she screamed at him in her childish voice that still had a barely noticeable lisp. “Gimme ’at!” Shannon grabbed for the pin, sticking herself, and put her finger in her mouth, sucking on it. She finally succeeded in getting the pin and then she stuck Nate who set up a wail. And that didn’t even wake Mommy who always woke up when Nate cried that hard. But she had the diaper on. Getting the rubber pants on him was a real challenge because he kept trying to turn over so he could climb down off the bed, but she managed to get them on, too. Not as good as Mommy did it, but they were on over his diaper so he wouldn’t pee everywhere. She wrestled him up off the bed and he was heavy, so she let him slide down her onto the floor. He couldn’t get hurt there, she figured. That’s where Mommy always put him.
Rummaging around in the kitchen, she found some sugar and the squares of old sheets that Mommy had cut up to make sugar tits with. She fixed one, twisting the material like Mommy did, and tied the knot in the string perfectly. She’d just learned to tie knots. She didn’t know how when she was smaller and then Clay, Jr. showed her how to tie a bow. Taking the strings and tying them around anything, she practiced and practiced till she got it right. It was Shannon’s way. She wouldn’t let anything defeat her, so she never thought of giving up until she could tie a perfect bow. Handing the sugar tit to Nate who happily stuck it in his mouth and started sucking on it, he was holding it in his fat little fist with sticky drool running down his arm.
Shannon was getting hungry but didn’t know how to light the stove. She couldn’t pick up that heavy wood and shove it in the side of the cook stove and start the fire. Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let them touch matches, anyway. She thought about eating some of the birthday cake left on the table with part of a flower-printed feed sack over it, but Mommy would be mad if she ate it for breakfast. So she found a box of oats that Daddy had bought the day before and opened them. The string that you pulled to open the oats gave her some trouble and she spilled some when she finally got the round box open. She poured the oats in a cup that was setting on the table, put some sugar in them and stirred them up with her finger. She sat and ate those, sticking her tongue down in them and letting the oats and sugar granules stick to her wet tongue then pulling it all back into her mouth. She was just waiting for Uncle Clive to get there because Mommy and Daddy were still lying in the bed.
Maybe he’d bring them some medicine! When they was sick, Daddy give them lightning hot drops and fever tablets and when they got worms, he gave them turpentine with a little sugar mixed in. She’d kept after her daddy until he told her the turpentine and sugar was to keep the worms from coming up from their belly into their throat; that some kids had got strangled on them. But Shannon hated passing stomach worms in her poop. Felt like a big old fishing worm.
Shannon waited for an hour and Clay hadn’t come back with her uncle. It was a long way to Uncle Clive’s house when you were walking it. Then you had to stop and let down the gates and be sure you locked them back so the cows and horses wouldn’t get out and go someplace else. Shannon didn’t know that Clay, Jr. had took to the woods so he could get there in a hurry. She’d play with Nate for a while, look out the door, and then go back to Mommy and Daddy and try to get them awake. She cried a while, scared because Mommy and Daddy looked so funny, and screamed when, in her mind, she saw them disappear. Being a child, after she could plainly see they were still there, she laughed at little Nate trying to climb into a chair. He’d be getting hungry again soon and she didn’t know what to do. Let him eat Mommy’s other tit, she reckoned.
Chapter 2 Leaving The Cabin
After what seemed like she’d waited forever, Shannon heard the wagon coming down the lane and flung open the door. Clay jumped to the ground off the back of the wagon with Uncle Clive and Aunt Dorie hurriedly climbing down off the high seat. Shannon was never so glad to see anybody in all her life. Uncle Clive would know what to do about Mommy and Daddy. And Clay was home and in her little mind Clay knew everything. He went to school when Daddy could get him down off the mountain. Sometimes it snowed too much, or it rained so hard it washed out the road in places. Daddy called them gully washers. “We’re sure in for a gully washer,” he’d say to Mommy. She didn’t know what that meant but the way he said it meant that it was real bad.
Uncle Clive ran into the house and went straight to Mommy and Daddy’s bed. He felt them, then turned around and shook his head at Aunt Dorie, his hands running back through his hair as if to erase what he knew to be true.
“Oh Lord, Dorie! Get ’em young’uns outta here!” he yelled at his wife. Shannon saw his face crumple up before he could turn away from them, and a sound come out of his mouth like something was caught in his craw. Aunt Dorie grabbed up Nate and quickly shoved them out the door onto the porch. Shannon wondered what in the world was wrong with her Uncle Clive. She’d never heard nobody make that funny noise before. Aunt Dorie was standing there holding Nate, and Clay and Shannon were holding onto her dress, just staring at the door to the cabin.
They all jumped when they heard Uncle Clive cry out, “Goddamn it, Clay! Why? Why’d ya do it!” and hit something with his fist a few times. It scared them but Aunt Dorie said not to pay any attention to it. He was just mad.
Mad at Daddy and Mommy? Uncle Clive never got mad at them. Was he so mad he wouldn’t help them? And why’d they have to stay outside? Was Daddy gonna puke or something? Is that why Uncle Clive was mad? Shannon didn’t get mad very much, but she hated to see anybody puke. If Daddy was gonna puke, he was really bad sick. She just hated to puke herself. She hated that icky feeling in her belly and then that awful tasting stuff coming out of her mouth. Shannon thanked the baby Jesus that she didn’t hardly ever puke. Once Nate puked and it even come out his nose. Ewww! That was awful! About made her puke, too.
Aunt Dorie stuck her head back in the door and said she’d have to get the kids some clothes on because it was too cool out there for them to be running around in just their underwear. “Clay’s prob’ly already caught his death, runnin’ all the way to our house without no shirt on.” Shannon looked and saw that Aunt Dorie had put one of her sweaters on him and it come all the way down past his knees. He musta been froze when he got there.
Dorie looked in the dresser drawers and found some outfits to put on them. Short overalls and shirts for Clay and Nate and a dress for Shannon that was made out of the same material as the feed sack that was over the cake. Tears were running down out of Aunt Dorie’s eyes and she was shaking like a leaf. It must be hard for her to see because she missed the arm holes a few times when she was dressing them. What was she crying for? Uncle Clive didn’t leave her home by herself. Must be the sun making her eyes water so much. Shannon’s eyes watered when she looked at the sun. And it was shining really bright that morning. It was gonna be another scorcher, as Daddy always said.
Clay wanted to go back in the house with Uncle Clive to see about Mommy and Daddy, but Aunt Dorie wouldn’t let him. So they sat down on the porch and played with Nate who was sitting on Aunt Dorie’s lap. She sat in Mommy’s rocking chair that Uncle Clive had handed out to Clay from the cabin so she’d have a place to sit down.
What was their uncle doing in there? Shannon listened and listened but didn’t hear her daddy’s voice, or her mommy’s. They wasn’t saying nothing. Every so often they’d hear a funny noise, and if Shannon didn’t know better, she’d swear that Uncle Clive was crying. It sure sounded like it. But men don’t cry. Why would he be crying? And why couldn’t they go in the cabin like he was? Why’d they have to stay on the porch?
It wasn’t long before Nate started to fuss and Aunt Dorie was bouncing him up and down on her knee trying to get him quieted down some. Shannon told Aunt Dorie that he was probably hungry. “He only had one tit a little bit ago. You better take ’im back in there and let ’im have the other one or he’s gonna haul off in a minute and howl.”
Aunt Dorie looked at her like she was in for
