Mudbound

by Hillary Jordan

Life felt perilous, like anything at all might happen.

The battles he’d fought were the kind nobody cheers you for winning,

Ain’t never a lull or a cease-fire. Win today, you got to get up tomorrow and fight the same battles all over again. Lose and you can lose everything. Only a fool fights a war with them kind of odds, or a man who ain’t got no other choice.

I loved all my children, but I loved Ronsel the most. If that was a sin I reckoned God would forgive me for it, seeing as how He the one stacked the cards in the first place.

I never felt more in love with my husband than when I was carrying his children.

Jamie set about making me love him from the first day he arrived. Complimenting me on my cooking and doing little things for me around the house. Things that said, I see you. I think about what might please you. I was starved for that kind of attention, and I soaked it up like a biscuit soaks up gravy.

Isabelle was his pet, and I was glad of it. I could never love her enough or give her enough attention. Jamie saw her need and met it with extravagant affection, which she returned in full measure. When he was in the room, none of the rest of us existed for her.

Whenever Jamie was around she sang. And when it was just me, she hummed.

I went to the mirror. My hair was disheveled, but apart from that I looked like myself: Laura McAllan on a normal Saturday afternoon. Everything had changed; nothing had changed. Astonishing.