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I blink a couple times. My whole face feels like it’s crumbling, and there’s an itch under my skin that makes me think of that time I had chicken pox last winter, back when I was still five, when Momma had to wrap my hands in blankets to keep me from scratching as I cried and begged and wiggled around.
It felt like there were little red fire ants crawling all up over my skin, biting me. It hurt not to scratch, it was that bad.
Momma had held me and rocked me through the worst of it, even when Dad would get all huffy and say I was a big boy and she was coddlin’ me. Whatever that means. I didn’t care then. I didn’t feel good, and she was so warm and soft. She held me so tight too, and the tighter she held me, the less I itched.
I look down at my arms now, at my pale hands.
No spots. No nothin’.
Just little wiggly shadows from the rain hitting the window behind me, making my skin look gray and watery like the walls.
“Mason…”
“Away where?” I whisper in a small voice.
I hate that my voice does that—making me sound all scared and little-like. Weak. But there’s something in my throat, making it feel hard to get words out around it.
And when I try to swallow it away, it hurts, making my eyes all hot.
“Just…away,” she says even slower, her voice hitching. There’s a creaking footstep, then another. Cold, wet hands touch my shoulders, squeezing shakily. Even through my blue and red Captain America pajamas, I feel it, soaking through me.
The wet.
The cold.
It sinks down into my bones.
It’s summer. It should be hot and dry, not…this.
But it’s raining—pouring buckets—and it’s been doing it since yesterday.
Is that why she’s so cold?
Is that why I’m shaking… why she’s shaking?
Momma crouches down, putting her face even with mine.
She’s got a pretty face, Momma. That’s what Dad says a lot. “Pretty face without any brains,” he’d tell me.
I didn’t…like it when he’d say that. It was wrong after all. You can’t live without brains. I asked Momma once, forever ago, to be sure. She had a funny look on her face when I asked, and I remember how she crouched down just like she is now, like she always does when it’s serious stuff, and told me how that’s a mean thing Dad says, and I shouldn’t repeat it or listen to him.
Words like that hurt her.
I didn’t like that, even if I didn’t quite understand then how words can hurt.
I still don’t.
Maybe it’s one of those grown-up things.
Maybe this is too.
So…why is it happening then? I’m only six.
In the living room, rain pounds against the windows, our tin roof. Harder now, it sounds like.
“Cats and dogs,” Dad would say, and I’d giggle, telling him, “Noooo, it’s water.”
I’m rocking my head side to side, slow at first, then faster, and I feel something wet hit my cheek. I’m inside though, so I know what it really is, and I quickly, angrily rub it away with my knuckles, so hard Momma has to grab my wrist and pull my hand away from my face.
