The First Day of Spring

by Nancy Tucker

Her insides were coming out of her mouth in a howl.

When you did bad things like that the keepers descended, one for each limb, held you so tight you couldn’t move. I did lots of bad things. It felt nice to be held. I liked going limp in their arms and hearing them say, “There. Well done for calming down. Good girl, Chrissie. Good girl.” It was almost like I wasn’t bad at all.

If he had torn my arm away from my body and kept it for himself, I wouldn’t have minded.

“I am hungry, I am hungry, I am.” I whispered it until my eyes were heavy, and just before they closed I whispered, “Call me lovey again.” “What, lovey?” she said. And then I was asleep, and when I woke in the morning she was gone. I still had a strand of yellow-brown hair tangled around my fingers, kinked and dead. I pressed Molly’s body closer to mine. She whimpered, and I felt her fist open and close around folds of my jumper. She liked it here. She liked Linda. But she needed me. “I didn’t leave you, lovey,” I said into her shoulder. “I didn’t leave you.”

“Is it just a marble?” she asked. “It’s a very special marble,” said Linda. “Why?” “Because it used to be your mammy’s.”