Tessie D

Angel was in the office the other day. He’d been working with cattle when a heifer headbutted a gate, and it slammed against Angel’s finger. The fingernail broke off, and there was blood everywhere. He came up to the office for the first-aid kit.

Angel wasn’t mad or yelling or anything like Daddy would get if he got hurt. Daddy always made it seem like somehow it was our fault if a cow kicked him or if he cut himself on the tractor.

Angel came in — his finger wrapped in a bandana — and asked for the first-aid kit. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to grab it, waiting for the outburst to come. The cursing, the throwing stuff.

It never came.

Angel washed his hand at the sink. By the time I’d found the first aid kit and got back to the kitchen, he was sitting at the table with his eyes closed and taking deep breaths. I went to the table and unwrapped his hand. The fingernail was hanging onto the nailbed by just a little sliver of skin. I pushed it back into position and started wrapping the finger with the gauze.

He was obviously in pain. He winced a few times. But he never lashed out for it the way that Daddy would.

“You’ve lost your fingernail, but if you keep the nail in place, it won’t hurt as much until you get home. It’s gonna hurt tonight, though.”

“You know a lot about this sort of thing?” Angel asked.

“Well, Momma is a nurse, and Daddy was always getting hurt. So, blood and stuff don’t really bother me,” I shrugged.

“Where is your ‘Momma and Daddy’ now?” Angel asked.

I looked over at the clock on the wall.

“It’s almost 3, so Momma’s probably getting up for the day. She works nights and sleeps during the day. It’s October, so Daddy might be baling hay. That is, if he went out into the field and the tractor is working. And, they found the money to fertilize, so there is something to cut and bale. If he didn’t fertilize and the tractor isn’t working, then he is probably still sitting at the dining room table, waiting for Momma to get up and cook dinner.”

Angel nodded, “You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

“My sister is away at junior college in Kilgore. It’s just Momma and Daddy at home now.”

“You know, that might be the most I ever heard you talk.”

I started to blush. His finger was wrapped up, but he didn’t stand up. I was relieved since I didn’t want the conversation to end.

“I don’t think you’ve ever asked me any questions.”

Angel smiled, “Fair enough.” He paused and we both looked at each other. The eye contact made me nervous so I looked down at his hand, pretending to inspect my nursing skills.

“You ever heard of McDowell’s Hole? That’s over by where you used to live, right? My friends and I tried to find it once but we couldn’t.”

I laughed. McDowell’s Hole is pretty famous where I’m from, so that’s like asking someone from Paris if they’d ever heard of the Eiffel Tower.

“Yeah, I know about McDowell’s Hole. Everyone goes out there after football games and during Halloween to park on the bridge and hang out. There’s not really much to see. Just a low spot on Green’s Creek.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be haunted?”

“Yeah, but not the bridge. People get that mixed up all the time. Over a hundred years ago, a woman was killed by Indians down the creek. They took her baby and she’s supposed to be haunting the spot where the house used to be, crying and looking for her baby.”

“Do you believe in ghosts? Do you think she’s still haunting the spot?” Angel asked. He was talking to distract himself from the pain but we were getting into dangerous territory for me.

I sighed.

“I don’t know about ghosts. But, if you’re asking me if a mother could love a child so much that she would spend eternity looking for them and that there is a tether that connects a mother and child that can’t be broken by something as ephemeral as life and death? Yeah, I believe in that.”