A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli Page B

invisible lines drawn all over the halls, places that cannot be crossed, entered, or left. Sarah is often seated on the floor, her head settled against the base of the footboard. A midtown shrink would be expensive as hell but maybe he could help.
    She purrs while Dodi growls. Jonah whispers while Sebastian spits his malice. Cole seeks only to love, his voice is only love, and Sarah and Dodi should both love him, but of course they hate his guts.
    Dodi’s breath still smells of bourbon and chocolate, although I haven’t bought bourbon for weeks. She says, “It’s time that Yankee up and left.”
    “Why?” I ask.
    “You already know why. Only one woman can rule any roost and that woman’s me. She’s gettin’ in the way. I got my duty and I don’t shirk none’a my responsibilities no matter what.”
    Sarah is losing the high lilt of a Jewish American Princess and says, “You don’t know anything about this place, you little backwater swamp tramp.”
    “You shut yer mouth!”
    “You’re only here because your mother gave you up and you’ve nowhere left to go. Now there’s the truth, and that’s not enough of a reason for you to still be here. I belong here because I’m willing to stay.”
    “Are you?” I ask.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    Sarah doesn’t answer.
    This is my house, my home, my space, and my family, but none of what’s going on concerns me really, and they all know it. Sebastian is eager for a bloodletting. From the bed upstairs he urges the girls to fight so that a hierarchy can once again be established. The bitterness in his voice is so powerful that it spooks a murder of crows out of a tree in the backyard.
    Cole tries to calm everyone with reassuring words, but Dodi is gaining a few steps on the knife drawer. Jonah speaks his poetry, also attempting to elicit calm.
“At the egress of your repentance, there, with yet a different sentiment swirling about in your hair, I hear the separate winnows of your beating in time to my heated afterthought, You cry, I weep, and at the heights of our sacred crusades, we drift, we slumber, and at last we sleep.”
    Sarah enjoys listening to his words and is spurred on by his sensibilities. I see now that the faded tattoo on her hip is of the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. She wears her blouse tied at the midriff exactly like Dodi, but Sarah wears jewelry, a touch of makeup, Christian Dior undergarments. The slight scar around her pierced belly button is hauntingly pale set against her deepening tan.
    I inch closer hoping nobody decides to go under the cupboard for a meat cleaver. The windows rattle while Dodi begins a slow smile. She’s going to make a jump soon. Sarah still seems a little lost without the coke and Fred and her film, but she’s always enjoyed distractions, and this whole thing—us—is just another diversion.
    The three throats wail in Sebastian’s voice, raving in his wrath, underscored with stanzas dedicated to longing and rapture. Each third of that immense brain wanting nothing else but out.
    Jonah continues with his love song. Sarah and Dodi circle each other. I step between them.
    My brothers breathe each other’s stale breath.
    They writhe up there in the darkness while we writhe down here in the light.
     
    M AGGIE IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER, sitting in the tall grass with an orchid in her hair. This is about the spot where Drabs married us before being taken by the tongues. I distinctly remember how, even as a nine-year-old boy, my heart slammed in my chest and how it hurt to look into her beautiful face. Some lessons we learn too early for our own good.
    Even children shouldn’t play these sorts of games under the eyes of God. Maggie kept smiling and looking at me then, just as she does now. Our hands were twined together with wildflower vines, a quaint touch that Drabs despised but Maggie insisted upon.
    The Bible lay on the shore where he’d dropped it before thrashing out of sight. The water lapped across the