So, there’s times, days and week sometimes, when the world’s sunny as a fried egg and everything’s a song and there aint no specks of soot sharp and stinging the eye or tasting black and bitter on the tongue. And the smell of new-made bread hanging warm in the air and Jenny smiling and calling me baby and calling the boys baby, too. And I keep the memory of all those times, saving ‘em like shiny coins in a glass jar, and counting ‘em when days is not so rich.
‘Saving for a rainy day,’ my momma’d say and just maybe she’s right.
Jenny and she’s so filled up – with love some days, and with something else on others. And there aint ever no rhyme nor reason for what she wakes up with in her head. Like some higher being is just throwing dice and sometimes a six is a lucky throw and sometimes there’s just a single spot.
Doctors had something to say ‘bout it. They know stuff – book stuff – and they gave it a hard name and they said there’s medication she could take for it – ‘cept it costs a arm and a leg for it if she was to take it all the time. And I’d give a arm and a leg, don’t get me wrong. And a arm and a leg would be a small price – small potatoes – to pay so as every day could be fried egg sunny and Jenny smiling. But we don’t got more than what keeps body and soul together these days. We is in hard times and aint that the truth.
Yeh, so Jenny smiling this morning and there aint no explanation for why that is, though we looks for one anyways. And she’s calling me baby and the boys baby, too, and I swear that the day on the other side of our front door, hard as ever it is, tastes a little sweeter remembering Jenny smiling over breakfast. And I asked her what she would do today, and she said she planned on opening all the windows and cleaning out cupboards and washing the bed sheets on all the beds and sweeping the floors in all the rooms.
I said she warn’t to overdo it now. And she stroked my chin, gentle as birdwing, and she said she loved me and she said I warn’t to fuss none over what she’d be a-doing. And she said she’d make her momma’s biscuits and there’d be rabbit stew cooking when we got home and maybe a apple pie, too.
We was all laughing then, though me and the boys knew that the dice might be rolled again before ever we got home and she’d be under the table maybe, and curled up like a cat or a baby, and crying or moaning like a critter whipped. And I’d have to carry her to bed, and no matter the soft and kissing of my words, she’d be far off and in a darker place.
And I’d feed the boys – as best I could – and we’d eat in silence, like praying in church silence – and in my head a glass jar of shiny pennies to count out and I’d start with how Jenny was over breakfast. And maybe the boys had jars of their own and they was doing the same in their heads.
Patricia Ann McNair 
So, there’s times, days and week sometimes, when the world’s sunny as a fried egg and everything’s a song and there aint no specks of soot sharp and stinging the eye or tasting black and bitter on the tongue. And the smell of new-made bread hanging warm in the air and Jenny smiling and calling me baby and calling the boys baby, too. And I keep the memory of all those times, saving ‘em like shiny coins in a glass jar, and counting ‘em when days is not so rich.
‘Saving for a rainy day,’ my momma’d say and just maybe she’s right.
Jenny and she’s so filled up – with love some days, and with something else on others. And there aint ever no rhyme nor reason for what she wakes up with in her head. Like some higher being is just throwing dice and sometimes a six is a lucky throw and sometimes there’s just a single spot.
Doctors had something to say ‘bout it. They know stuff – book stuff – and they gave it a hard name and they said there’s medication she could take for it – ‘cept it costs a arm and a leg for it if she was to take it all the time. And I’d give a arm and a leg, don’t get me wrong. And a arm and a leg would be a small price – small potatoes – to pay so as every day could be fried egg sunny and Jenny smiling. But we don’t got more than what keeps body and soul together these days. We is in hard times and aint that the truth.
Yeh, so Jenny smiling this morning and there aint no explanation for why that is, though we looks for one anyways. And she’s calling me baby and the boys baby, too, and I swear that the day on the other side of our front door, hard as ever it is, tastes a little sweeter remembering Jenny smiling over breakfast. And I asked her what she would do today, and she said she planned on opening all the windows and cleaning out cupboards and washing the bed sheets on all the beds and sweeping the floors in all the rooms.
I said she warn’t to overdo it now. And she stroked my chin, gentle as birdwing, and she said she loved me and she said I warn’t to fuss none over what she’d be a-doing. And she said she’d make her momma’s biscuits and there’d be rabbit stew cooking when we got home and maybe a apple pie, too.
We was all laughing then, though me and the boys knew that the dice might be rolled again before ever we got home and she’d be under the table maybe, and curled up like a cat or a baby, and crying or moaning like a critter whipped. And I’d have to carry her to bed, and no matter the soft and kissing of my words, she’d be far off and in a darker place.
And I’d feed the boys – as best I could – and we’d eat in silence, like praying in church silence – and in my head a glass jar of shiny pennies to count out and I’d start with how Jenny was over breakfast. And maybe the boys had jars of their own and they was doing the same in their heads.