Try Saying Yes by Kristen Millares Young

When Shelby put that ring on my finger, it was so cheap the ends didn’t meet. He’s all, honey, why you crying? That’s when I started lying. Once I got on that path, weren’t no choice but to walk it. I told him, these here are tears of joy, and I covered him with kisses, and each kiss was a lie, because what I saw was the day he would walk out on me and the kids.

It hurts to hope. You ever tried it? Not wishing on a star, but holding hope in your body like it was a baby twisting and wriggling inside of you, sucking the blood right from your veins, and you bloated and fighting to catch your breath. That’s what hoping’s like.

For a while, it was alright. Better than alright. Beautiful. Shelby got me a job at the tannery, scraping hides. My part was the curly edges where there used to be a leg or a tail or a neck. Holding that knife sideways made my wrist seize up by the end of the first day. I switched to an old scraper I found right next to our trailer. Can you believe that? Showed up like it knew what I had coming.

I did a good job. It was hard work.  I came home smelling like blood, but that’s not why he left. I don’t think so. I showered. Took bucket baths, if the well was low.

First time I was pregnant, my eyes burned just as soon as I walked into the plant. Dry heaves. You know how it is. Those babies didn’t take. I started raising rabbits. Shelby built a bunch of hutches for me. The neighbors complained, but it never went nowhere cause of what their son got up to in their shed. Like we didn’t know.

The girls play out in the hutches. They’re helping me. I make ‘em go to school. I will not let Lucille quit. She’s always talking about staying home to help out. No, nuh-uh. Not happening. She will make it through middle school if it kills me.

Skinning a rabbit ain’t that hard. When it comes down to it, their skin slides right off. You just got to give it a good yank. My shoulder’s been acting up, or I’d show you.

Guess we’re still married. He could come back. I don’t have the heart to file. I never did like paperwork, or maybe I coulda been a secretary. My momma always dreamed about being a typist. That’s what she called ‘em. She never met one.

But you know, that day he asked for my hand – didn’t say nothing, just took my finger and put the ring on it, I coulda taken it off, but that woulda been mean, and I’ve always been a nice person, it’s what I was taught, yes sir and yes ma’am, respectful, polite, kind – well, anyway, on that day, I was aching with hope, it was in his eyes, it was curled up and growing in my belly, and I said yes, baby. Yes baby. Yes.

The current Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House, Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction. Her prize-winning investigations, essays and book reviews appear in the Washington Post, the Guardian and elsewhere. She was the researcher for the New York Times team behind “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer.