I am no murderer. But the steam rises in the corner of the kitchen like smoke, and I cannot tell candlelight from hellfire. She shakes on the floor, head buried in arms as the shivering womb of her throat softly cradling my name.

“Ellen,” she says. “Ellen, baby, I’m so sorry.”

“I know, mama. It’ll be alright.”

Her name is Ruth Jones, though the state’ll tell you it’s Whitlow, and no God I know could call her a sinner. She is my mother, and my pride and joy, and I swear I am going to kill the man who thought she was his, who could bring my beautiful, shining mama to her knees, shaking like roadkill waiting to die. I layer another quilt over her bare shoulders, tracing squares across the patchwork, then get up to shut the timer off before it screams treachery. The smell from the pot is choking before I even lift the ladle to my nose. No amount of sugar is gonna mask it, but mama deserves that small mercy.

“Ellen?” She calls, scratchy and faint, like a dry cloth cleaning off a blackboard.

“Yes, mama?” I ask, dumping spoonful after spoonful of sugar, clove and nutmeg into the cup.

“Ellen, honey, she’s not gonna make it. It’s me or her—“ her voice cracks.

I drop the damn ladle and run to her.

She's halfway on her side, like a washed-up thing the tide gave back. I kneel beside her, careful not to jostle her. Her skin shines with sweat that’s gone cold. I wipe her forehead with the edge of my shirt and try not to cry. All it’s ever done is show the devil where to dig deeper.

“I know. I know. It’ll be alright,” I say, dabbing at her tears with my sleeve. Her eyes are bruised purple and her lip begins to bleed again.

My father is not a man of honor. I will feast when the cancer takes him, and mourn for the poor mutated cells that were forced to inhabit his body for so long.

But for now, the best I can do is squeeze a little lemon into the tea, for her. She’ll be losing blood enough without needing the reminding of his bastard face. I want to tell her she’s doing the right thing, the holy thing, the gracious thing. I don’t. I sit and bathe in the scent of the cedarwood, prop her head up against the sofa, and make sure the towels beneath her are thick enough that she won’t stain the floor.

“Mama, talk to me. Come on.” I press my hand against her cheek. She’s clammy, lips the color of rainwater in the gutter. “You gotta stay awake now. You promised. It'll be over soon, the tea’s nearly done. Stay awake for that.”

Her eyes flutter open, confused, then land on me like I’m the moon and she’s only just experiencing the night. She reaches for my hand with shivering fingers like moth wings just before they fry in the porch light.

“Do you… d’you ‘member that summer we went to the reservoir?” she whispers, breath sticking to the back of her throat like sweat. “With that big blue floatie... shaped like a unicorn?”

I nod, not trusting my voice. I remember. I remember the way I could run for miles in that butterfly-patterned swimsuit without worrying that, for every punch I could throw, there was always a man stronger than me. I remember how her laugh rang out over the water, and how she let me eat peaches for dinner and called it “vacation rules.” How she smelled like suntan lotion and dollar-store vanilla perfume. How for three whole days, there wasn’t a bruise on her.

“I liked that,” she says, smiling. “We shoulda stayed.”

“We will,” I lie. “Next time, we’ll pack proper and go longer. Take Cousin Naomi with us. She’ll be old enough to float.” I try and smile, try and make her smile, but I can't, God, I can't, and it feels like guilt. Like telling a white lie to a kid to get them to go to bed hungry. Like sin—the gentle kind, the kind you could get clean from by saying good morning to God. I don't think it would be that easy this time.

She chuckles, but it comes out as a gasp. I watch her grip her belly, the way her hand curls like it wants to protect and destroy all at once. She digs in deep, and when her fist unclenches, blood stains the underside of her nails. I look away.

“I didn’t mean for it to get like this,” she says.

“I know, mama.”

“I wanted to keep her. I swear I did. I just…” Her voice cracks again.

“You are the best damn woman I know,” I snap, angrier than I mean to sound. She shuts her eyes, sharplike. I soften. “You’re the only reason I made it this far.”

“That ain’t true.”

“It is.”

“You think God’s watching us?” she asks, eyes still shut. A tear escapes her eye, lids squeezed tight together like a walnut shell, and her voice breaks like glass.

“I think something is. Watching us. Something kinder. I think it cares.”

“I wanted to name her Mercy. Mercy Katherine.”

“That’s beautiful, mama.”

“I’m killing her, ain’t I?”

I want to tell her ‘yes’, to be honest, to tell her that it’s the kinder option. She doesn’t deserve me lying to her.

“You’re saving her. You can’t curse another soul to eighteen years in this house.” I let my words out slowly, like trying to spit out gristle during polite conversation. It don’t work. Only makes her face ripple like lakewater in the summer, when the boys skip stones across its skin and it never has the time to still itself and breathe.

“Did I curse you, too?”

“No. No you didn’t, I swear to you.” I place my head on her chest. She smells like rosewater and sunbaked, barefoot summertime. "We can bury her, out back. Nothing special, but...flowers, maybe. I'll need to get rid of the towels anyways, if they're buried deep enough, maybe the dogs won't get to 'em."

Mama smiles for a second, nods gently.

"I'd like that" she says, and that's all I need to hear. Funerals are for the living.

“I named you after your midwife, and your nana," she continues. "They were both strong women. Beautiful women. Ellen, she said you were going to be a prodigy. Said God had spoken to her, and I was jealous. Thought she deserved to be your mama more than me.”

“I wouldn't trade you for anything.”

She laughs again, a soft chuckle, then folds in on herself with a sound like death, groaning suddenly.

“Is it gonna hurt?” She asks, voice still swaying like a willow branch. I brush her hair back, remembering the tea cooling off on the sideboard, and try not to think about what’s still coming. Joanie King from next door said the cramps made her scream bloody murder, but she was sixteen and had it done proper — maybe the clinic made her anxious ‘cause it smelt wrong, or the cold up North made her tense, maybe her youth made it agony. Maybe mama won’t feel it if I hold her tight enough, or if the tea is sweet enough. Maybe it’s for the better that we do it here.

“I’ll be there. It’ll be okay.”

“I love you, Ellen-Rose.”

“I love you too, mama.”

It’s Friday, and the macaroni’s crusted over like a scab. Joanie picks at hers with a plastic fork, chasing a cold bite around the tray, one shoe half-kicked off under the table. Her braids are tied high today, a puff of defiance on her crown, and the way the sun cuts across her face makes her look carved from something ancient and golden. I walk up to her empty table.

“Can I sit?”

“You looking for trouble, or for company?”

“Both, maybe.”

Joanie side-eyes me, then scoots over just enough to make room on the concrete ledge. “Shit, Ellen, you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

I shrug. “Something like that.”

She doesn’t ask what I mean. That’s the good thing about Joanie. She don’t press, don’t preach. She waits.

I sit down, push around the macaroni on my plate with a plastic fork.

"You gon’ eat that or you just tryna kill it?" She asks, nodding at the mush pile on my plate.

“Not hungry.”

She raises a brow. “That’s new.”

“I need to ask you something.”

She chews a while, then opens her drink. The can hisses for a while. “Shoot.”

“You ever…you ever had to make a hard choice?” I finally asks, voice low.

Joanie doesn’t answer right away. She just leans back a little, her gold cross earring catching the light, like she’s watching for lightning before she speaks.

“Yeah,” she says. “A few.”

I nod. “What kind?”

“You mean like telling my Ma that Sammy must’ve eaten the last slice of cake, or lying to the school nurse ‘cause I didn’t wanna go home?” She dips a fry in ketchup, lets it drip back onto the tray. “You gotta be more specific, Ellen.”

I shift, tucking my skirt beneath me.

“I mean,” I start, picking at the edge of her thumbnail until it bleeds, “the kind where nobody’s really right. Where no matter what you do, someone’s gonna look at you like you’re dirt.”

Joanie looks me over real slow.

“That about a boy?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Then it’s about a man,” Joanie

looks at me, really looks this time, and whatever she sees must be bad, ‘cause she leans in close and says, “Is it you?”

I shake my head.

She waits.

“It’s my mama.”

Joanie exhales sharp, then nods like something makes sense now. “Shit,” she says under her breath. “You think I’m gonna tell you it’s wrong,” she says. “Or that God’s gonna be mad.”

“Aren’t you? Isn’t He?”

Joanie pulls her hand back, wipes it on her jeans. “Salvation’s got a thousand names, but only one face. And it don’t always look like what Pastor Jim talks about on Sunday. God might be mad, Ellen - the question is if you give a shit.”

“Did you tell your mama?”

“Hell no. She still think I was in Atlanta that weekend visiting cousins.” She looks up at the clouds. “Girl at the gas station saw me bleeding in the bathroom. Called her boyfriend to get me up North.”

I let that settle. Let it coat my ribs like balm.

“Does it get easier?” I ask.

“No. But it gets clearer.”

I swallow the knot in my throat, blinking fast, looking anywhere but at her. “You remember what happened to Camille Garnier?”

Joanie huffs. “Yeah. Everybody acted like she’d got leprosy”

“She was cryin’ in gym for two weeks.”

“And nobody helped her.” Joanie glances around, then lowers her voice. “She’s alive, you know. Moved out to Arizona after she dropped out. Lives with the baby and his father.”

I stare.

“The father’s a bastard,” Joanie finishes, then looks at me like she knows. Like she’s seen through me, through Mama, through everything we’ve spent our lives constructing. Maybe she has. And maybe, just this once, I’m grateful for it.

“I still want to help my Mama,” I say, too quickly. “I think I know how”

Joanie narrows her eyes. “You make something?”

I don’t answer.

Then: “That’s the plan.”

She whistles, low and grim. “That’s dangerous.”

I look up. My eyes sting.

Joanie breaks the silence again, gently this time. “You thinkin’ it’s already too late?”

“No,” I say, barely above a whisper. “Just feels like it should be. Feels like I shouldn’t have waited this long.”

Joanie reaches over and places her hand on mine. Her skin is warm, steady. “You got time. Not much. But enough to figure out what’s real. And whatever you do—don’t do it alone.”

“You think we’re cursed?” I ask.

Joanie snorts. “No. We just got eyes wide open. That’s not a curse—it’s just painful.”

I chew my lip. “If she…if we go through with it… Does that make us monsters?”

“No,” she says. “We don’t get to be saints. But we don’t gotta be martyrs either. You’re doing what needs to be done.”

I close my eyes. I want to believe her.

“You think God’s mad?” I ask.

Joanie laughs. Quiet. But real.

“Mad? No. I think God’s tired.”

“Tired?”

“Yeah. Of watchin’ girls like us bleed so other people can feel clean.” She chews for a second longer than she needs. “You’ve got two choices in this town; you’re either a warning or a sermon. If you’re white, like you, they’ll call it tragic. Say your mama made a mistake. Offer to pray with you, bring you shitty casserole. They’ll still hate you. Just quieter.”

“And if you’re you?” I ask.

“If you’re me, they think my mama didn’t raise me right. Ask if I even know who the daddy is.” Her voice is steady, but her eyes are sharp now. “You think the girls at school offered me prayer? They told me to be grateful I had to ride out six hours in a stranger’s truckbed leaking my insides out. Like I was lucky.”

Joanie leans forward, voice quiet now. “You don’t have the privilege of innocence, Ellen. And neither do I. White or Black, we both live in a town that’ll kill us for being women. But you still got choices. You can love your mama through this, not in spite of it.”

“She’s all I got.”

“Then hold her tight. And don’t let anyone—God, church, this place—tell you that mercy can’t look like blood.”

I nod, breath catching. “Did it…did it hurt?”

Joanie’s eyes flick away. “Yeah. Some. But not as much as it would’ve, if I hadn’t.”

I go quiet. The bell rings, shrill and sudden. We both flinch.

As Joanie stands, she says, “You need me, I’m here. No questions.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Joanie shrugs, then smiles just a little, flipping her braids over her shoulder. “I just say what I wish someone told me.” Girls like me don’t get the luxury of waiting on rescue. We gotta be the cavalry. So if you need backup, just holler.”

“I will.”

She stands, brushing off her jeans, then looks down at me.

“You come back to mines after?” she asks. “When it’s done?”

“If I can.”

“I’ll bring lemonade. And a blanket.”