Quack

By Bill Cook 

I move in the pond, my arms too heavy to lift. I feel the spray from my older sister’s squirt-gun hitting me in the face. She’s fifteen and has a boyfriend before dad puts his foot down. She won’t talk to me about why he never comes around anymore or what she has done wrong. Instead, she just stares at her dinner plate or down at the dishes when it’s her turn to wash them when dad is around.

I swat a gnat that lands on my neck while I chew the remain­der of the soggy sand­wich I’ve held tucked into my cheek. I stop asking her about the boyfriend. Now I’m the one who does most of the talking.

Our dad is lying on the beach he made for us by the pond. He’s going brain­dead, my sister whis­pers, her hand cupped around my ear. We watch dad runnel his socked feet—he never removes his boots and goes bare­foot outside—over the blue­grass along the shore­line. He looks sad, I say. My sister says it’s because he’s angry about some­thing. But she won’t say what.

After evening chores, dad drives us over to the neigh­bor­ing farm to drop me off. Your sister is going with me, and we’re done talking about it, he tells me on the drive over, looking stern in the rearview mirror. No music is playing. The windows are rolled up even though the air con­di­tion­er no longer works. My sister is riding up front.

The three of us had pizza and Neapoli­tan ice cream the night before he took me to the other farm and my sister with him. We watched a movie togeth­er on the sofa. My sister sat on one side of dad and me on
the other. We are a family that doesn’t talk when the TV is on.

At the neigh­bor­ing farm, Dad hands the farmer’s wife his army duffle with my clothes stuffed inside, a bulging paper grocery bag with my school supplies.

The fol­low­ing morning, I pretend I’m back home, and I go down to the farmer’s feed pond. The water is dark, and the shore­line is muddy and weedy. An old combine carcass is pro­trud­ing halfway out of the murky water. It’s not a pond meant to swim in.

Walking towards a nearby coolie I come upon a wounded duck.

The duck is drag­ging a wing which causes it to go in clumsy circles. Off in the dis­tance, I hear the farmer’s wife ringing the dinner bell to let me know break­fast is ready. I ignore their calls for me to come back. Instead, I lean down and go quack, quack to the duck, just as my older sister taught me. She said it’s good to talk to someone even if they don’t under­stand. Just getting it out can help. Then I remem­ber how silent my sister has been the past few days. Tears swell in my eyes. I make them go away and quack again, and still, the duck doesn’t respond.

I sit beside her in a scat­ter­ing of rye­grass. I tell her that I want to cheer her up. But really, I just want her to not forget the good things.

Photo by Alfred Schrock. 

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in The Stonecoast Review Issue 16.