Salvage the Bones

by Jesmyn Ward

some people understand that between man and dog is a relationship.” Skeet jumps and shifts the bag. It hangs even, covers half his chest. “Equal.”

There’s always one for everybody.

I cup my stomach, hear Daddy say something he only says in his sober moments: What’s done in the dark always comes to the light.

Take a lot out of an animal to nurse and nurture like that. Price of being female.”

“You serious? That’s when they come into they strength. They got something to protect.” He glances at me, too, but I feel it even after he looks away. “That’s power.”

“To give life”—Skeetah bends down to China, feels her from neck to jaw, caresses her face like he would kiss her; she flashes her tongue—“is to know what’s worth fighting for. And what’s love.”

After Mama died, Daddy said, What are you crying for? Stop crying. Crying ain’t going to change anything. We never stopped crying. We just did it quieter. We hid it. I learned how to cry so that almost no tears leaked out of my eyes,

Katrina is the mother we will remember until the next mother with large, merciless hands, committed to blood, comes.