Where the Line Bleeds Read Free Page B

ceremony, and y'all know y'all worse than
women-take forever to take a bath. Go on!" Under the smell of the
worn sofa upholstery, mothballs, pine sol, and potpourri, she smelled
something harsh and heavy. Something that caressed the back of her
throat. "That Dunny on the porch smoking?"

    "Hey, Grandma Ma-mee," Dunny said.
    "Don't `hey Grandma Ma-mee' me. You dressed for the service?"
    "I ain't going." His voice echoed from the porch. The sweet, warm
smell of his cigarillo grew stronger.
    "Yeah, right, you ain't going. You better get off my porch
smoking..."
    "Aaaw, Ma-mee."
    "And take your ass down the street and get cleaned up. You going to
watch my boys graduate. And tell your Mama that I told Marianne and
Lilly and them to be over at her house at around six for the cookout, so I
hope she got everything ready." His feet hit the grass with a wet crunch.
"And don't you throw that butt in my yard. Them boys'll have to clean
it up."
    "Yes, Ma-mee."
    "Hurry up, Dunny."
    "Yes, Ma-mee."
    From a bedroom deep in the house, she heard Joshua laughing,
high and full, more soprano for a boy than she expected, and as usual, it
reminded her vaguely of the cartoon with the singing chipmunks in it. It
made her smile.
    "I don't know what you laughing for," she yelled.
    Joshua's laugh was joined by his brother's muffled guffawing from
the shower. One couldn't laugh without the other. She pulled her dress
away from her front so as to cool some of the sweat there: she wanted
to be fresh and cool for the service. She'd bought a dress from Sears for
Cille's graduation; where this one was shapeless, the other had fit tighter,
and had itched. It was polyester. Ma-mee had given Cille a bougainvillea
flower to wear. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the sofa
cushion, and she could see Cille at eighteen, her skin lovely and glowing as a ripe scopanine as she walked to collect her diploma. She had just
fallen in love with the twins' father then, and it showed. Cille bore the
twins two years later, and by then her face had changed; it looked as if it
had been glazed with a hard candy.

    Joshua replied; it sounded as if he was speaking through clothing.
Probably pulling a shirt over his head, she thought.
    "Yes, Ma-mee."
    In the shower, Christophe soaped the rag, stood with the slimy,
shimmering cloth in his hand and let the water, so cold it made his nipples
pebble, hit him across the face. In the bottom of the tub, he saw sand,
tiny brown grains, traced in thin rivulets on the porcelain. He washed his
stomach first, as he had done since he was small: it was the way Ma-mee
had taught him when they'd first started bathing themselves when they
were seven. That was when she had first learned that she had diabetes.
    It wasn't until Christophe was fifteen that her vision really started
going: that he noticed that she was reaching for pots and pillows and
papers without turning her face to look for them, and that sometimes
when he was talking to her and she looked at him, she wouldn't focus
on his face. She scaled back on the housekeeping jobs she'd been doing.
She said that some of her clients had started complaining that she was
missing spots, which she'd denied: she said the richer they got, the lazier
and pickier they became. She hated going to the doctor, and so she had
hidden it from them until he'd noticed these things. Late one night after
they'd come back from riding with Dunny, he lay in the twin bed across
the room from Joshua, and told him what he suspected. He'd heard of
people with diabetes going blind, but he never thought it would happen
to Ma-mee.
    After Joshua had fallen asleep, Christophe had turned to the wall and
cried: breathing through his mouth, swallowing the mucus brought up
by the tears, his heart burned bitter and pulled small at the thought of
her not being able to see them ever again, at the thought of her stumbling
around the house. He'd talked to his Aunt Rita,