AMANDA BALES
Getting By Becca-Jean showed-up at my house cradling a hammer in her arms, so I stopped her at the door and demanded she tell me what was going on. She looked down and back up at me like she was holding a chicken casserole. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “So what is it?” I asked. Becca-Jean opened her mouth to respond, but when no words emerged, she closed it, then dropped her head. “Please?” she asked, the word scratching from her throat. In our whole lives, I had never heard that girl beg. Not when our first-grade teacher beat us purple for taking an extra milk. Not when her mamma put the plug-in lighter of a Ford station wagon to her stomach. I gestured Becca-Jean inside.
§ She’d first shown up about a week previous. I was making drop biscuits and singing along to Emmylou’s Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town. When I turned to wash the dough off my hands, I started at the shadow in the doorway. I was reaching for my rifle before I recognized her. Then neither of us said anything for I don’t know how long. “Becca-Jean?” I asked as the shock of it all dimmed enough for my manners to return. I rinsed my hands and opened the screen so she could come inside. “They would’ve wrecked the machine,” she said and raised clenched fists. When I saw the condom wrappers, some torn corner of what had brought her to me after all those years started to make sense. I put my hand on her shoulder and guided her inside to the trash can.
Raleigh Review | 45
