I trudged home from school through dirty snow and mud. The temperatures seesawed high and low, slicking the paths. I ripped off and handed to Mama the paper stapled to the door, which I had failed to read. 

She marched to the kitchen in her hot pink robe and burned the paper inside a cooking pot inside the sink—crashes, bangs and curses—until it was nothing but black ash, and then she turned the tap right into it. 

‘What did it say, Mama? What’s e-vic-turd?’ 

‘It didn’t say nothing, baby. Run check your brother for me, and then go do your chores.’ 

When I got in from milking Anaïs, the house still smelled burned. Baby Jeremy was, amazingly, still asleep, which I knew would worry Mama that he’d be up half the night. 

Her blue hair dripped from the shower, but her eyes were red.

‘What does that mean, Mama?’ I asked again, ‘What’s e-vic-turd?’ 

Mama took my shoulders. She said our lives were a cage, and she was just waiting for our Lord in Heaven to fling the doors open. She sat down on the edge of her bed, on the slippery bedspread, to towel-dry and roll her hair up on red curlers so wide I could have crawled through them. ‘You know what a lock is, Pickle. You know what open means.’ She had purple spikes in her pocket that she pushed through the rollers to her skull. She’d done one on me once to show me, and it had hurt like vaccinations. 

‘This?’ I said and tossed wide the cockatiel’s cage. 

We burst into laughter as Delilah swung across the ladder from her dangling bell and exploded into grey and yellow flight, circling the room before coming to rest with a screech on Mama’s clumsy curler, making the bird look like she was log-rolling. 

‘Go eat poo!’ Delilah screamed. 

This set Mama to howling so hard she spit spikes from between her lips to tumble off her breasts, which made those things laugh so hard they sprayed milk, a sticky showerhead of it, and that made me shriek and say I should just milk Mama instead of Anaïs! 

To see my Mama naked was to see the knicks of a thousand blades—she’d once taken knives to herself, she’d told me, back when she didn’t like herself, and had ended up in the psych ward, whatever that was. ‘Don’t you ever do this to your skin,’ she added. She also had scars from cats. ‘Don’t try to put a cat in a cage head first,’ she said, thrusting out her wrist and showing me the scar there. ‘Docs think this was my girlish attempt at suicide, Pickle, but it wasn’t, it was that G-d cat, Spunky.’ She tapped the scar under her nose. ‘This scar. Same cat as my wrist.’ 

Mama pushed the heels of her hands against her boobies hard to stop the milk. ‘Called sepsis, when your blood turns against you.’ 

There was something I still needed to hear. ‘Mama,’ I repeated again. ‘What’s evicturd?’ 

‘Mr Brayer may be the landlord, but he ain’t God. He thinks he’s God, but he is not.’ 

The landlord and Mama went into her bedroom some nights, shut the door, and he grunted until the house shook. 

‘Our problem is I got nothing more to offer. Me with this body, well, it means we’re extra dependent on Mr Brayer in ways I don’t like. That’s what eviction means.’ 

What I needed to tell her was that Mr Brayer had trapped me in the barn and put his thick hairy hands over top of my small ones as I tugged at Anaïs’ teats, moving my fingers up and down so milk squirted. 

I’d finally run out, leaving the milk can behind. 

I squared my shoulders. ‘Mama, I didn’t like Mr Brayer’s hands when he helped me milk.’ There. I’d said it. My heart was going wild. 

She stared hard, reddening. ‘I’ll talk to him, Pickle. You stay far, far away from him.’ 

‘He said our power was getting cut. He said we have to move. Do we have to?’ 

Mama’s sighs were the biggest thing about her. She let a good two or three out and pulled on a slip that glistened in the candles she’d lit. ‘He’s a big old Judas, Pickle.’ 

I worked it out. ‘His name is like my name.’ 

‘No, Judas is bad. The name Jody is good.’ Mama spun in a circle, ballerina-like, as she pulled on a slippery robe and slippers. ‘And so what if we have to go? So what?’ She clapped joyously. Her fingernails were perfectly painted in orange. ‘We’ll be glorious with our suitcases, bird cages, stubborn little goat and milk can. Oh, we’ll have ourselves a beautiful adventure.’ 

‘The birds will freeze!’ I said. 

‘I will be paying the electric, one way or the other,’ Mama said. ‘See if I don’t.’ 

Mama licked her fingers and pushed at my curls. ‘Maybe we can turn into birds like Delilah, Pickle. We’ll fly up and up. We’ll see smoke puffing from chimneys and trees tossing in the wind, the arc of the globe pretending it’s moral and turns toward justice. Wouldn’t you like that? The only humans flying?’ 

‘Oh, yes, Mama!’ I said, imagining riding a cloud with Mama and Jeremy. ‘Oh, yes, oh, yes.’ My question was, though: What if it was overcast? On a cloudy day no one would even see us beating our pale wings. What if I couldn’t see Mama and got lost? What if an airplane came at us? 

 How could I fix that? 

 I thought about the coat of many colours in the Bible which Jacob had got from Joseph. God had squeezed tubes of paint into our sky, here, but would we be able to take our ceiling with us? Could I ask Mama that? Could we take those dashes of yellow, dots of blue, zigzags of green, great red shrieks? Pack them in our suitcase? 

Delilah flew up to the light fixture and hung from it, upside down. 

We did let the birds out, sometimes just one, sometimes all five, but into the bathroom with the windows and door locked steady and secure. It was living small or clip their wings, which Mama was not partial to. 

Mama called Delilah with a whistle, and Delilah flew to her hand then stepped up onto the perch, into her cage. 

Mama went off to make dinner, which tonight was KD and a can of yellow wax beans. 

I wandered behind her. ‘Mama, please tell me.’ 

‘That big word just means I have failed to satisfy Mr Brayer, Pickle, and him and me are fighting. That’s why he’s bothering you. He wants someone for tradesies, with me out of commission.’ 

Although my mama smelled of cockatiel and sour milk, she also smelled of burned paper. The teacher told Mama in parent/teacher that the school required better hygiene, and Mama said she was working on it, but it was me who didn’t like bath water. She herself liked it just fine, thank you very much for your in-sin-u-ation. 

Next day Mr Brayer knocked on the barn door and said in a funny voice, could he please come in? 

Anaïs, the goat Mama had stolen, was cloven-hooved with a dragging milk sac. Mama had rescued the goat from a butcher’s back paddock, tugging her along in the middle of the night with a rope collar and spray painting her purple in case the butcher got a fit of recognition. She never got caught, and we had plenty to drink. We were not planning to eat Anaïs even if her milk ran dry. 

I was not there when Mama did the goat-stealing, but I could imagine her with her scars and flab, yanking along a white and black goat who didn’t have enough sense to know she was saved. 

‘That Anaïs, she’d eat a car,’ Mama liked to say, and I wondered if it was true, since I’d seen her just the other day eating a can that once held pork ‘n beans. 

It was Mr Brayer’s barn. Mama had cautioned me to be polite to him, but not too nice. She said sidle out if he got too close; become boneless and slide away because he did what he wanted, just like Mr McMahon, the science teacher at school, who pushed Miss Ketchum up against the lockers and tried to honk her titties. 

Which made me think of Mr Brayer honking Mama’s, but then I felt my cheeks heat. I leaned on Anaïs’ flank. I liked the warmth of Anaïs, the sound of a hard stream of milk hitting the pail—I even liked the side-winding barn cats who were hopeful I’d squirt some their direction. 

Mr Brayer was as tall as the roof when he towered over us. I could see the hair in his nostrils. ‘How you tonight, Pickle?’ 

A mourning dove flew up frantic from a crossbeam, its wings lit the colour of butter. 

Mr Brayer’s face was smashed in on one side from when he was a race car driver. He was like Humpty Dumpty. Pieces of his face seemed to slide all over, first one cheek here, then there by his chin. I could smell his breath and, yup, he had a beer bottle in his hand, holding it like a goat teat and taking a slug. 

‘This is the last milking, Mr Brayer,’ I said, finishing up and shrinking back. ‘Mama needs it for supper and to help feed the baby.’ 

‘My baby, you mean?’ He spit off to the side, his gob landing straw. My stomach did loop-dy-loos. 

I felt I had to argue this. ‘Jeremy is Mama’s baby.’ 

Mr Brayer laughed, but the sound had rocks in it. ‘You’re the cutest simpleton, Pickle.’ 

‘My name is Jody.’ In fact, I liked Pickle much better, so I didn’t want it dirty in his mouth. 

He pretended to sweep his hat off his head in introduction. 

‘Mister, I have homework.’ I unclipped Anaïs and whacked her on the butt to get in her stall and hefted the bucket. She’d been full and aching, almost as bad as the teat disease Mama got sometimes with Jeremy—mas-ti-tis, which had the world ‘tit’ right in it. 

‘You folks are outa here,’ he said, indicating the road with his thumb. ‘Jeremy, on the other hand, is staying with me.’ 

We were supposed to have an adventure, Mama, Jeremy, me, Anaïs and our birds. Mama promised. We were not leaving my brother behind no matter what this man in his suspenders over his pit-stained undershirt said. 

I carried my bucket out, every one of my nerves on edge. He didn’t follow, but partway back to the house, the lights went out in the barn, darkening the path, and I didn’t know whether he was behind me. 

Mama was nursing the baby in the rocker with the squeak. Back, forth, back, forth. The baby ate at her. I carried the bucket of milk to the kitchen before going back in to rub my hand along possessively across Jeremy’s head. He was four months old with curls soft as bird down. 

‘Mr Brayer said we have to go, but Jeremy has to stay with him.’ I wound the baby’s hair around my finger like a ring. 

My mother whispered. ‘Pickle, I mean it; stay away from that mean man.’

‘He just comes in, though, Mama, when I’m milking. Is he the boss of us, Mama?’ 

‘I’m the boss of us, young ‘un. You only listen to me.’ 

That night, I came bolt awake, cold and wet from peeing the bed, hearing Mama and Mr Brayer fighting. At night, birdsong was stilled, cages covered. 

He said, ‘I get to spend some time with her, or else.’

‘Over my dead body.’ 

I knew it was me they were talking about. My somersaulting tummy knew it.

‘That can be arranged.’ He barked a laugh. 

‘I’ll report you; I swear I will.’ 

‘Who they believe, a cheap hooker or a gen-u-ine property owner?’ 

‘I’m going to sue for child support, and then we’ll figure how you come out.’

I heard a slap and then the sound of soft weeping. 

I wondered if I should crawl into Mama’s bed with the baby so she’d have softness and love beside her after Mr Brayer left, and I was fixing to change my nightie and go in there, but Jeremy started to wail, and then I couldn’t hear Mama and Mr Brayer over his din. I picked him up and shushed him, but he was so heavy I didn’t last long. I put him over top of my blanket so my pee wouldn’t drown him and then his blanket on top. 

I heard Mr Brayer slam the door and his heavy boots on the porch stairs, leaving, the grinding of his Chrysler gears. 

Mama came running up the stairs and kissed my forehead. 

‘Good girl,’ she said. She picked up the baby. ‘There now, there now.’ She began to hum. ‘Honey, isn’t this the finest baby?’ 

‘Sometimes he hurts my ears.’ 

‘Babies soon grow into big people like you, but for right now, this boy thinks he ought to eat every two hours or sooner. Milk doesn’t fill him up for long, does it?’ 

‘Is Mr Brayer Jeremy’s daddy?’ 

The baby was scooped into her arms. ‘Jeremy doesn’t have a daddy.’

‘Me either, right? Birds either.’ 

‘Did you know most birds who live with people don’t even meet their actual parents?’ 

We wandered to Mama’s room. I saw suitcases piled up in a corner. 

‘Are we going, Mama? Are we really moving?’ I stroked Jeremy’s head again. His eyes were closed; he didn’t notice. His lips loosened their grip, and Mama’s nipple fell out, still dripping milk. Not a showerhead, just a faucet needing a washer. 

‘Sure. We’re gonna win, honeybunch. We are.’ Her face was sleepy, almost nodding. ‘Let’s get this sweet babykins back to his crib.’ 

‘Win what?’ 

‘Everything, Sugar Pickle. We’ll win the world.’

I didn’t reply. My teeth chattered. 

‘I’ll put your brother down, and, meantime, see if you can strip your own sheets, sweetheart.’ 

‘Mama, I don’t want Mr Brayer to come here anymore.’ 

She wreathed her face in smiles. ‘Baby girl, if we don’t have a house, he can’t be around us at all! Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that divine? It’s God’s gift.’ 

‘Like a holiday?’ 

‘Exactly!’ She planted a kiss on my forehead. ‘We will dig out that wagon of yours and be on our way. Aren’t you excited?’ 

Through Mama’s eyes it was everything it wasn’t through my own. It was wonderful. I scurried down the hall to change my sheets, before falling into them and curling up. And, when I dreamed, I dreamed we were on the road with the birds’ legs attached to colourful ribbons, and they were lifting us high, high up. 

2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist: Issue 2