Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our
Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our
46 ◆ Crab Orchard Review Heather E. Goodman “You don’t mind?” he asked. “Daddy, anything. Anything.” He motioned for my hand, and I put mine in his. He took the back of it to his lips, brittle leaves, kissed it, just like when I was little. Will and I had asked my brother Jared to stay for the feast after the funeral, but he needed to get back to the company in the city, and it was clear even during the funeral that he no longer belonged at the swamp with us. His suit put the rest of us to shame, and he didn’t even sip on Earl’s lightning we passed in the mason jar afterwards. I watched him sniff it, sniff all of us. “Lou, you’re pregnant now. You need to get out of Washaw. For the baby.” Will responded before I could. “We’ll do just fine. We don’t need shiny cars.” “No, but you need jobs with health care and insurance.” I had laughed, surprised Jared thought that would work on us. I tried to catch Will’s eye for a wink, but he dragged his boot across the dirt. Later, we all hugged goodbye, and Jared laid his hand on my belly and said he loved me, just wanted what was best. I stepped back from his hand. He didn’t know. He figured I wanted the baby, wanted a belly that made my back ache and my stomach roil. He loves his little girl. Will builds the fire, and we dump the turtle’s barrel. The water spills dark and murky into the leaves and stinks to high hell. I can’t tell what’s turtle shit and what is the dank sludge of the watershed. The smell is sulfur and slate, burning. I swallow my saliva. We guide the turtle to the empty garbage can. “You all right?” Will asks. He watches me, and I know I’ve gone pale again. I nod. “Sure?” I remember Mom, sun catching the grey streaks in her hair, knuckles bulging with arthritis, nearly sixty and hauling turtles. “Yes.” I give this to him grudgingly. We don’t talk again until after the fire is built and the water in the drum is boiling. I lay the garbage can down and wait for the turtle to think it’s free. “I got it.”
Heather E. Goodman “I can do it,” I say. Will sighs. “You’re not supposed to lift.” He snatches the turtle’s tail, and lugs it toward the plywood mounted on two saw horses. The plywood is splattered with thirty years of splotches and smears. He hauls the snapper up to the table, and it bounces with the weight. The turtle attempts to swim its way off. Its nails carve gashes into the plywood. “Can you stoke the fire?” Will coaxes me with his eyes, both hands keeping the lumpy turtle from scrambling away. “I can handle this.” “Christ, Louise, I know you can. But there’s no reason you have to.” In a huff, I walk toward the fire, but out of the corner of my eye I glimpse Will uncover the machete, and I have to watch as I hear Dad’s rasping voice. I see him again, hunched up in a foreign room with tubes and bright lights, and he’s telling Will how to clean the snapper. Not me, his own daughter, but Will, whom he loves more than even his own son because Will is “a man of the woods, a survivor.” Dad picked at one of the numerous scabs that had appeared all over his body and gave curt directions, “Jam a fork through its head, and then—bam—hack its head off.” That was the last I’d heard of the snapper soup recipe until this morning. Without making an excuse, I had walked out of the hospital room. By the time I came back again, I could see from the door Dad sleeping, as Will, my survivor, held his hand, his forehead tucked against Dad’s yellowed fingernails. Will married Dad as much as he married me at the church last year. Will and I met at the community center during a career fair just after Mom’s death. That day we both landed jobs, Will a chef at the only decent restaurant in town, and me a clerk at the post office. We were both unguarded and relieved, and when we walked out of the center, instead of saying goodbye, we celebrated with a beer at The Joint. When I brought Will home to meet Dad the following month, I couldn’t get a word in. It was the first time Dad came back to life after Mom died. We fell in love quickly. He called each day after the lunch rush, and on my way home I visited the restaurant, enveloped in his broths and sauces, oregano, onions, wine. At the swamp, he told Dad his own butchering stories of venison and pheasant. We watched silhouettes of songbirds transform into silhouettes of bats at dusk. Sitting on the steps with my back against Will’s chest, tracing his forearm tendons, we talked about how wrong people had gotten things, and we planned a quiet life away from them in our own swamp. He cried Crab Orchard Review ◆ 47
- Page 11 and 12: Mitchell L. H. Douglas Inhabit 56 J
- Page 13: Elizabeth Rees First Offering 180 S
- Page 17 and 18: Sally Bellerose Brinkmanship The fa
- Page 19 and 20: Sally Bellerose “Get us to the br
- Page 21 and 22: Sita Bhaskar Swayamvaram The paper
- Page 23 and 24: Sita Bhaskar not embroidered or lac
- Page 25 and 26: Sita Bhaskar the truck. At first sh
- Page 27 and 28: Sita Bhaskar Minister was in danger
- Page 29 and 30: Sita Bhaskar to each other and thru
- Page 31 and 32: Sita Bhaskar of the tent and decide
- Page 33 and 34: Christopher Ankney Churches Kutna H
- Page 35 and 36: William Baer The Gathering of the C
- Page 37 and 38: The Funeral Erinn Batykefer Little
- Page 39 and 40: of the past, which the future wears
- Page 41 and 42: Tamiko Beyer Shichi-Go-San Tokyo, N
- Page 43 and 44: Michelle Bitting Remains Out of the
- Page 45 and 46: Helen Cho “Today is Korean New Ye
- Page 47 and 48: When I finally understand Nicole Co
- Page 49 and 50: Melissa Crowe inside her for a whol
- Page 51 and 52: Chad Davidson Advent There’s a sa
- Page 53 and 54: Oliver de la Paz Now, Amador walks
- Page 55 and 56: Daniel C. Bryant (though I never he
- Page 57 and 58: Chris Gavaler Recipe for Giblets It
- Page 59 and 60: Chris Gavaler try to hand me her ph
- Page 61: Heather E. Goodman “Snapper soup
- Page 65 and 66: Heather E. Goodman over. Coolly, he
- Page 67 and 68: Heather E. Goodman we visited the s
- Page 69 and 70: Heather E. Goodman and in between r
- Page 71 and 72: Heather E. Goodman anything over be
- Page 73 and 74: to another room. Heel of hand to pa
- Page 75 and 76: Shawn Fawson In the Bathhouse You k
- Page 77 and 78: Chanda Feldman Immersion In Judaism
- Page 79 and 80: Chanda Feldman the thick braid as I
- Page 81 and 82: Yahya Frederickson for the house’
- Page 83 and 84: Lisha Adela García San Fernando Ca
- Page 85 and 86: Ramón García Passion Play Christ
- Page 87 and 88: Susan Grimm of appletinis wait. Pro
- Page 89 and 90: Randall Horton 14 th and Park Road,
- Page 91 and 92: Kelly Houle Touching the sleeves to
- Page 93 and 94: Luisa A. Igloria We thought she’d
- Page 95 and 96: Donna Hemans Lucky My mother has be
- Page 97 and 98: Donna Hemans in a way she didn’t.
- Page 99 and 100: Donna Hemans girlhood. We’d been
- Page 101 and 102: Donna Hemans As I left, she was tak
- Page 103 and 104: Donna Hemans “What’s there to d
- Page 105 and 106: Donna Hemans children, from whom sh
- Page 107 and 108: Donna Hemans “What did you do?”
- Page 109 and 110: Donna Hemans circumstances, I don
- Page 111 and 112: Melanie Jennings make sense of it a
46 ◆ <strong>Crab</strong> <strong>Orchard</strong> <strong>Review</strong><br />
Heather E. Goodman<br />
“You don’t mind?” he asked.<br />
“Daddy, anything. Anything.”<br />
He motioned for my hand, and I put mine in his. He took the back<br />
of it to his lips, brittle leaves, kissed it, just like when I was little.<br />
Will and I had asked my brother Jared to stay for the feast<br />
after the funeral, but he needed to get back to the company in the city,<br />
and it was clear even during the funeral that he no longer belonged at<br />
the swamp with us. His suit put the rest of us to shame, and he didn’t<br />
even sip on Earl’s lightning we passed in the mason jar afterwards. I<br />
watched him sniff it, sniff all of us.<br />
“Lou, you’re pregnant now. You need to get out of Washaw. For<br />
the baby.”<br />
Will responded before I could. “We’ll do just fine. We don’t need<br />
shiny cars.”<br />
“<strong>No</strong>, but you need jobs with health care and insurance.”<br />
I had laughed, surprised Jared thought that would work on us. I<br />
tried to catch Will’s eye for a wink, but he dragged his boot across the<br />
dirt. Later, we all hugged goodbye, and Jared laid his hand on my belly<br />
and said he loved me, just wanted what was best.<br />
I stepped back from his hand. He didn’t know. He figured I wanted<br />
the baby, wanted a belly that made my back ache and my stomach roil.<br />
He loves his little girl.<br />
Will builds the fire, and we dump the turtle’s barrel. The<br />
water spills dark and murky into the leaves and stinks to high hell. I<br />
can’t tell what’s turtle shit and what is the dank sludge of the watershed.<br />
The smell is sulfur and slate, burning. I swallow my saliva. We guide<br />
the turtle to the empty garbage can.<br />
“You all right?” Will asks. He watches me, and I know I’ve gone<br />
pale again.<br />
I nod.<br />
“Sure?”<br />
I remember Mom, sun catching the grey streaks in her hair,<br />
knuckles bulging with arthritis, nearly sixty and hauling turtles.<br />
“Yes.” I give this to him grudgingly.<br />
We don’t talk again until after the fire is built and the water in the<br />
drum is boiling. I lay the garbage can down and wait for the turtle to<br />
think it’s free.<br />
“I got it.”
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