My parents are in the backyard, digging their graves. I\u2019m in the kitchen with Orange, my younger brother, and we\u2019re watching through a grubby little window. My parents work without speaking. They are not fit people, but they do not stop for breaks. Sweat blooms under their armpits and around their bandanas.<\/p>\n
The graves are being dug next to the outhouse, and are approaching six feet, by four feet, by three feet.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how I know they aren\u2019t for us.<\/p>\n
Still, I decide it would be best to keep Orange from watching, so I suggest we play one of our favorite games: Prank Call! It\u2019s where we dial random numbers and pretend to be debt collectors. Sometimes we pretend to be hookers, too. Or long lost children.<\/p>\n
Orange hooks his sticky fingers around the phone receiver, forehead pleating into focus. His tongue lolls out of his mouth like a fat pink slug. He\u2019s an ugly kid\u2014but he doesn\u2019t know that yet\u2014which makes me love him even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cBroked.\u201d Orange looks at me, confused.<\/p>\n
I press the phone against my ear and listen for a dial tone.<\/p>\n
\u201cBroked,\u201d I echo.<\/p>\n
Through the window we hear the dirt-gnaw of shovels: the scrape and thump, scrape and thump.<\/p>\n
I know I should be full of fearing, but instead I feel a sense of lightness\u2014a birthday party feeling\u2014like anything can happen and it\u2019s my day to choose.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut your rain boots on,\u201d I tell Orange, even though the sky is clear and it\u2019s been the hottest August ever.<\/p>\n
Orange doesn\u2019t argue. Besides not realizing how ugly he is, he hasn\u2019t yet discovered he\u2019s allowed to say no, which is also something I like about him most of the time.<\/p>\n
While Orange gets his rain boots, I hear a new sound: a hush-hush sound. I peer out the kitchen window and see two rectangular holes. Two shovels propped against the outhouse.<\/p>\n
I do not see our parents.<\/p>\n
Orange comes up beside me, opening his eyes as wide as he can.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook,\u201d I say, and point toward two quails tottering across the yard. \u201cThey\u2019ve turned into birds.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m joking, of course, but Orange skitters through the kitchen and out the front door, hollering at the quails until they go goosing into the sky.<\/p>\n
I run out after him. Now I\u2019m scared, just like the quails, by all the noisiness after quiet. I grab Orange\u2019s hand and keep running. The two of us careen across the yard, plunging into the forest that surrounds our house like a leafy coat\u2014trees in every direction\u2014except for a single narrow road, like a dirt zipper.<\/p>\n
Orange and I crash and bump and skin our knees and we go from cold-sweat-scared to laugh-leaping and collapsing in a heap of giggles and blood in the mossy nook of an elm tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey you got a light?\u201d says Orange, which is something he must have heard on TV.<\/p>\n
I pantomime taking a lighter out of my dress pocket and then we both smoke imaginary cigars. Even half falling asleep, Orange murmurs his funny little songs, and me: I imagine piles of downy coats, pockets full of cough drops and unused handkerchiefs.<\/p>\n
When we wake, the sun has sunk low enough to stab sideways through trees. It\u2019s the time of day our parents usually come trundling up the dirt road in their truck and we all sit down in front of the TV and Mom massages Dad\u2019s feet and I massage my own feet, and sometimes Orange\u2019s feet, until Dad calls me a little perv.<\/p>\n
Orange and I both wake up stiff, so we start walking through the woods in no particular direction. I can tell Orange is hungry because I\u2019m hungry too. Neither of us says anything, though, because we\u2019re too busy seeing our parents everywhere. We see a pair of squirrels chattering at us from a tree branch. Then two stumps, mossy and indignant. Two beams of light.<\/p>\n
Orange shivers because he\u2019s just wearing rain boots and a diaper. He\u2019s potty trained, but he prefers the feel, he says\u2014it\u2019s like a butt pillow\u2014and Mom said it was fine because it meant less laundry.<\/p>\n
I pull off my dress and give it to him. The dress drags around his ankles, but he\u2019s careful not to trip. Now I\u2019m in my undies and sandals. It makes me feel strong, being mostly naked. I don\u2019t feel cold. I give Orange another imaginary cigar.<\/p>\n
The last dribbles of daylight leak from the forest, and Orange and I begin bumping into things. The bumping is almost fun, though, and I start to get the birthday party feeling again. I start believing things could go on like this: like it might always be my day to choose.<\/p>\n
Except then we catch sight of a lamp-lit window.<\/p>\n
Orange and I slide up to the house like ghosts, or arsonists. Or like two children who\u2019ve always longed to discover another house out in the woods, but who are also nervous now that they\u2019ve found it. Orange nearly trips on the hem of my dress and makes a squeaking sound. We both freeze but nothing happens. An open window, square as a TV frame, pours out light. We slip our heads up over the windowsill, chins on the ledge, because at night it\u2019s always easier to in-look than out-look.<\/p>\n
After a few minutes, I slide my chin off the windowsill. I\u2019ve realized that I\u2019ve seen this show before\u2014I know what will happen\u2014and it makes me feel proud and sad at the same time: my knowing.<\/p>\n
Orange keeps watching, his grin lit by the window-glow.<\/p>\n
I start massaging his feet. I do this until we both feel a gentle kind of happy.<\/p>\n
For now, no one tells me to stop.<\/p>\n
My parents are in the backyard, digging their graves. I\u2019m in the kitchen with Orange, my younger brother, and we\u2019re watching through a grubby little window. My parents work without speaking. They are not fit people, but they do not stop for breaks. Sweat blooms under their armpits and around their bandanas. The graves are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-2mM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10147,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions\/10147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}