The last time we moved she packed us up in twelve minutes flat. That was the first time we had to pick up and move in a hurry, and I often wonder if my mother had an inkling then how efficient she’d become. She’d lived alone and worked odd jobs, so no one would miss her for days. Penny Wilson had lived in our apartment complex, across the courtyard.
It was the hammer of Penny Wilson’s eardrum. When she parted my lips and put her forefinger inside-mothers are the bravest creatures, and mine is the bravest of all-she found something hard between my gums. I don’t remember any of this, but I know it.Įven when my mother noticed the gore down the front of my OshKosh overalls, even when she registered the blood on my face, she didn’t see it. There I was, asleep on the floor beside the bone pile, tears still drying on my cheeks and blood wet around my mouth. If it had been, they would have snatched me away and done unspeakable things to me. She’d stumbled upon stranger things in suburbia. When I was older she told me she thought my babysitter had been the victim of a satanic cult. I know Mama screamed, because anyone would have. The last time my mother had looked at Penny Wilson she’d still had a face. I had my teeth but I was too small to swallow the bones, so when my mother came home she found them in a pile on the living room carpet. She must have hummed a lullaby, fondled each tiny finger and toe, kissed my cheeks and stroked the down on my head, blowing on my hair like she was making a wish on a dandelion gone to seed. That’s what I figure, because she was only supposed to watch me for an hour and a half, and obviously she loved me a little too much. Penny Wilson wanted a baby of her own in the worst way.
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