Song of the Shaman by Annette Vendryes Leach

again?”
    “Hot rocks on my arm.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Yuk.”
    Sheri laughed. Though his face had changed much over the years, his golden eyes still flickered like tiny embers. At two his hair started to curl and now he had a head full of untamable cowlicks and waves. The color of bark, it shot out in every direction like some Japanese anime cartoon character. His nose was changing too; the cute pug shaped itself into a graceful line. And he had a knack for talking to total strangers—newspaper-stand men, little old ladies, bike messengers, disabled kids—as if he had known them forever. Pam, his kindergarten teacher, called him the Mayor. Zig unhooked Sheri’s earrings and played with them on his lap until an idea made him draw a sudden breath.
    “Hey! You can give me a bath tonight!” His eyes shone at the prospect of being bathed by his own mother.
    “Oh Z,” she moaned, “how about a nice hot shower instead? I’m beat.”
    He pleaded nonstop for a bath. She drew a weary finger across the glass coffee table. How’d it get so dusty already? Tired and hungry, she went into the kitchen and opened a box of groceries. A bar of fair-trade organic dark chocolate was on top of a “heat and eat” dish of Chilean sea bass with tomato-fennel broth. She grabbed the chocolate, tore into it, and gave in, her decision garbled by a waxy chunk in her mouth.
    “Okay! Okay! Go turn the water on!”
    Zig raced to the bathroom, peeling off his clothes on the way. While the water was running, he recounted his play date with Caleb.
    “Caleb ripped leaves off a plant because he couldn’t blow bubbles in the house.”
    “That was no good! He could hurt the plant.”
    “The leaves will grow back.”
    “Maybe so.” Sheri ran her fingers through his wild hair. Once Leatrice took him for a haircut and he came back looking like the Dalai Lama. She’d have to pencil in a trip to the barber.
    “What did you do today when I was at school?”
    Hmmm. What didn’t she do?
    “Well, I mostly sat in meetings listening to people blab on and on. Then I looked at a lot of pictures of makeup ads.
    “Like gunky lipstick and girlie stuff?”
    “Yeah—stinky perfume, too.”
    “Did you like any of them?”
    Sheri shrugged her shoulders. “It’s the same old stuff. Nothing new.”
    Zig was quiet for a long moment.
    “Why don’t you paint or draw anymore, Mom?”
    Sheri laughed at the suggestion, feeling the presence of her father in the room. She was uncomfortable with him even in memory. Art is a waste of time, not a profession. He took a deep drag on a cigarette, let the fiery smoke coat the rest of his thought. She’ll never make any money. Picasso she’s not! She had heard him say it over a hair-raising Carmina Burana aria blasting on the stereo. Sheri’s mother threw her resentment into a pot on the stove. She wouldn’t dare challenge him. He was always right.
    “I haven’t done that since college, Z. That was a looong time ago.”
    “You don’t remember how?”
    “No, I remember. It’s just that I’m too busy.”
    “Busy doing what?”
    “Busy giving you a bath, that’s what! Busy tickling you, that’s what!”
    Zig crouched as she tickled his sides, his giggle like the peal of wind chimes. She turned off the faucet and checked the water temperature before giving him the go-ahead. Tittering, he swung his skinny legs over the edge of the tub and sunk into the warm water with a sigh. One arm surfaced to sweep toy boats and action figures lined up against the wall into the water. Where’d the Spiderman and Pokemon come from? The glow of his olive skin contrasted with the cracked white subway tiles. She poured water on his head with a plastic beach bucket, watched it bead in his long dark eyelashes. How simple and perfect he was. Zig rambled on about everything: the new DVDs and toys he wanted, the afterschool shows he was banned from watching that all his friends watched, how he’d had fun at the