Before the Shamrocks Die
an excerpt

I must’ve fallen asleep again, because the next thing I remember is a pair of small, brown eyes staring directly into mine. Harriet’s nose was so close to my face, I could feel her breath each time she exhaled.
I shrieked, “Harriet, what are you doing?!”
Her little eyes were damp, and her bottom lip puckered out and quivered. “Momma sick, momma sick.”
“What?”
Harriet leaned closer to my ear, “momma sick!” Her voice was shrill and high. I jerked back, the inside of my head ringing.
“Ow.”
“Sick!”
“Alright, I’m coming.” My legs felt fuzzy and numb. I followed Harriet’s bouncing curls out of the room. There was a part of me that felt afraid, nervous. I’d been here before; I didn’t like it.
I heard Aunt Liza’s retching cough before I entered the room. She was leaning out the kitchen door. The fingers on her left hand were white as she held onto the doorframe. Harriet shuffled around me and hid behind my nightgown.
“Um, do you need anything Aunt Liza?” I’m not sure what I expected; it wasn’t as if she could speak through all the vomit. “Harriet,” I turned my attention to the little girl, “why don’t you go out while I take care of your mother?” She gazed up at me with huge, frightened eyes. “It’s okay, she’s fine.”
Harriet scooted nervously out of the kitchen. I walked over to the counter and filled a glass with water from the jug that was sitting by the no longer working sink. The porcelain in the sink was cracked and ugly. I tried to ignore its blatant ill reminder as the water sloshed into the cup. Aunt Liza stumbled back indoors. Her face was pale; I could see her empty veins throbbing under her skin. I stretched out a shaky hand.
“Would you like some water Aunt Liza?”
She glared, “what makes you think I could ingest anything right now?!” Her chin jutted out and her words snapped. She kept her arms wrapped protectively around her stomach.
I stammered, my eyes hot, “how are you feeling?”
“How do you think I’m feeling?!”
“Well, um, do you want me to do anything for you?”
“Just stay out of my way. Where’s Harriet?”
“I sent her out, she was scared.”
“You left her alone! Why did you leave her alone! Don’t tell my child what to do.”
“She was scared.”
“You don’t leave little children by themselves! Don’t you know anything?!” She rushed out of the kitchen, calling for Harriet, her face wild. I stood there, the glass lukewarm in my hand. My emotions puddled around my feet.
I slowly put the glass down; I was terrified of breaking it. A single bead of condensation slid down the side. It twinkled, like a star. My body slouched inward, scared like, I quietly walked back to my room, past the murmuring of Aunt Liza’s voice reassuring Harriet that, “the mean girl didn’t know what she was doing, it’ll be alright,” While Harriet stood there with a bored expression.
It was late morning I noted dully when my head raised far enough to notice the world outside my window. I pulled on my clothes for no other reason than the fact that I had nothing else to do. Then I sat there in the cold stillness, swamped over with all the things my head had decided to unleash.
I saw my mother, bright and smiling, her hands spread across her expanding belly. Her hair was dark and luscious, falling over her left shoulder as she leaned close to me. She took my hand, took it and pressed it firmly into the folds of her skirt, against her stomach; she was brimming with smiles. And I felt jealous for a moment that I wasn’t the source of such happiness, then something thumped against my palm, something inside her. My eyes widened, I leaned closer, trying to hear as well as feel. She moved my hand a little, the thump repeated. I imagined the creature inside, swimming and flopping around in my mother’s juices, like a large vegetable in a soup, or a fish, like the ugly gray ones I’d seen at the ration houses, only I hoped this baby wasn’t gray or ugly. I was tempted to thump back, to communicate my hello in the only way the creature inside would understand, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to scare it.
Father had been happy then, excited. He was only angry every once in a while, but he never hit anyone. He wanted the baby, more than he wanted me I sometimes thought, more than me. He’d tell me all the things the baby was going to do, how fresh and perfect it would be. I always waited for him to tell me how fantastic I was, but he never did. Momma remembered to love me though, and at the time, that was all I needed.
Then the glass had broken, and she’d gone. The door had shut loudly, it scared me, but I knew she was going to the doctor, to feel better, to have the baby. Only, when she came back, it wasn’t her, she was empty, broken like the glass, into a thousand little pieces, and none of them remembered me. She came home, eyes empty, limbs shaking.
I ran to the door, afraid but excited, my mother was back, she was all right. I wanted a kiss, a hug, some small gesture of reassurance. I wanted to see the bundle, the soft warm fold of cotton and flesh, I wanted to bring it to my face and breathe deep of the baby smell, like I’d seen my friend June do when her baby brother came home.
The door opened, I ran, but there was no hug, no kiss…no bundle.
“Go to your room Georgia.” Fire burned in my father’s eyes. At first I didn’t understand. I could handle his rudeness, but why was momma acting so oddly?
I turned to her, “where’s the baby? Can I see the baby?”
That was the first time he slapped me.
“Go to your room Georgia! Now!”
Sitting there in my Aunt’s house, I could still feel the sting, my hot tears rolling down my face. It was only later that I was told the baby had died. June’s mother had told me. Her eyes were full of pity as she patted my hand, whispered words of comfort in my ears. She tried to love me, but she wasn’t my mother.
I spent the next few weeks with only Dexter for company. He was a little dog I’d found at the dump. He was scraggly and thin, partially from the fact that there was very little we could feed him. He did like the ugly gray fish from the ration house, but we didn’t get those very often. One of his ears was shorter than the other, and his eyes had a habit of looking mixed up, but he was the only one left to love me.
I tried to talk to my mother. When my father was gone I slipped into her room, and stood there quietly, waiting, hoping she’d acknowledge my presence. When she didn’t move from her position in her bed, or turn her head and speak my name, I scooted closer. Her dark hair was greasy and tangled. It spread across her pillow like a wave of death. Fanned out shards of black. Her eyes were open, glassy, staring at the ceiling, but seeing nothing.
“Momma?” Her lips wee stiff, they didn’t move to form a response. I almost said something about the baby, about how sorry I was, but I didn’t. There was a part of me, a tiny part that began humming in the back of my head. Part of me wasn’t sorry, part of me was relieved. and in my eleven-year-old head I decided I was evil; that I was the reason momma was in the bed, unmoving, unable to see me, it was because I had a part in me that had hated the baby.
I stood beside her, feet buried in her favorite itchy rug. Her eyelids fluttered. I touched her hand, it was cold––it wasn’t my mother