In There

I've been thinking about that time I broke my leg and Bubba carried me all the way from where the creek runs out behind my grandpa's land to where my dad was mowing the lawn. Been thinking about the way the look on pop's face went from why the hell is that boy carrying my daughter like they're going over the threshold to why's my baby crying? All the time Bubba was asking me was I alright, always saying right after that I was alright, that I was going to be alright. He said he'd broken his own leg the year before, and did I remember that? He was just fine, played football just fine now, and I'd be back on it and playing football in no time. I was crying, but I wasn't worried about anything, being carried like that made me feel weightless, worryless.

I've been quiet lately with all this thinking about Bubba and that Sunday afternoon. The doctors, the wheelchair with the metal prop for my leg. Needing to pee and not being able to move onto the toilet, holding it instead, the moan I let out when I finally peed hours later, a fresh cast on my leg signed only by Bubba's thick writing, "I'll kill the slippery rock that did this to you."

Danny doesn't ask me what I'm thinking when I'm quiet like this, and if he did I would make up something. Thinking about how the basil plant's dying, how good those tomatoes were your momma brought by yesterday, how I need to go to town and get some more shampoo this weekend. My thoughts are the one place Danny can't go, though I know he tries. He tries to get in there and make his handprint, but I won't let him. In there it's just me and Bubba and even though I got a broken leg in there, it's better than this black eye and this aching that's bigger than any bruise, like I forgot something, like I took a wrong turn but there's no one to ask for directions.

What do you know about me, anyway

Who are the people who really see me, I wonder? Those are the people I want to be with. Those are the people I want to spend my time loving. 


It's never easy being broken up with, Janie says. She adds more sugar to her cup of tea as she says this. I want to splash my hot cocoa in her face.


This is not me being a mental case, I say instead. I do not throw the hot liquid into her face, this face that purports to know everything about my heartache--heartache everywhere!--but I grip the handle as though I am seriously considering it. As though I am the type of person who would, who could.