Wordlessly, the priest turns and disappears into the shadows of the garden. Nell sinks onto the single step outside the kitchen door. She has not slept well in days, less and less each night, lying awake in wait for Polly to come finally to bed, lying sleepless still even after the mattress has sunk beneath his weight and his breathing has turned into a fretful snore.
She rests her elbows on her knees, lowers her head into her palms, and stares down at the stone beneath her bare feet. Several inches away, she sees a line of tiny ants parading by. She puts her toe into their path; the first ant pauses, then goes around it, and continues on in its original direction. The others follow. When she moves her toe away, it’s as if it’s there yet, the line of ants curving still around the memory of where it used to be.
She lifts her head and settles her chin into her hand. She can smell grease on her fingertips, and hopes the catfish will still be warm by the time it reaches the boy. She packed up enough for the priest to have some, too, and regrets forgetting to tell him so. It was a sad thing to imagine the boy having to eat his last supper alone. She’d already left the fishmonger when she thought of it, then had to go back for more. The women in line behind her were talking about the boy, how it was sad that even the young ones couldn’t keep their trousers zipped. She’d stared hard at the glassy round eye of a snapper on ice.
Behind her, a moth thumps madly against the screen, and when she reaches out to brush the moth away, she is surprised by the power of its beating wings against her palm, less butterfly than beast, a ball of flapping fury that turns into dust against her hand.