Grieving

from The Kentucky Cycle

by Robert Schenkkan

(Mary Anne sits holding a baby in her arms and gently rocks...)

Mary Anne: We lost the land when I was twenty and moved into a coal company camp, where Tommy found work in the mines. I stood on my porch that first day and I looked down at my new home; dust and noise and flame. Like some old preacher's vision of hell.

Durin' the day I swept and mopped the coal dust out of the house but ever' night, while I slept, it crep' back in with the shadows... like my daddy's bad dreams. And ever' mornin' I started all over again. And always there was that smell; like you took a corn-shuck mattress, soaked it in piss, covered it with garbage and coal and set it on fire.

We had five kids... five sons, and ever' rainy season for four years the fever came and took one of my boys. He's the last, my Joshua. I sit with him now as he burns and he sweats and I hold his hand and do what ever' grievin' mother has done since the beginin' of time:..

I lie.