Sect Year 1 · fifth month · night of day 20 · the tenth life: a fever house above the river flats, his seventh year
“Make your mother laugh again.”
Second Breath.
The room had one window, and the window looked out over the flats, so the whole room seemed to lean toward the water. Idu stood on the doorstep with his nose pressed to the glass. The glass was cold. Near the bottom there was a small green bubble that had been there for as long as he could remember, and when he breathed on the pane his breath spread into a grey cloud and went away again. Below him the flats lay open under the sky. The boats were drawn up on the mud with their ribs showing. Far out, a haze lay along the edge of the water, low and even, like milk left standing in a bowl.
“Keep off the glass,” said his mother.
She sat on the stool beside the bed, where she had sat since the spring. Her hands were folded in her lap, one over the other, and she didn’t unfold them while she waited for the boats. She didn’t look up. She hadn’t looked up much since the morning the men carried the nets back from the far stakes without his father in the line.
