I don't tell Pop, but that was more effective than the whipping. They all got worms, and when they used the outhouse, they pulled worms out of their butts. Later that night, he told me stories about him and his sisters and brothers when they were young, playing barefoot because all they had was one pair of shoes each and them for church. The dirt is black and muddy with shit, and ever since Pop whipped me when I was six for running around the pen with no shoes on, I've never been barefoot out here again. We have to walk past the pigpen to get to the goats. He put his pigpen and his goat yard and the chicken coop in small clearings in the trees.
Pop built our house himself, narrow in the front and long, close to the road so he could leave the rest of the property wooded.
"Better to leave the baby asleep," Pop says. If I let the cold goad me, I know when I see the goat, I'll flinch or frown when Pop cuts the throat. I left my hoodie on the floor in Leonie's room, where I sleep, and my T-shirt is thin, but I don't rub my arms. The chill stays like water in a bad-draining tub. This spring is stubborn most days, it won't make way for warmth. He spits in the dry red dirt, and the wind makes the trees wave. Pop weaves in and out of the trees, straight and slim and brown as a young pine tree. Better for Grandma Mam to sleep, because the chemo done dried her up and hollowed her out the way the sun and the air do water oaks. Better for my little sister, Kayla, to sleep, because on nights when Leonie's out working, she wake up every hour, sit straight up in the bed, and scream.
I don't want Mam or Kayla to wake up with none of us in the house. I grab the door so it don't slam, ease it into the jamb. I try to look like this is normal and boring so Pop will think I've earned these thirteen years, so Pop will know I'm ready to pull what needs to be pulled, separate innards from muscle, organs from cavities. When Pop tell me he need my help and I see that black knife slid into the belt of his pants, I follow Pop out the house, try to keep my back straight, my shoulders even as a hanger that's how Pop walks. I like to think that it's something I could look at straight.
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