Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens

friend.
    Wallace had never concerned himself much about Addy, and though he didn’t notice she hadn’t said a word directly to him since June, he did notice he was coming home to warm apple or pumpkin pie each night, and quietly thought his daughter a finer baker than his wife.
    It was L’il Leam who changed the course of all their lives. L’il Leam had suspected that Addy’s hunger for corn-cobs and pumpkin pies was more than just good appetite. And though it was not proper for a brother to do, he’d studied her changing body mindfully. He was distracted from his schoolbooks in the morning as he envisioned the complicated web of events, and his rage simmered afternoons at the farm. By evening he was puzzled all over again, sure he could not be right in his thinking.
    After he saw Addy consider her reflection in the window and move her hands in a circle over her swollen belly,L’il Leam screwed up his courage and asked Mr. Heron if he could have a word when the day’s work was done.
    When the sun fell, Big Zach Heron brought a pint of bourbon down to the cold barn, feeling very sorry indeed. He took several long pulls on the bottle and blew steam out his nostrils as he strode from one end of the barn to the other. At last he stopped, having set his sights on an old broken manger. He let the alcohol numb his throat as he considered the manger. It was the right size, Leam being such a small boy, and could be covered easily with a few seed bags or some hay.
    Zach Heron took another drink and another walk around the barn to ensure the manger was well hidden from all angles. He’d find a reason to send one of the boys back there in a week or so if the smell didn’t alert anyone sooner, or an animal didn’t get there first. He thought forward to how he’d hang his head and shake it when he got told the news.
    L’il Leam showed up with his hands in his pockets and a look on his face. Zach Heron asked did he want to sit down and L’il Leam said no. He asked did he want a belt of bourbon and L’il Leam said yes. Leam gulped twice before handing back the bottle.
    Zach Heron had his actions fairly well planned and the boy didn’t have a knife or gun, but he thought to ask anyway, “What’s this about, Son?”
    The small boy drew himself up like a young man and said, “First, let me say what I got to say, then I’ll tell youwhat I got to do about it.” Then the words spilled out of his mouth like they’d been drowning him and it was nothing but a relief.
    â€œI can trace it back to Strawberry Sunday. It’s a puzzle, Mr. Heron, but I know it started there. What I remember most on that day was how Addy was feeling poorly and decided to go home and lay herself down. Nothing in that is very unusual, being women up and start feeling poorly at surprising times, but I knew how much she been looking forward to that supper and I thought it were a shame she got ill.
    â€œMy Daddy’d gone off to work in Chatham so it were me my mother called to drag my sister’s old mattress out that Monday morning. She said put it in the backyard so the sun can get at it, but clean out of sight because no one needs to know the girl’s on her cycle. When I saw how much blood was in the middle of it and how it soaked clean through I understood why Mama was wringing her hands the way she was and I near lost my breakfast.
    â€œAnd now, I do apologize to you, Mr. Heron, for being indelicate, but the thing is, I happen to know for a fact my sister had her cycle blood a full two weeks before that day. And the reason I know is I found one of her blood rags in the commode and I was ashamed to find it, but of course I didn’t speak to her about such a thing.
    â€œAnd though I truly wished I didn’t know this, that blood rag did not belong to my mother because I overheard her tell the Pastor’s wife that her monthly had stopped altogether.”
    Zach