| Author | Message | ||
| M
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 3802 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Between the Leaves Graeme Mullen She had trees full of them, red shells with black centers that gleamed like pairs of devil eyes—we called them “lucky beans” and filled leaf pouches. It was a cousin’s dare to swallow one, but Grandma took one look at my belly and knew the small secret inside it. She made my younger brother tell, like always. It took a half hour of bloodying my throat with the tubing, long as a tapeworm, the reverse entry of it shocking to my dry eyes and my palate and my gag, all to pump out one shiny chyme-slicked bean, which didn’t seem so lucky to me. The next one of our family that Grandma took to the white walls of that hospital was the youngest aunt, the reckless one. She got sick, my mother said, from the man she was with. I remember the Sunday she came back, wrapped so childishly in soft pink blanket, so reduced, no more luck in her eyes—she walked right through the sharp silver glints of Grandma’s tea set. Even then I knew so much had been lost. Grandma wouldn’t have it though, she served the women shortbread and rallied for service. I pretended to mouth words from the back pews, slit my eyes to watch her praying, furiously. |
