A few minutes later I passed a sign telling me I was leaving Green Creek, Oregon, and to come back soon!
I would.
That was a promise.
like this/got you
It went like this:
I was born.
I didn’t remember.
I was one.
I didn’t remember.
I was two.
I didn’t remember.
And then I did.
Because my mother was there, and she was sitting in a chair. She was tired but smiling. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and her skin looked soft.
She said, “Carter, would you like to meet your brother?”
He had been in her stomach. And now he was here.
My father stood in the doorway, watching us.
I didn’t remember anything else. How I’d gotten into the room. Where I’d been before. What I’d been doing. It didn’t matter. This was big.
Big big.
My father said, “Be careful.”
There was a wrinkled pink thing in my mother’s arms. It had a nose and a mouth and squinty eyes. It yawned.
“Mine?” I asked.
“Yes,” my mother said. “Yours. Ours.”
“Mine,” I said again, and I tried to take the pink thing from her. I wanted to take it away, to hide it so no one else could touch what was mine.
My father said, “No, Carter, no. You’re too little. You could hurt him.”
“No hurt,” I said. “No hurt.”
“Yes,” my mother said. “That’s right. No hurt. We don’t hurt him. We don’t hurt Kelly.”
“Kelly,” I said for the first time.
“Your brother,” my father said.
“Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.”
He looked up at me.