Winter Birds by Jim Grimsley Page A

and ragged-edged because he does not cut them but waits till they are long enough to tear with his fingers. He turns his brown, worn face to the window and you wonder what he is thinking. You wonder whether his bare feet are cold. The piece of arm hangs at his side, sleeve tied in the clumsy knot that is all he can manage by himself. Nervously he bites first one nail and then another, though he has already chewed them to the quick.
    You settle back against the couch, smelling the Thanksgiving dinner, hearing Allen beside you breathing quietly, hands knotted in the hem of his jeans. Duck sits sullen on the couch, staring into his own hands. Grove is nearly asleep with his head in Amy’s lap, while Amy gazes at you, eyes wide and round.
    She sticks her tongue at Papa while he looks out the window.
    You nod but look away, wishing the day were over.Tomorrow Papa will have to go back to work.
    As if she has heard your thoughts, Amy nods too, twirling a restless finger through Grove’s tight curls.
    DELIA CAME to visit after she caught her boyfriend in a shed on top of a black girl from down the road. The sight of her sweet Carl Edward scrunched over the grunting vixen tore up Delia’s nerves completely; she couldn’t eat a mouthful for three days and couldn’t get to sleep for a week. Finally she said to herself, “Girl, you’re not going to sit here and pine to death over that no-good son of a bitch Carl Edward. If he wants to rut with ever woman north of Georgia then by God he is welcome to do it.” She decided she would go to visit her sister Mae Ellen, for Thanksgiving. So she sold the ring the son of a bitch had given her to a pawnbroker in Fayetteville, and used the twelve dollars the pawnbroker gave her to buy a bus ticket to Potter’s Lake.
    Delia was apt to do anything when a man made her angry, and men were always making Delia angry. She was a little bit of a baby, Mama said. Mama liked Delia better than any of the rest of her family, but she didn’t like any of them much. At the beginning no one would have guessed there would be an argument at all. Papa was still drinking a little, but he had been in a good mood since the family moved into this new house, and Mama began to think he had forgotten about the photographer. He acted as happy to see Delia as anybody. He and Mama picked her up at the bus stop before he went to work, early one Mondaymorning, and the three of them drank coffee in the kitchen, telling each other stories and laughing so hard they woke you children in the back bedroom. Delia had brought three dresses with her in the brown paper sack she held in her lap, and that first afternoon she set up the ironing board in the living room and ironed all three. Only then did Mama notice one of them was the same orange sleeveless with the pleated skirt that Mama had borrowed from her sister to be married in years before. So she asked, “How in the world did you get that dress from Corrine?”
    â€œShe said she was tired of it, because it’s so tight across the belly it puckers every time she sits down.”
    â€œShe gave it to you?”
    â€œShe sure did.”
    After a while Mama said, “I got married in that dress.”
    â€œOh I know that, she told me.”
    Mama walked to the window. She listened to you children playing in the yard. “She swore she’d give it to me if she ever decided to get rid of it.”
    â€œCorrine is half crazy,” Delia said. “You know how she is about things like that. One day she’ll promise you something and the next day she won’t even remember she talked to you. I believe all that fat has settled onto her brain.”
    â€œShe ought not to go back on a promise when it’s a special case like that dress. She knows good and well how much I wanted it.”
    Delia set down the iron. She gave Mama a smile that made Mama want to slap her across the face. Delia said, “Well if you want