Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

Did you feel it at all?
    Kaylee picked up my hand. There was a tube running up from my wrist along the inside of my arm. I couldn’t tell where it stopped. I tried to squeeze Kaylee’s hand.
    You okay?
    She nodded.
I’m not letting you leave me out in the country by myself again. You know that, right?
    I squeezed her hand again.
    How about you? You gonna live to tell the story?
    I smiled but couldn’t answer her.
    My daddy collapsed into the chair beside my bed and took a long, hard breath.
    She’s okay now, Daddy,
Jesse Jr. said, patting my daddy’s shoulder while Kaylee held tight to my hand. There was the sound of Daddy’s tears and the sound of something close by beeping and the sound of nurses calling over the intercom, asking doctors where they were. The sound of life going on—and me there, in it.
    Me there in it.
    I’m okay, Daddy. I’m gonna be okay now.
    She’s gonna be okay, now, Daddy,
Jesse Jr. echoed.
    My father took deep breaths and nodded. He looked at me, his eyes so full of so many things I had to look away.
    Is Moses here?
    Who’s Moses?
    I closed my eyes. How would they know him? How would anybody know anything about that world I walked in? So far away from this one?
    Is he the guy who found you?
Kaylee asked.
They said somebody called the ambulance, said you were from Galilee.
    I was looking for you.
    Are we in Galilee?
    Kaylee shook her head.
Donnersville Hospital.
She bent down to kiss me on the forehead, her hair falling across my face. I tried to reach up to hold her. But couldn’t. So I pressed my face against hers.
Give me your sun, Kaylee,
I wanted to say.
Take this pain away from me.
But only tears came.

elegy for mama and m’lady
    THE MORNING WE LEFT Pass Christian, my mama came into my room and whispered,
You behave yourself at your cousins’ house, Laur. Ask to help with dishes and make your bed without Aunt G. having to ask you, you hear me?
    I woke up slowly. It was still near dark outside. My mama had her hand on my face, looking down at me. Jesse Jr. had just turned three months old and was asleep in his crib across from me. He stirred, making tiny baby noises.
    C’mon, Laur, time to get up now. I have to get the baby up and dressed. Get y’all on the road.
    It wasn’t until she was buckling Jesse Jr. into his infant seat that it hit me she wasn’t coming. I had heard them talking late into the night. I’d heard my daddy fussing with her. I’d heard M’lady saying,
I don’t need anyone staying here with me.
And then I’d gone to sleep.
    Soon as the rain is done, Daddy’s gonna bring y’all back here,
my mama said. She kissed the top of my forehead.
    But, Mama—
    Hush, Laur. Don’t you wake that baby and start him to crying.
    Jesse Jr. was just a baby, so I didn’t know if Mama’s tears were about him leaving her for the first time or seeing the tears in my own eyes. But she turned away from us, wiped her eyes real fast, then turned back again.
    I don’t want to hear that your aunt had to ask you to make your bed.
    I nodded but couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look at her. M’lady sat swinging on the front porch.
    Just gonna be a day or two,
she said.
Don’t know why you all falling apart so.
    That was the last time we saw them breathing.

daddy
    I WANT TO SAY I remember leaving the hospital, remember the drive back to Galilee, my father in the front, humming along to the radio and me beside him. Jesse Jr. in the back talking nonstop, like he wanted to fill me in on everything I missed. I want to say I remember the way the sky turned clear blue as we drove and when I looked up into it, I thought,
This is what’s beautiful about living—the way the world seems to go on and on.
I want to write that I left that hospital not wanting the moon, entered that rehab already done with it. But what I remember most is how it hurt to not feel my moon pipe against