so she could reach the line and got the diaper folded somewhere near the way Mommy did it, Nate was down on the floor crawling around naked as a jaybird with his bare butt shining. Shannon ran to close the front door Clay had left open so Nate couldn’t get out on the porch. Wrestling him back up on the bed, she got the three cornered diaper in place and couldn’t
