Prairie Ostrich by Tamai Kobayashi

would be. Cautiously, he lays the drill bit almost parallel to the hard surface, working a groove into the glossy shell. She knows he is too careful for a puncture. A fine dust clouds the air and tiny shards fly off, the grit of ceramic. At breaking point he puts down the drill and dabs his fingers onto the alcohol swabs, his fingertips stark against the chalk dust. He presses through the alabastrine cover with the tip of his index finger and gently peels back the opaque membrane.
    Egg can see the slick, tiny head of the chick, the bulbous eyes.
    The beak moves. Chirp.
    Papa places the egg into the hatch box, beneath the strong heat of the overhead lamp. Egg knows that he will do no more. The chick must find its own way out of the vessel. As he gathers the fine china shards, Egg reflects on her father. The lines in his face have deepened, as if the years have cut sharp, almost to the bone. She knows that he could help the chick, he could, but he has told her that only the strong survive.
    She cannot ask him to come back to the house (is that why her mother has sent her here?) for a wordless part of her knows that the barn is his test, his trial, his sacrifice. Egg has her questions but they shrivel and harden, as if into stone. Beside her father, she cannot ask the whys or the hows and so she swallows them. As they stand, her small fingers slip into his chalky hand. They watch the chick, its struggle, for it is the struggle that makes you stronger.
    â€¦
    Later that night, when Egg creeps down the stairs in her slippery socks, she sees Mama in the living room, slumped in the big chair. The television is on the late night show of Onward Christian Soldiers . A pledge of ten dollars a month gets you a Bible with a golden pin. The choir, all dressed in white, sings with an unearthly fervour “Are You Washed in the Blood?” but Mama does not stir. The electronic glow of the screen bathes her in a ghastly pallor. Dead dead dead and Egg almost screams.
    â€œEgg, go upstairs.” Kathy’s voice comes from behind her. Kathy’s hand is on her Mama’s shoulder, jostling her.
    â€œShe’s not dead, is she?”
    â€œNo,” Kathy says, with a glance at the bottle on the coffee table. “She just…here, could you turn off the television?”
    Egg clicks off the set. She can smell the acrid liquor, like the clinging scent of gasoline.
    â€œI want to help.”
    â€œGo to bed, Egg. You’ll just be in the way.” Kathy leans forward. With a deep breath, she loops her mother’s arm around her shoulders and lifts her to her feet. Kathy eases her Mama up the stairs, the creak and stagger, the scrape along the wall, the groan of the mattress springs as Kathy rolls her mother into her bed.
    As Egg hovers by Mama’s doorway, she realizes Kathy has done this all before. A queasiness shifts in the pit of her stomach.
    Kathy pulls up the covers. Mama’s eyes flutter open.
    Dark. Mama’s eyes are dark. “You’re such a good girl.” Her voice is whiskey gravel, so quiet, so heavy in the shadows of the room. “When I was your age —”
    â€œShh, Mama.”
    Mama sighs, skipping stones through her memories. She swirls in a spiral of whiskey and mints. “What was that song? A Lullaby, a “Lullaby in Birdland.” He used to like that. American Jazz.”
    But Albert liked Soul Train and American Bandstand .
    â€œThey take them away. They always take the good ones away.”
    Egg backs out of the room, her legs rubbery. She runs down the hall and jumps into her bed, twisting the blankets around her. The good ones. The ones her Mama loves the best.
    Egg burrows deeper.
    Head tucked in, she hears the click of the lamp and even in the cocoon of blankets, the world glows golden.
    Egg pops her head out.
    â€œHey.” Kathy sits at the edge of the bed. The crease between her eyebrows has deepened. “You all right?”
    Egg