I watched her swim around while Jeremiah dozed on the bank. I wondered how tough it had been for my mom to grow up with someone like Jeremiah as a brother. It was hard enough growing up with Murphy, who was friends with everyone, who Mom loved the most. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like having to compete with Jeremiah for your mother’s affection, not to mention all the other folks hanging around all the time. I felt bad for Mom then, like maybe I’d never understood her, like maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough while she was still alive.

But then Mom’s head snapped up out of the pond and she grew still. A water moccasin glided past her, its neck arched with some strange dignity, kingly, like it was above all the other creatures, like everything else at the pond existed only to fear and worship it. I watched it slither across the water as if it were on solid ground, slickly sliding toward land.

Toward Jeremiah.

Mom followed the snake out of the water as she searched the bank for some kind of weapon. She grabbed a stick, a broken-off tree branch thick as my arm. If it wasn’t rotten, it would do as a club. The snake was on the grass now, so close to where Jeremiah slept. If Mom woke him now and he jerked too quickly, the snake would bite him for sure. I watched her creep up quiet toward the snake and raise the stick, ready to bash the moccasin’s head in.

But then Mom froze. I watched the look on her face, a kind of confusion, or maybe anger, or maybe it was just that she couldn’t figure out how to attack the snake without putting her brother’s life in further danger.

The snake slithered right up to Jeremiah, skipping his bare leg, past his chest, sliding right up to his neck like it knew what it was doing, like some divine wretched force was guiding it. I wanted to scream, to holler at him to wake up, to snap Mom out of her reverie. But it was a vision, only a vision. I couldn’t make a sound. I watched as the snake drew close to him, right up to Jeremiah’s face, gently, as if it were going to whisper a secret in his ear.

And then Mom lowered her club.

The snake bit.

Hard. It clamped down on Jeremiah’s neck. I watched as he kicked and thrashed, but the snake wouldn’t let go. It didn’t seem possible, a snake holding on like that, pumping so much venom into one boy. It seemed like some kind of evil mistake, the opposite of a miracle.

And Mom didn’t do anything. She just stood there and watched.