Mulberry. Paulette Boudreaux

      “Momma don’t love us like she love that other baby,” Roy Anthony said quietly, as we rode home from the hospital, jostling along dry bumpy roads in the back of Mr. Gamet’s truck with the wind whipping up chill-bumps on our faces and pressing the smell of hay and cow manure into our clothes.

      “She do too,” I said, hugging June Bug against my chest.

      Daddy made a sharp turn around a corner. We all leaned away from the turn, slanting like blades of grass in a breeze. Daddy drove on as if he had forgotten he had children clinging to the back of the pickup.

      “Why won’t she come home to be with us then?” Roy Anthony shouted, looking at me with desperation and rage.

      “There ain’t nobody else to take care of that other baby.”

      “I don’t believe it. She just don’t love us no more.”

      I thumped Roy Anthony on the head with a snap of my fingers. “That’s just a taste of what you’ll get if you don’t shut up.”

      His eyes showed his fury, but he kept silent.

      Momma’s loving us or not loving us didn’t seem to matter much just then. She had left me and the boys alone with Daddy. And it was clear now that he had become, perhaps always had been, someone who could turn mean and violent, just like Esther’s mother had with her.