My younger brother Jesse was first to notice the thick, humid air as
we played with the neighborhood children in our front yard.
Like Mama and empty flower patch, he didn’t possess much confidence
in nature’s miracles, stomping on the yellow grass which crunched
beneath our feet. But he was the one who stopped as we continued to run,
orbiting around him, his nostrils twitching. We were unaware at first of
the wind picking up or the nimbus clouds that moped over our heads until
the shaking leaves—frantic or excited, we couldn’t tell—
began to wail as the tree branches swayed.
Mama called us in from her window, her brown face
hidden by the absence of the kerosene lamp light that usually
glowed behind her when the sun couldn’t make up its mind whether to give up
or not.
Those days the heat and light from the lamp made her sick, so she kept it off
until our father came home, with a damp dish towel on her forehead.
“Charles,” Mama cried out in one long drawl, in that way I hated.
“Get these kids inside this house.”
No longer an equal, I marched my former comrades into our front door,
cringing as if by my age, the responsibility of the storm’s arrival rested
solely on my shoulders. I tried not to look at them too much as they
lolled on the family room rug, tracing tiny cars over its patterns, pretending to get lost
in the myriad of bright colors. I made them lemonade and set out some cookies,
ignoring one of Jesse’s friends who called me “Maw”. And every now and again I
would get up and change Mama’s terrycloth so she wouldn’t have to get up; Jesse had not
noticed yet that Mama’s feet were starting to get swollen, and I was afraid that the
rain and thunder would drown her out as it pounded over our roof.
When the heavy rains passed, we agreed that was still light enough to investigate,
taking care not to let the front door slam as we snuck out. The somber grass
was tired and wet, the leaves dripped over the ominous black trunks while a few birds still
sang on its branches. It was the lingering worms that did not scare me. Translucent as
a string of pearls, their bodies had grown fat from rain and dirt. Only a few of them
were moving about—the rest were resting in a heap, cradled in a grove in the grass.
Yet all of them were still glowing, glorious.
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