Jean pushed her way through the crowd, she heard someone say, "he did not make it across the tracks, poor little thing, he didn't have a chance."
On that hot Texas day in July, Jean's world collapsed around her. She felt the hopelessness she had been fighting to stay ahead of, overtake her, and she fell to her knees beside her baby. Fanned the flies away from his face. He wasn't garbage for them to feast on and lay their maggot eggs. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close to her chest singing softly, "hush little baby don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird". She rocked and sang. Hoping the sound of her voice would bring him back. She kept rocking and singing.
No one from the crowd came to her, put their arms around her to lift her up. Her neighbors watched as an eerie silence fell and hovered like the sun hovered above the horizon right before it disappeared. Surely there was someone in the crowd that felt her pain. A mother or father who'd lost a child? No one came to her.
He was four years old, so tiny and helpless. Her baby was going to kindergarten in the Fall. Bernie was special, he was her favorite and she knew there would be a price to pay for loving him best. She failed Bernie, it was too late for him and she would never be able to speak his name or recover enough of herself to be hopeful again.
Her baby was bloated and swollen from the hot sun, exposed and grotesque. His eyes were half closed, squinting to protect himself from the sun's glare. They hadn't bothered to cover him. His blood on the rocks between the wooden slats of the tracks. She closed her eyes, kneeling there beside him, rocking his lifeless body, and waited. Waited to be struck down, waited for God to take her. Her life was too heavy and she knew if this were the baby boy, she would already be thanking God for keeping her secret. She would survive his death but not this one.
Bernie lay exposed and broken for all the world to see. Her mother's words rang in her ears, "you think you can do a better job, you'll see what it really takes to be a mother. You're not gonna do anything but shit and fall back in it, and don't come running back here when you fall on your face".
She opened her mouth to scream and there was no sound. She thought of Mattie, her sister and she remembered the brokenness that took her after Maxine was hit by that bus. Was this payback for her thinking Maxine was taken because Mattie was a bad mother?
The crowd looked on, some with empathy, others with disapproving eyes, judging. Openly questioning why the boy was alone on the tracks? Why did it take so long to find his mother? The one thing she heard, the thing that broke her more than she believed was possible, was "God took her son, she didn't deserve him". That is what they thought because she thought the same thing when Maxine was taken from Mattie. Condemned her sister for not being a better mom.
Where was Mattie when Maxine was killed? She was home smoking and drinking with her friends. Jean blamed Mattie for Maxine's death. Now everyone will ask her, "where were you when Bernie was killed?"
She tried to stand, instead she knelt and wailed, shaking the bolts on the tracks that held her boy. Her cry was primal, it tore open the hearts that were closed to her, judging her and condemning her all at the same time. Jean wailed and beat her fists on the iron tracks. Charlie softened and went to her. He tried to help her stand but she pushed him away, "come on now, I got to get back to work". He didn't have time for this but he was her big brother. He felt for her but not enough to stay.
An autopsy confirmed the train severed his legs and the bumps on his head were determined to be from him falling on the rocks and the coroner could not confirm or deny, that he had not been beaten prior. It was ruled an accident. The railroad company gave her a small check to help with the burial.
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