Felix by Sofia Greenberg - Humble Pie

The trailer rested beside the creek, the creek made the seam of the valley, the valley
tucked between two soft mountains. Felix learned oak shrub, sycamore, poison ivy, and
higher up the hills, yucca and sandstone. He learned the pleasure of the yellow flood
when a big rain melted the sandstone. On a flood morning he would open the front door
and dangle his feet in the milky sea that had once been a yard.
III. Ways to the Sky
When the coyotes got Jack, there was nothing left. It was as if he had turned into steam.
Felix listened to his mother’s heartbeat every night. In the queen-sized bed he pressed his
ear firmly against the soft, mountainous flesh of her breast and counted the beats, until
they mingled with his dreams and became the distant drums of Indian Braves.
IV. Return to the Ground
“When are you going to die?”
“Nobody knows. Not today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Are you impatient, Felix?”
“No. I’m very patient.”
Felix could wait forever. He cried in the bathroom so his mother couldn’t hear, but
through the thin walls she always heard.
On a full moon the sycamore bark glowed like the bones of a saint. Felix could count
everything white in the world: white bark, white creek rocks, white owls, white hands. It
seemed on these nights that everything else just disappeared, leaving only the purest
white things, spirit objects that glowed and glowed until the moon sank away behind the
mountain.
In winter, mother finally started to look sick. Felix wished more than anything that he
could breastfeed again, to help her. That is what he thought was meant by “nursing
someone back to health.” But his teeth had grown too big and sharp, and he feared he
would accidentally puncture her large nipple, like one of Jack’s chew toys. All he could
do was pick her flowers and watch them wilt.
V. Return to Stasis
In spring, Aunt Rose came to stay with Felix so his mother could go to the hospital. From
Uncle Daren’s truck Mother blew Felix a kiss, but it got caught in the breeze and was
carried away. Aunt Rose put a green-and-pink floral tablecloth on the table.
Aunt Rose told Felix about praying. She said he should think about his mother strong and
healthy when he practiced his singing, and the sound waves would carry the message to
mother’s guardian angels. Felix imagined these angels were tall, brown men with eagle
feathers in their hair, beating steadily on deer hide drums.
Mother came back two weeks later. In the bedroom she stood before Felix and lifted up
her shirt. The left side of her chest was flat and rigid, the skin pulled tight over ribs Felix
had never seen before. Down the side it was sewn together in a thick, raised seam, about
a finger long. Felix imagined a line of hungry infants waiting to suck the sickness out. He
was seized with jealousy, imagining all those other babies nursing on his mother in the
hospital, until there was nothing left—no tumor and no breast.
In bed that night, Felix breathed in his mother’s sweet smell and in an instant forgave the
nursing babies, forgave everyone for everything in history; he couldn’t help it when his
mother pulled him so close to her. He pressed his ear against the new flat surface, and
found that he could hear her heartbeat much clearer, much clearer without all of that extra
flesh.