Luigi is very difficult, she says. He makes the doctor work a long time. He is stubborn, like his papa.

They take so long I go to wait for them. I cut the roses from the bush in our yard. Francesco gives me the bush for my birthday. He is my best boy.

I carry a rose for each of my babies. Mario is angry with me.

Go home, woman, go home. He shouts and waves his hat.

Leave me, I answer. Always you whip them. But when they are hurt, they cry for mama. They love mama.

Everyone is crying, everywhere the tears. The women lean together, they sway, they do not close their mouths.

I wait but my babies do not come. Senore Davidson tells the doctor to hurry. Everyone does what Senore Davidson says. He takes me to the big house. The butterflies watch what we do. They turn their heads this way and that. They will not shut their eyes. I shake the roses at them. The thorns scratch Senore’s arm. The blood tastes like salt. His hands are warm, like the hands of the priest when he signs the cross upon my forehead.

Rosa, he says, you forgive so easy.

Mario drinks too much. The empty wine bottles glow like candles. He stands before the reliquary. I am behind him and I look over his shoulder. My mama stares out at me from behind the glass.

Where is God? Mario says.

He hits the glass with his fist. His hand bleeds, the red sprinkles his shirt like holy water flung by the priest.

I gather the purple glass. Mario cries for a towel but the cut will not heal for he has cursed God. The doctor will not fix. Whenever I see Mario the blood still flows. His clothes are sticky with it. Already he is in Purgatory.

Mama shows me how to sort the broken glass. Only one piece is missing. Luigi will find it.

Fifteen

RONDAL LLOYD

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I DID WHEN I GOT BACK ON THE CREEK was try to see Mommy. She moved in with Talcott and Pricie after the explosion. They lived high on the hillside above Annadel in a blue house that straddled two spindly cinderblock pillars.

Talcott led me into the kitchen. Mommy rocked beside the stove and stared at a cup of coffee.

“Hello, Mommy,” I said.

She looked briefly, then away.

“I got nothing to say to you,” she said.

I stood with my cap in my hand.

“Now, Mommy, that aint fair,” Talcott coaxed her. “Rondal come a long way to see you.”

“Where was he when the burying was done? Where was he before that when my baby went to work in that hole?”

“Hell, Mommy—” I began.