Hole in the Middle of the Day

FICTION Hole in the Middle of the Day Tavia Hollenkamp They call me Sissie but I am Lona Faye. I am eight years old and I am old old old like Aunt Pearl and nobody knows it but me. I'm afraid ofthe dark for it is red like blood and it can smother me suck me up swoosh like a big whirlwind and make me die. I am eight and Rachel is twelve and Iva is ten and Wade is six and Sammy isfive and Jacob isfour and Ola Mae is two and Clayton is the baby but he won't be the baby for long for there is another baby in Mama's big belly. Mama sits at the table now, and Iva is on the floor rubbin Mama's swelled-up feet. I look hard at her belly poochin out and I try to see through to the little baby. I don't think it would want to come here if it knowed what I know, and I wish I could tell it so. "Ain't that enough?" Iva asks Mama and then she says, "Doreen's mama and daddy got them a Christmas tree. Wish we had us one." "Piss on Doreen," Mama says. "Rub some more on the bottoms." Mama holds her feet out straight. J can see little blue lines on Mama's legs. Blue blue buckle your shoe and Rachel has said inside the blue lines is blood. "It's blood" Rachel told me but she did not say why the lines are blue but I know it's because Mama's blood is blue and not red like mine when my nose bleeds all over and makes me think ofthe dark for the dark is red red you're dead in the head. "How's Santy Clause gonna know we want Christmas if we don't have a tree?" Iva asks and leans back with the palms of her hands spread open on the floor like two stars. "Make somebody else rub a while, Mama," and she looks at me. "Sissie can." Ifeel scared and hold my breath and look at Iva's star hands. I am scared to move. I move my eyes to the blue lines on Mama's legs. Mama says, "Sissie ain't got sense enough to do nothin." Mama does not look at me when she says this. Tavia Hollenkamp, a native of Oklahoma with Appalachian roots, lives in Sitka, Alaska. She holds an M.A. in English and writingfrom the University of Tennessee . This story comes from her book manuscript Green Grow the Rushes. 57 I look at Rachel then who is standin by the stove stirrin the boilin beans, then I turn around real slow so Mama does not see me move, and I put my face to the winda. There is a hole in the middle of the day and the dark willget through it pretty soon and I do not like to see the dark comefor it is red like blood and it is so heavy pushin and mashin on me sometimes. I am standin on a wooden box and I look through the steamy glass at the snow that swirls through the long bonyfingers ofthe trees and across the yard and swirls in the other snow to make aface. The snow swirls some more and I see a mouth and the mouth in the face moves. It wants to talk to me. I put my hand on the winda and wave myfinger a little bit so the face can see me. The mouth moves some more. It opens and it talks. It does. It talks. It says aLona Faye Lona Faye." "Hey" I say in my head. It knows who I am! It calls again and again louder. I look around to see ifanybody else can hear it. They are not lookin at me or the winda. Rachel stirs the beans and Iva rubs Mama'sfeet and Mama does not say nothing and the little kids are playin. I look back outside and the wind whips at theface and it swirls the snow some more and swirls the face away and Ifeel...