A twenty year old mother sat on the side of the bed in her one room living space, nursing her four month old daughter and watched her three year old whirr and bang around around in ceaseless activity and play.
Her much older husband was off arranging for them to move to a larger place. He had found one down on the river, in the flood plain, rented cheaply in the winter time from the summer folk. He had been gone most of the morning and she suspected he has stopped off to get a drink and not rush back home to the chaos and his responsibilities.
"Oh god, this child is slow," she thought. "I lose half an hour every time she is hungry." Sheila couldn't afford to sit for long, her daughter Rosie kept her very busy, and she still had most of the packing ahead of her. As she nursed, she drifted off to sleep. She was so very tired and had not slept well the night before. She woke up with a start. The door slammed shut as her daughter climbed up and into the small shack after sneaking out doors to play while her attention was on her new baby.
"Here Mama, Here! Jewie is hungry too."
Rosie had climbed on the bed in her muddy shoes, her very dirty sock monkey's big red lips thrust out to get a drink from Mama's breast.
"Get off, get off, get off, "she wailed, as the child pushed at the baby's head and left a brown hand print behind.
"What did you get into?" the child had taken her woobie head first through the silt and river slime. She had drug sand and weeds and seed stickers onto their white chenille bedspread. A few wet spots and a puddle at her feet told her mother that Rosie had not stayed in the yard, or even in the graveled area next door.
The baby began to cry as Sheila pulled her off of her nipple and dropped her into the chest of drawers placed on a chair that served as a bassinet.
This was all too much for her, she fought back the impulse to cry. Grabbing a sodden rag, she started to scrub her little firecracker and peel off her drenched coveralls. Too wet to go into the hamper, and no where to hang it up inside, she carried the clothes off to the porch to hang on a rail. She kept a firm hand on Rosie, not wanting her to get out of her sight till she got her dressed.
It was a cold day and the pot bellied stove glowed a comforting warmth, but outside it was raw and the wind blew up from the river and whistled into the chinks of the walls. No place to raise one baby, never mind two.
"Look at your shoes." She pulled the damp things off and stuck them by the stove to dry out.
"Look at your monkey. I can't clean this thing right now. He's filthy! He's going to have to wait till Sissy is fed." And she pried precious monkey out of Rosie's hand and grabbed a foot stool and put it up above the sink on the nail coming out of the roof rafter.
Sheila then washed her hands as best she could in the cold water basin, brushed the bed off as best she could with the whisk broom and picked up her baby to resume the feeding.
"YOU, stay inside and be quiet.!" She latched the high hook on the front door after taking a look outside to see if John had somehow made it home.
Sheila crawled back into the bed, the only free spot to sit in the little room and watched Rosie with one eye as Sissy latched on gratefully and began her slow sucking ordeal, taking big gulps as if it had been hours instead of five very busy minutes since her last drink.
Rosie sat on the little green stool that her grandpa had made for her. It was exactly her size. She looked at Mommy, she looked at her Monkey, she looked at the awful noisy monkey at her mom's breast.
"I want Jewie, Mama."
"Not right now."
"I can wash him Mama."
"Not right now."
Rosie screwed up her face, her light curls wet with effort and fought back the tears. Sheila knew that face, she knew her little daughter, her wild thing offspring that she didn't know how to handle, couldn't keep up with, couldn't keep quiet enough or busy enough in a day. She considered carrying water from the spring, heating it up on the stove and attempting to soap up and wash Jewie, but it was such a disgusting rag of a doll. And around the new baby. Rosie had a habit of putting the doll into the bassinet for the baby to have. That had to stop.
"I think Jewie is too dirty to wash."
"Wut?"
"Too dirty to wash. You shouldn't have taken him outside. YOU shouldn't have gone outside. You could have drowned. you could have been stolen. You could have gotten lost."
"Would not!" And Rosie kicked the stool and scuffed her bare feet in her passion.
"Yes you could have!" and suddenly Sheila was overcome with guilt and fear and pink eared anger at the house being so close to the river, the disobedient willful daughter who ran every chance she got, ruined all her clothes, drug back disease and filth. It was all just too much, too much for such a young girl alone to handle.
Sheila broke. She got up and fetched down the monkey holding it by one corner of a foot, baby still at her breast.
"Monkey is too dirty to clean. It has to go.," She took it over to the trash can.
"NO Mama NO". Rosie jumped up to grab him.
Mama did a terrible thing then. She grabbed a potholder and pitched Monkey into the pot bellied stove.
"NO MAMMA NOOOOOOO!!! NO!!!"
Mama looked at her daughter. "Maybe next time you will stay put. Maybe next time you won't sneak out. Maybe next time you won't come home looking like a little nigger child.!"
Sheila turned away as her daughter shrieked, but she wasn't prepared for the high pitched screams that followed.
Rosie had opened the stove with her bare hands and burnt her fingers on the door. She had reached in and drug the monkey's charred body out onto the floor. She had soot and ashes everywhere. and she screamed and sobbed from the burns and the grief.
The baby wailed.
Sheila felt sick with horror and dismay. What will John say? He will blame me for this. She had been exhausted before. Now she was beyond it.
Rosie's hands were blistering. She wrapped them in a wet wash cloth and sat her on her stool. Don't move. she said. Rosie was beyond hearing her. She was convulsing and gulping in her sorrow.
She grabbed the stove shovel and the ash bucket and emptied the ashes into them, cleaning out the stove of any signs of a recent fire. She scooped up the remains of Monkey and dumped them in it too, His red fez cap was still recognizable. She took the ashes and coals and dumped them around back behind a bush.
She went and carried a bit of water in to scrub the floor where the ashes had spilled.
Rosie's stool was empty.
Another set of screams pierced the encampment. Rosie had climbed on the ash pile and burnt her feet on hot coals rescuing what was left of her doll.
When John got home, Rosie was bandaged, both feet and both hands bound up in gauze sitting on the bed, very quiet.
and no one was talking.
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