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Show Go Love/129 I hug my sister, take her in, blood is blood. This moment: when trucks roll uphill, a rabbit rolls her pink eyes back for the squeal, all of us on the railroad track, we're on our knees, our mother's screaming help-the whale's breath in our faces "Where's her will?" I ask Traceleen. From the recliner, his back to me, O.W. says, "She has none." "That's not true." The recliner squeals "She show it to you?" The briefcase-where I once glimpsed Shawn Terrence, Mama's goddamn prissy-ruck lover, that's where. I know and know and know-the picture my mind makes betray me OW'd of seen it by now, he would have looked there. "She told me over the phone " He studies me, his head twisted like an owl's, his muscled shoulder bones showing on either side of the recliner's back. Somebody's dusted off the big-framed photo of him and Mama, then one we'll use for her obituary Beside me, Trace has found the letter from Lord. She's reading the words. "Mama was taking a lot of medicine." O.W. nods. "A boatload." The air kicks on and the doorbell rings and spaceship home winds dizzily. Outside, the storm's hauled ass and the sun's come out. County boys from here to Batesville are kicking piles of cowshit amongst bitterweed and clover, harvesting the belly-white mushrooms that'll make them talk to Jesus. After a rain they grow straight out of shit into the light. Trace says, "Daddy? It's the gravedigger. He wants to know where again." Lord's letter is |