Home Remedies: Stories by Angela Pneuman

Author:Angela Pneuman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

“Maybe Mrs. Peel’s hips are too wide to hold the baby in,” Shiloh said.

“No, no, no. Forget I said anything. That’s just something that happens sometimes for no reason.”

“I’m never having a baby,” Shiloh said. “No stitching or tubes, either.”

“Don’t be melodramatic. That hardly ever happens.” Roxanne leaned on the toilet rim, now, scrubbing its underside with an old toothbrush. “And when you grow up you’ll want to be close to a man, and after you get married you’ll want to be really close to him, and then you’ll want to have a baby.”

I won’t.

“Trust me,” Roxanne said. “It hurts to have a baby, but making one feels good.”

“Between your legs?”

Roxanne sat back on her heels. She took the toothbrush out from under the rim of the toilet. “What do you mean?”

Shiloh heard the quiet under the question. “Nothing.”

Roxanne pulled her up and sat her on the edge of the tub. She stuck her face into Shiloh’s face. Without her makeup, Roxanne’s eyes seemed very small, greenish with tiny spots of brown. “Has anyone touched you there?” Roxanne said. “Anyone at your father’s house?”

“No.”

Roxanne let out a wet breath that smelled like coffee. “If anyone touches you, or touches themselves in front of you, anything that makes you feel weird, come home and tell me.” She clapped her hand to her forehead. “Lord,” she started praying again, but then took her hand away and opened her eyes, concentrating again on Shiloh. “Think,” she said. “Tell me if anything has happened.”

Shiloh tried not to remember the feeling. If she remembered it, she would say it. “Andrea and I were talking about the stitches,” she said.

“That’s all?”

Shiloh shrugged.

“What, Shiloh. She showed you her privates?”

Shiloh shrugged again. She was afraid to say yes, but she was also afraid to say no.

“I don’t know what to do,” Roxanne said, blowing out another long breath. “Probably it’s natural, with everything that’s going on. Probably it’s no big deal. But someone should probably let Bob know, just in case.”

Shiloh turned back toward the tub. The cleanser had dried and when she began to rinse it she had to scrub again to get it all off. She could feel her mother watching her, still, and she kept her head down, squeezing the sponge and wiping carefully long after the tub was clean, after her mother had finished bleaching the toilet bowl and headed into the hallway to make the call.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.