LITMIR.BIZ

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been forced to go by some preacher to get a free meal—she wasn’t sure he remembered or understood the concept.

      “Do you see anybody else asking for the job?” she said.

      Dougie was nine, not stupid. He had seen the way Man and Belle had slowly closed themselves off as the months went by, rallying when they absolutely had to and ignoring problems when they didn’t. Shiloh was the one who kept things moving, and as much as Dougie disliked that, she thought deep down he was glad somebody did.

      They would never be a normal family again. She had come to terms with that months ago. The balance of power had changed, just like it did between countries after a crisis like a war or famine or an influx of refugees. She remembered that from one of her classes when she’d still gone to school. She had loved history and government, any kind of social studies. She tried to stay current with world events even now, picking up papers in trash cans to scour the headlines. But all her reading had only led to one conclusion.

      After big changes, nothing was ever the same again. New leaders arose. New systems were set into place. Life went on, but it wasn’t always better. Sometimes it was much, much worse.

      Belle and Man emerged, Man helping Shiloh’s mother into their bedroom. She was wearing the same nightgown she’d worn for weeks, but at least it was clean. A few days ago they had crammed everything into a Laundromat washer.

      “You go next.” Shiloh pointed to the bathroom door. “You know it may be a long time before it’s easy to take a shower again. Don’t forget your pajamas.”

      Dougie grumbled, but he was basically good-natured and went along with most things. She had already put his bathroom stuff in there, and after he grabbed pajamas out of his suitcase he slammed the bathroom door behind him. She was glad Belle wasn’t yet asleep.

      “Your mom’s tired tonight. She’s going to nod right off,” Man said as he came out to the hall and closed the bedroom door behind him.

      “Dougie’s taking his shower.”

      “How ’bout you?”

      “I already brushed my teeth, and I washed up at the church. But I’ll take a real shower first thing in the morning. Why don’t you go next?”

      He looked too exhausted to go through the motions, but he nodded.

      “I’m going to change and get some sleep.” She stood and went to him, kissing his cheek. “You’ll find a job next week, Daddy.”

      “You bet.”

      She wanted to cry. Those were Man’s favorite words, but if she had to bet, she wouldn’t bet on good fortune. Things were only going to get worse.

      In the room she and Dougie would share she changed quickly so she would be ready for bed by the time he came in. Privacy was a luxury, and by now she knew how to take advantage of it.

      She left the light on because Dougie would turn it on anyway. She sat on her open sleeping bag, pulled her legs inside it and began to zip it closed around her. Satisfied, she adjusted and readjusted her pillow until she was comfortable. The bed sagged, but not nearly as much as the one she’d shared with a cousin in South Carolina.

      Dougie came back sooner than she’d expected, which probably meant he hadn’t brushed his teeth very well. She had heard the shower, though, so that was something. She reminded him to turn off the light, and he grumbled but finally did after it was clear there was nothing else to do but sleep.

      As hyperactive as he was during the day, her brother always fell asleep quickly. After he tried and failed to make her talk to him, he turned over, and before long she could hear his breathing slow and deepen.

      Shiloh finally let herself relax. The room wasn’t completely dark. Man had left a lamp on in the living room, and light seeped under their door. She hated waking up in a panic because she couldn’t remember where she was. Man knew that, and she was pretty sure he would leave the light on all night.

      She crossed her arms under her head and stared at the ceiling. Her room at home had been a bit larger than this one, but she hadn’t had to share it with Dougie. Every night before she went to sleep she pictured that room in her mind. Remembering made her feel normal, like somebody who was just on a long vacation but would return home eventually.

      Belle loved pink, so when Shiloh was a baby she painted the walls of her daughter’s room a deep rose and decorated it with a fluffy pink rug, and later a vinyl chair with pink-and-lavender flowers. Belle was so proud of her accomplishment that Shiloh never found the courage to tell her she would prefer a deep soothing green. Her gymnastics friends had made fun of her for the girlie decor, but while Shiloh often criticized her mother, on that point she had remained silent.

      After all Belle, who often let the world drift by without notice, had done that just for her.

      When she turned twelve Shiloh bought posters to put on the walls to cover the paint. A mobile she’d created in an art class, butterflies floating on the breeze, hung by her window. She’d had an argument with her teacher, who insisted that glittering black butterflies with menacing eyes and teeth existed nowhere in nature. Shiloh had known better than to explain that they were really vampire butterflies, inspired by Twilight and vampire Edward Cullen, whom she had fallen in love with at first read.

      She remembered the sounds at night. Sometimes she’d heard an owl hooting near the shed where her father kept a beat-up lawn tractor. It didn’t matter how outdated equipment might be, Man knew how to keep it running. He could fix anything, and when he finished it was better than new.

      A neighbor kept cows, just close enough to the Fowler house that when night deepened Shiloh could sometimes hear them mooing. For a while, when she was Dougie’s age, she’d thought she had discovered their secret language.

      She smiled now at how silly she had been at nine.

      Before she’d fallen asleep in Ohio she’d often heard Belle rustling around in the kitchen, getting the coffeepot ready for the next morning. Sometimes Shiloh’s mother had hummed to herself as she worked. That comforting sound had always been followed by the quiet thump of the screen door as Belle went outside to have her final cigarette before bed.

      By then Man was already asleep because he rose before dawn and was out the door by six each weekday morning.

      Shiloh remembered mornings, too, the sound of the shower down the hall, the quiet way her father moved, and the sounds he made filling the thermos with coffee and milk he heated in the microwave for his long day at the factory. Even when he had a steady income, Man tried to save money. As soon as his children were born he began a college fund, and he added money with every paycheck.

      Of course that was all gone now.

      She tried to remember more good things, the day-to-day life she had taken for granted. Belle’s hot breakfasts. The purring of their refrigerator filled with good food she could eat anytime she wanted it. Birds nesting outside her bedroom window and the squawking of hungry hatchlings. The smell of newly mown grass.

      The day Man had proudly brought home the Ford Explorer that was now their transportation and their home, not a new model by any means but one her father had quickly put in prime working order.

      They had been happy, and Shiloh hadn’t even realized it. She wondered if people were only given a brief period of happiness in their lives so that when they were unhappy, they would know all too well what they were missing. Was her happiness all used up?

      She turned to her side and whispered the same prayer she said every night before falling asleep.

      “Dear God, if You’re listening, please get us out of this mess. I don’t think we did anything to deserve it, but if we did, I’m really sorry.”

      She didn’t listen for an answer. She thought about the way spring had smelled coming through her open window, her mobile dancing in the breeze, wild roses coming into bloom.

      She fell asleep at last.

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