THE WELL

Since her mama's death, Nadine's life had ebbed in heat and dust and lonelines, but now she sat in silence beneath the canopy of whispering leaves from the cottonwood tree. She tried once again to understand why her daddy had sent her and her sister to live with their old grandparents, but she couldn't. She tried once again to understand why her brothers had gotten to stay with their daddy, but she couldn't.

Nadine's head ached and she rubbed the cold blue vein that bulged at her right temple. She studied the ground where the searing East Texas sun charred the red clay dirt into fractured cracks and reminded her of the vericose veins on granny's bloated ankles.

Looking up, Nadine became distracted by her older sister who walked toward the well to get a drink of its cool water. With bare feet, Katie shuffled in short, staccato steps, stirring up puffs of crimson dust. Nadine turned her head to the right and spat, all the while watching her sister. Narrowing her eyes, Nadine then dug narrow trenches into the dirt with her heels--back and forth, back and forth.

"Watcha' doing Katie?" she asked.

"Making angel clouds," came Katie's guarded reply as she stopped amid the dirt that floated around her feet. She stretched her arms down her body and as she did the feet of the rag doll she was given by her mama before she died settled into the dust and dirt.

"That's a stupid game," hissed Nadine. She pulled her knees to her chest. Her eyes devoured her sister's rag doll before she mocked their grandma's parched voice.

"You playin' with that nasty ol' thang again, Katie Mae?"

Katie's stubby fingers tightened about the doll's muslin hair.

"Give it to me," ordered Nadine....