gaunt, defeated look on his face. Quiet now, Luke was resting, or as
near to resting as he could be standing up. Dad wheeled the bin into
the shade because, despite the hat, Luke’s hands and arms had turned
red with sunburn. Dad said the best thing to do was leave the leg where
it was until Mother came home.
Mother’s car appeared on the highway around six. I met her halfway
up the hill and told her what had happened. She rushed to Luke and
said she needed to see the leg, so he lifted it out, dripping. The plastic
bag clung to the wound. Mother didn’t want to tear the fragile tissue,
so she cut the bag away slowly, carefully, until the leg was visible.
There was very little blood and even fewer blisters, as both require skin
and Luke didn’t have much. Mother’s face turned a grayish yellow, but
she was calm. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers, then asked
aloud whether the wound was infected. Click click click.
“You were lucky this time, Tara,” she said. “But what were you
thinking, putting a burn into a garbage can?”
Dad carried Luke inside and Mother fetched her scalpel. It took her
and Dad most of the evening to cut away the dead flesh. Luke tried not
to scream, but when they pried up and stretched bits of his skin, trying
to see where the dead flesh ended and the living began, he exhaled in
great gusts and tears slid from his eyes.
Mother dressed the leg in mullein and comfrey salve, her own recipe.
She was good with burns—they were a specialty of hers—but I could
tell she was worried. She said she’d never seen one as bad as Luke’s.
She didn’t know what would happen.
—MOTHER AND I STAYED by Luke’s bed that first night. He barely slept, he
was so delirious with fever and pain. For the fever we put ice on his
face and chest; for the pain we gave him lobelia, blue vervain and
skullcap. This was another of Mother’s recipes. I’d taken it after I’d
fallen from the scrap bin, to dull the throbbing in my leg while I waited
for the gash to close, but as near as I could tell it had no effect.
I believed hospital drugs were an abomination to God, but if I’d had
morphine that night, I’d have given it to Luke. The pain robbed him of
breath. He lay propped up in his bed, beads of sweat falling from his
forehead onto his chest, holding his breath until he turned red, then
purple, as if depriving his brain of oxygen was the only way he could