Wednesday
Vitamins
by Darlin Neal
The preacher came by early that morning to find out why they hadn't been in church. Mom and Dad were at the horse races. He'd asked why it was so hot in the house, fanning himself, and it was only then the girl realized how uncomfortable it was inside. He found the thermostat and turned down the heater she'd turned up too high, shaking his head but he didn't say anything else except, "Tell your parents I came by."
She took the children outside, a baby, a toddler, and a little brother. Her sandal broke. The strap flapped around so much she took her shoes off and walked on the dusty ground with a toddler on one hip. She didn't wear shoes much outside anyway when she was playing and her feet were tough against anything but the goat's heads.
The little boy kept slapping two sticks gently that had leaves on the end that floated together and released. It made her think of forceps, of a baby she'd seen recently who had his head smashed in above his ears. She wondered if he'd grow up to look like a cone head. She was bored taking care of babies. She was ten.
There was instant pudding in the cabinet. There were vitamins. Her mother would cook when she got home that night, or if they won money, maybe they'd bring something. The girl didn't feel like making pudding. She asked her brother did he want to take a bunch of vitamins and see what happened? Maybe they would become incredibly strong. He didn't, but she did.
When she got sick that night her vomit was the brightest deepest yellow. She didn't die like she felt like she would, vomiting and vomiting, but it was a sign of things to come.
Originally appeared in The Lifted Brow.
Appears here with the author's permission, © Darlin' Neal
Darlin' Neal is author of the story collections Elegant Punk (Press 53, 2012) and Rattlesnakes & The Moon (Press 53, 2010). She is the 2011 winner of DH Lawrence Fellowship from the Taos Summer Writers Conference, their highest honor. Her short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies, including The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Eleven Eleven, The Mississippi Review, Puerto del Sol, and Best Of The Web. Neal is a Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Arts, Henfield Prize, and Frank Waters Fiction Fellowship recipient. Her first collection, Rattlesnakes & The Moon, was nominated for numerous awards including The Story Prize and The Pen Faulkner Award. Her short stories and nonfiction have been nominated a dozen times for the Pushcart Prize. She serves as faculty advisor for The University of Central Florida's award winning undergraduate literary magazine The Cypress Dome, and for The Writers In The Sun Reading Series for which she brings in writers of national caliber each semester. She is Fiction Editor of The Florida Review.
