Pelican House

by Samantha Beal

I’m not surprised when Gail calls to tell me about the police.

“They arrived first thing this morning,” she says. “One of the kids called them. Clara says they found her at the kitchen table, collapsed over the cutting board. Can you believe she was still using her cutting board?”

We hadn’t used ours in months. We didn’t need to. We couldn’t afford meat. It didn’t matter what kind. Poultry, pork, beef—all too expensive for the people on this block. And if we ever managed to save enough to buy a breast, a chop, a rib, the butcher had already sent the edible cuts into the capital. Onto the dinner plates of people who didn’t need to choose between winter coats and food.

“The kids told the police they had no idea,” Gail says. “Every night she cooked them dinner and they never asked what.”

Days, weeks, months, I watched her bundle up and trek through the snow toward the market. Each passing trip, her figure not so thick, her footprints not so deep. We wasted away, all of us on the block, her most of all. We grew gaunt as a community, hair thinning, skin sagging. Our children waiting for growth spurts. Skin waxy, eyes yellow, teeth loose.

“We’re hungry,” they said.

“We know,” we answered.

“What’s for dinner?” they asked.

“Drink this,” we whispered.

The tea would kill them, but so would starvation.

She didn’t use the tea. She just bundled up, trekked through the snow, went to the market. We watched and we waited, looking for the filled grocery bags, for the poultry, pork, beef. Her children had their growth spurts, skin supple, eyes clear, teeth new. She wasted away with us but her children didn’t. Though she never came home with food.

“She was nearly hollow,” Gail says. “Missing so much she hardly weighed a thing.”

The medics wheel the gurney out of her house. A white sheet over the corpse, flat over bones, tissue, skin. But no muscle. Barely any muscle.

“There was a basket of stained bandages,” Gail explains. “She used them every day to hide the gouges so the kids wouldn’t know.”

Her children stand in the snow, bundled up, cheeks pink, eyes red. Holding each other as the medics and police take away their mother’s remains.

“I’m making tea,” I say. “Come over.”