The Wicked City. Beatriz Williams

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      THE LAST time I saw my mother, she lay in bed. She spent a lot of time in bed, my mother, with one thing or another. Nine and a half months after marrying Duke Kelly, she heaved out ten pounds of Johnnie from between her narrow hips, and she never really was the same after that. Not that Duke seemed to care much about Mama’s state of health, I guess, because she went on to whelp three more boys, one after another, like a crumbling sausage factory that somehow continues to churn out sausages, and then twin girls who died a month later, and then—well, I lost track by then, because I was mostly at the convent, getting an education. All I know is that she kept falling sick, which is the name we give to a miscarriage out here in the country, and lastly had another girl the year I started college. That’s Patsy. She’ll be rising five years old now, if she’s made it this far. My baby sister. Anyhow. The last time I saw Mama, she was sitting up in bed, nursing wee Patsy, and when I told her I was quitting college and running off to New York City right that very morning, she didn’t even look up. Didn’t even meet my eye. Just brushed back a bit of limp hair from her temple and told me not to be getting myself in trouble, and I thought, You’re one to talk, not in a sour vein but rather a pitying one. I asked if I could hold Patsy and say good-bye, and she said no, baby’s nursing, so I just leaned over and kissed Patsy’s velvet crown and then Mama’s temple, and breathed in the scent of milk and skin. And I said I’ll be going now, and funny thing, when I straightened up my eyes I found the window, and right through the middle of that dirty square marched Duke himself, doing something to the buttons of his trousers, and I turned away so Mama wouldn’t see my face. And you may be sure I departed the premises directly that minute, carrying my little carpetbag in one hand and my coat in the other, running out the front door so he wouldn’t spot me. Heat rising from the grass. Train whistle crying down the tracks. Sent my address two weeks later not to Mama but to Johnnie, because Duke always opens Mama’s mail but doesn’t give much damn about any business of Johnnie’s.