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Show Go Love/199 contractor named Bishop, and the old man drove me up to the wrecking yard where they'd towed the obscenely smashed car. Mr. Bishop let me walk ahead, alone, he let me see. Each floorboard was wrist-deep with my brother's blood, and it had sat there that way for a day-and-a-half in the sun, the instant of the wreck long gone by now, not even the least bit there for me or my senses- the day was dull as dishwater, the world still turning On my knees, I fished out the Lonoke Jackrabbit State Championship Football Ring, 1985, his name engraved on the inside curve. I could say how the sun caught the ring, how I slid the thing on the finger of my left hand, the bloody diamond raised in set silver. But what matters, what's important to me now, is how Mr. Bishop dropped me back at the our house, our home, the place Jimmy'd driven away from that night, his last words-Mama, I love vou How I walked through the front door, the house filled with people saying he won't stutter in heaven or time'll make it better or honey, what's wrong with your mama? And I walked through those people, right past Brother Dell who flicked his tongue against his front teeth and went on with his lie, past O.W. and the senior pictures back to Mama's bedroom, walked in and shook her should until she came awake. "Here," I said. She saw the ring, sobbed deeply and pulled me into her chest and said my baby and I left her there and went to sit in Jimmy's bedroom. This is Lara's first year to burn wishes. She has a great good time making pictographs for everything she can think of wanting. Renee rolls hers into tiny scrolls, tied together with lengths of red yarn. Inside the empty smoker bowl, I light a sage bundle. While our steaks come to room temperature, and the sun lowers, our wishes flutter and burn Nearly ten o'clock and still light, we add new ones and the flames curl and the meat sizzles. "Another," Lara says. "Don't forget me," Renee says. And I write myself into the scraps we burn. I lay on hickory chips and we eat |