RED RIVER GIRLS

The door bangs open, bringing in a wet breeze. I glance over, disappointed to see our ne’er-do-well father instead. I’m not surprised. He somehow senses when I’ve had a bit of luck, even before the food is cooked. Elsewise, he’s hardly home. He claims to be working, but I know that’s a lie. He’s taken up again with the widow down the road. Full of the damp, he turns the dirt floor into mud where he walks. “Ah, ’tis yerself.” He leans to peek into the pot and finds it empty. He spies the rabbit I’ve yet to skin, and I know his words before he speaks them. “The meat’ll taint if not tended to. Have I taught ye nothing?” Wet moss covers his ragged clothes. “Wading through the bogs, were you?” He grins and hands me a fist full of bog plants, mud still clinging to their roots. Weeds. This is a new low, even for him. “Were there no weevils under rocks? Maybe a good-sized stone to use for me pillow?” He sighs. “If ye don’t want them, give them back.” I set them aside. When peeled, the roots can be dried and used to thicken a stew. It takes time and work with no nourishment value, so they are as worthless as the man who’s gifted them. He glances at JoJo. “Ye’ll make him weak with all that mollycoddling.” “Like a man who can’t provide for his family?” I regret the words and remind myself it’s not his fault he’s no longer a man of brawn and swagger. He narrows his eyes. “Where’s yer mother?” Useless. All he needs to do is turn his head. “You’d be knowing Mama’s ill again if you cared for us instead of feeding the widow’s family while our bellies stick to our ribs.” He scowls. “Seems Saint Patrick forgot a snake. Ye’ve a tongue of a viper that stings like nettles on Sundays.” He looks so pitiful and weak; my patience returns from its stroll. I try to hand him JoJo. “Here, hold him, and I’ll start dinner.” He backs away. “When he makes it to three, but ’til then, I’ll no pay him no mind.” “He’s your only son.” He shakes his head. “He’s the fourth John. Oh sure, his middle name be changed but cursed like his brothers all the same.” He spits into the hearth’s fire. “Woulda been better to’ve been named after a feckless civil cogger or a cockered Whig whore.” If sinners were saints, he’d be the Pope. “Well, John the Fourth be hungry since you’ve sold our goat. For a cow, you said. A sack so full we’d drown in cream, you said. But I’ve yet to hear a wee moo or see some magic beans. I can’t get milk from trees, you know?” His eyes widen, and I await the lie to cross his lips. “Twas that blaggard O’Dea. Cheated me again.” He snatches up the rabbit. “I’ll tend to Mister Coinin for ye.” He staggers out the door. JoJo gurgles and blinks at me. I glide my hand over his soft curls. His two-tooth smile melts my heart. “I won’t let you turn out like him. You’ll be a good and fine man. A da your family will be proud of.” And I’ll move heaven and earth to make that happen and prove our father wrong.