Dust
Rural Oklahoma, 1964
by Alice Kaltman
Bonnie presses her nose against the window and hopes that maybe what she sees is not really happening; her mother isn’t rushing to the Ford F-150, isn’t tossing the hoe and the shovel and gasoline tank to the ground, isn’t hoisting her red leather valise into the truck bed as a replacement, isn’t looking over her shoulder desperately, the cut on her cheek still seeping blood, the bruises elsewhere beginning to bloom. Bonnie isn’t hearing her father storming around in the upstairs bedroom muttering to himself, throwing hard objects against harder walls, thudding, crashing, falling, rolling. She isn’t feeling her little brother Cecil wedging himself against her side, mewling as he always does in these situations, like an annoying, cloying kitten, maddening Bonnie, who would rather he took care of his own fears for once. But no, this is Bonnie’s job. She’s the older sister, she’s the one who will bear the brunt of this, their mother’s final escape. Bonnie marvels at the sound of the truck wheels spinning out on the gravel drive, spitting dirt, a tornado of dust in her mother’s wake. Bonnie will shoulder this burden for the rest of her life, taking on the household chores, milking the cows, feeding the chickens, wiping Cecil’s endless tears, wiping the mysterious blood that trickles between her legs every month from down there and learning from books what the seepage means, stitching up the rents in her father’s sweat-encrusted shirts, pouring his beer into the frosted glass, just the way he likes it. Before she knows it she’ll be by her father’s death bed, at Cecil’s doomed wedding. She’ll be pressing her nose against this same farmhouse window when she’s older than she can now imagine. Nearly a century old. Bent over, wheezing, spent. Waiting this time, for someone, anyone, to rescue her.
Alice Kaltman is the author of the story collection STAGGERWING, and the young adult novels WAVEHOUSE and THE TANTALIZING TALE OF GRACE MINNAUGH. Most recently, she's published the novel DAWG TOWNE with word west press. Her stories can be read in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Lost Balloon, The Pinch, Hobart, BULL, and Joyland, among other cool places. She is thrilled to add No Contact to her roster. Alice lives, writes and surfs in Brooklyn and Montauk, New York.
