Marya’s mother, carrying the baby on her hip, managed to catch up with Marya and give her a cuff, a light blow on the shoulder. “Come on,” she said, “get going, the two of you—I don’t have any time for smart-assing around.” So Marya and Davy followed along behind her, where the path was wide enough for only one person, a fisherman’s path along the creek. Marya’s head felt strange, her eyes too—she kept blinking to get her vision clear. Her throat tightened up—the muscles of her face tightened too—as if she were about to cry: but there was no reason for crying.

“Once you get started,” Marya’s mother always said, “you can’t stop. So you kids don’t start—hear me?”

SOMETIMES, WHEN MARYA’S father was away for a few days, her mother would lie in bed all morning, even into the afternoon, not bothering to dress. Maybe she’d have Marya bring her a sweater. She wasn’t drunk, she said—just didn’t feel like getting up—she had a touch of the flu, maybe—her head ached like hell—she had to take medicine straight out of the bottle—had to get back her strength. If the baby cried and cried it was up to Marya to take care of him, she just wasn’t strong enough to climb out of bed. “Get out of here and let me alone,” she told Marya and Davy, and they obeyed.

Other times, sprawled lazy and smiling in the bedclothes, propped up on pillows twisted any which way, she wanted Marya to nap with her, just the two of them; she hugged Marya close and held her tight as if she thought someone might snatch her away; her breath was hot and smelly in Marya’s ear—“You know what’s going on, you’re just the same as me, you and me, we know it ahead of time, don’t we?” Marya had to hold herself very still or her mother would get angry, and hug her harder, or push her away with a slap. “Don’t you love me? Why don’t you love me?” her mother would ask, staring her direct in the eye, shaking her. “You do love me—you’re just the same as me—I know you!”