Every Bone a Prayer by Ashley Blooms

Author:Ashley Blooms
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-08-03T23:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

Misty’s mother propped the front door open with a chip of broken concrete. She tore the quilts from the windows until the whole house was filled with light. Rain dinged against their roof and the air that drifted through the door smelled fresh and cool. Her mother ignored the new statue in the garden, though Misty found it harder not to look. A bridge had grown there in the few hours between night and day, grew heavy and bronze, but it only grew partway. The bridge ended in the middle, right where it curved the highest. It stopped where it should have bent back toward the earth, like it didn’t want to be a bridge at all, so it made itself impossible to walk. No one could ever cross it. There was nowhere to go except back to the garden.

The bridge was just like her. She’d tried to talk to the world after what happened, but it didn’t work. Misty couldn’t face her name so she’d never speak to the trailer again, to the birds or the barn. She’d never learn her family’s names. She’d never know the sound of their voices inside her head. She was alone now, except for the garden, who curled like a shadow in the back of Misty’s mind.

Above her, the green strings crisscrossed the ceiling, swaying gently. They caught hold of one another, snagged, loosed themselves again. Misty sat on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders while her mother stood in the kitchen, her arms sunk wrist deep in a bowl of ground beef and cracker crumbs and ketchup. The meat made a soft, slick sound as she kneaded it between her fingers.

The phone rang and her mother jumped. She rinsed her hands in the sink, picked up the phone, and said:

“Hello.

“No, no, I’m fine. Just making supper.

“They’re all right. Stir-crazy from being cooped up from the rain.

“It’s untelling.

“Oh. I thought Peanut was doing that. Idn’t that his job?

“Well.

“I ain’t mad. I just thought it’d be nice if the girls got to see you once in a while.

“Well.

“Be safe.”

She let the phone clatter to the countertop. Misty pulled the quilt around her face like a shawl and waited for her mother to smile and call her Mary Magdalene, but her mother never looked up. Instead, she put the meat into a pan and poured more ketchup on top, then washed her hands with water so hot that it turned to steam on her skin. Her mother turned to walk toward the back door but stopped, her hands caught inside a dish towel. Her mouth had gone slack, her hands stilled, so it seemed for a moment that she had frozen in place.

“Mama?” Misty said.

“It’s back.” She stared at the space just above Misty’s head. “I thought that if I opened everything up… With all this light, how could we even see it? I thought I could drown it in light.”

She dropped the towel on the counter and slipped a roll of tape around her wrist.

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.