Bottomland

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It was little more than a month before winter shut us in when I last saw the youngest of my sisters. Our little Myrle. I woke to find her shivering just inside the front door when she should have long gone to bed. It was dark as a cellar in that hall and outside it would be darker — miles of field and grassland lay beyond the front porch. Our house sat alone on the prairie, far from its neighbors. The road to our place was a run of stubble and dirt. Myrle’s hair shone white on her shoulders and she wore nothing but a nightgown, her arms and feet bare in the cold — not enough sense to cover herself though she was almost grown.

I raised my lantern to her face. “Why, Myrle,” I said, “you’ll catch your death.”

The look she gave, as if startled out of sleep. Her eyes teared and she ducked her head. The door was locked at her back. After the war, Father would have made sure of it. A draft rushed our ankles from the doorstep. The rest of the house was still, nothing but a wind outside knocking the stable gate. I touched Myrle’s forehead and felt it damp. She brushed away my hand. Her other hand she hid behind her hip, and when I asked her to show it, she glanced up the staircase and called our sister’s name, as if Esther might rush down to save her. I turned my head and Myrle was off — the white of her nightgown a whirl up the stair. In their bedroom above, the two girls whispered together. When at last Esther stepped out, she looked down at me with her dark face, her hands very still where they gripped the rail. Without a word, she slipped back inside and drew the door shut behind her.

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