Winter Birds by Jim Grimsley

him on the floor, leaning against the couch. When you are close to Amy and the others you feel safe. You sit motionless and silent with them, pretending to watch the pale screen but all the while studying Papa. He bites a piece of fingernail and spits. “Spend so goddamn much money to heat this place and it cold as a bitch no matter what.”
    â€œThere ain’t but so much one little heater can do,” Mama says.
    â€œYou so rich you want to buy another one, Miss Big Talk?”
    â€œWe might could afford one if you didn’t start to spend all the extra money we got to keep yourself happy.”
    â€œTell me about it. You earn so goddamn much yourself. How much have I spent that won’t on you or your younguns?”
    â€œYou know better than me.”
    â€œYou know what started me drinking. I ain’t had nothing but a beer now and then, not till last week.” He glares at the kitchen doorway as if she stood there, though it is only her voice.
    She says softly and evenly, “Yes, I know what your excuse is.”
    You do not know what they are arguing about.
    But Amy catches your eye and mouths the word, “Delia.”
    Aunt Delia came to visit last week. Papa and Mama have been arguing since she left. Though as for that you had felt the anger gathering in your Papa’s silence since before you moved from the Light House.
    Papa pays no mind to Amy or to you, only stares at the kitchen doorway, clenched mouth working on words he doesn’t say, eyes glittering ugly so that you look away, afraid to have him catch you staring.
    Amy says the word over and over to make sure you know what she means, Delia, Delia, Delia.
    Mama cried because she found a thing in his truck. She thought he must have wanted her to find it becausehe didn’t throw it away. She showed the thing to Papa and wanted to know when he used it, because it was full.
    Mama said she didn’t want to handle the thing again, because she had already washed her hands, but she put it on the porch and Papa could go look at it if he really didn’t remember what it was.
    Papa said, “You are the sneakingest bitch I ever met in my life.”
    Now Papa stares at the kitchen doorway with the ugly expression stiff as a mask on his face. The muscles of his jaw work back and forth. He says, “You know. You know everything, or at least you think you do. But you might get in trouble if you keep on talking.”
    Mama bangs a spoon against the side of a pot. “I know what I saw.”
    â€œYour eyes are hooked to a stupid mind,” Papa says, “else a filthy one, to accuse me of what you accused me of.”
    â€œYou want your children to know exactly what we’re talking about?” Mama asks. She appears in the doorway holding a peeled potato in one hand and a stirring spoon in the other. At the bright, stern look on her face Papa quails. “Keep talking,” she says. “They’ll know everything then, even if I don’t say a word about it, by the way you run your mouth trying to squirm your way out of it.”
    Weakly Papa says, “Ain’t nothing for them to know.”
    Mama simply watches him. After a moment she says, “You want me to show them what’s in the bag? They won’t know what it’s for but I could explain it. Tell me that’s nothing, Mr. Big Stuff.”
    He turns back to the television. Mama moves quietly out of sight. You can hear her in the kitchen, peeling this, stirring that, running water in the sink. Any other day she would be humming a song. You can almost see the expression on her still face, set not in a frown but tense and expressionless. Nothing shows through. Her hands move deftly above the stove that has moved with you from house to house all these years. Mama is like a wall today.
    Papa sits in the light from the window that falls cool and thin over his dark work clothes, over his unshaven face and bluish feet, the nails gray