Issue 27 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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us from behind. It was everywhere at once—filling my ears with
a sound like the static, tearing the words from Roy's mouth so that
I couldn't hear him. I saw his mouth move and only knew that
he had spoken.
I wondered why Jenny had run. She had not hesitated when
she saw Roy waving to us, had not even waited for me to follow,
but had run as if she'd been planning nothing but that moment—
or as if she'd never thought of it once. She had not even heard
what he said to us when we all reached the door to the house,
panting and holding our sides: "Get down in the basement.
There's a bad storm coming."
Lily had started to shake when Roy left to herd Black and
Brown into the barn, to try to chase the chickens out of the tree.
We had sat in the darkness, waiting, no one moving except Lily.
Her hands beat the sides of her head and tugged at her hair, until
one of the mothers had caught them and whispered in her ear,
words no one else could hear. What Lily said started like one of
Faith's songs, like when we all say words together, Roy standing
inside our circle, his arms held out.
"Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch," Lily said, hugging her knees to her chest.
I watched her in that underwater light, breathing that stuffy air.
Some of the other mothers began to whisper. Then Lily sat up
straight. "Jenny," she said, and I could tell she was crying. Her
voice faded into the static, into the rain and wind we could hear
getting louder, closer. We watched her, waiting for Roy to come
back to us.
Jenny didn't talk to me the day after Roy caught us stealing
food. When I tried to ask her why he'd wanted her to stay, she
pushed past me and walked into the kitchen, where the voices of
the mothers carried over the sounds of running water and
chopping. I didn't follow her in there, among the draped skirts
and steam, where any mother who saw you standing would give
you beans to snap or potatoes to scrub. Jenny was looking for Lily,
I knew, though I also knew that Lily was with Roy. I had seen
them leave the yard that morning in Roy's truck, and the truck
was still gone.
Later, I found Jenny in one of the bathrooms, crouched in
front of the toilet. She-sdidn't look up at me, and I watched her
for a minute. Her back shook, and she sniffed, choking and
coughing into her fist as she cried. I wanted to walk toward her,
touch the curve of her spine, but I couldn't move. Jenny cleared
her throat and spat in the toilet. I shut the door and walked away,
holding my breath, hoping she hadn't known I was there.
The mothers told us that outside was dangerous, but Jenny
had told me that it was no different than here, that trouble was
something that happened anywhere people were. Jenny's stories
about outside were like dreams, things I tried to imagine, but
which floated away from me even as I tried to wrap my hands
around them, making them mine. She told me her stories only at
night, when no one could hear but me.
"In Texas, on the highways, there are water fountains at every
rest stop," she said. "I'd stick nay head under and my mother would
laugh. We splashed each other until he came out of the bathroom.
Then we'd go into the bathroom together. Our faces together in
the mirror. My mother would laugh."
I lay on my back under scratchy blankets, and her voice
seemed to come not from her but from the dark space above me—
a pure voice that told its secrets only to me, a whisper that knew
why everything was, a murmur that followed me into sleep, that
still echoed in my ears when I woke.
Jenny told me that she would leave, but I didn't believe her. She
told me she would hide in the car of the men who sometimes
came from town, their cameras aimed at our faces as Roy shook
his rake at them and shouted, "Private property, private property,
do you know what that is." She told me she would climb on
Brown's back while she stood grazing, and ride her away through
the grass. She told me she would dig a tunnel under the fields,
that even if she was ninety-nine she would keep digging until she
reached the outside.
After the night Roy caught us in the pantry, she said it more
and more often until the words stopped meaning anything, until