Chicken of the Woods

her under my arm, so her long hair fell on my wet T-shirt. She didn't say anything, but just rested her cheek against my chest. "It's hard, goddammit!" he yelled. "It wasn't our fault the tire tore. It was brand new." "Sorry," Mom said softer, then started patting Suzie's hair again, and looking down at her. The rain kept splattering on the roof, and nobody said any more, except Suzie was still whimpering a bit. I held Lissy close, thinking how I felt guilty about eating at Dottie's, and thinking about how everybody was against Dad and he was alone, except me—and I was really mad at him then too, because he had talked me into eating when I knew we should have really come straight back to the car. I brushed Lissy's hair, and I keep my arm around her and tried not to burp from drinking the Coke. I wished I could say something to Dad then, to tell him I hadn't wanted to go eat, and to tell everyone else it wasn't my fault, but I didn't say anything; no one said anything. We all just waited silently for Uncle Larry to bring us the spare tire we needed. Chicken of the Woods I was tripping on clumsy roots jutting from mossy ground, but a sunlight spotlight was hitting fungus, like illuminating the holy grail. Garishly orange and flowering out like oversized, ballooning irises—like clowns or Tammy Fay's eye shadow turned nectarine-fluorescent—Tammy Fay with a Dolly Parton blossoming. It flourished on a rotting log—Chicken of the Woods—beckoning an Alice to nibble here, or over there. Sprouting from detritus material, it mutely proclaimed and imposed its place here, in the woods, along the hundred-year-old logging trail. —Leah Bayens 79 ...