He sighs contentedly and looks all around like everything is beautiful. Daddy takes off just then and rounds the house out of sight. I wait for him to come back, but he don’t, so I sigh and look at the hanging clothes in the tree, and they’s looking more dry than before. I jump to get them, but they’s out of reach so I take to throwing a stick at them until they’s all on the ground and covered in dead grass and dirt. I shake them off and they’s still a bit damp, but they’ll be good enough. Jacob’s been lying on the wet mattress for too long and needs to be dressed now. I can't gaze at his naked body no more and it makes me sad to see him in such a way.
It goes on in such fashion for days, Daddy helpin’ as much as he was willing and me taking the place of taking care of Jacob more and more, until I ain’t seen Daddy around too much. I guess he was out in the woods doing something woodsy. Even though Momma says that Jacob is Daddy’s job now and she has to do everything else, Momma ain’t mean it and only wanted Daddy to get up and do something.
She was terrible upset that we ain’t going to bring Jacob nowhere to get him taken care of, but she ain’t able to take him on her own as Daddy always takes the keys to the truck with him everywhere now, jingling in his pants pocket. We’re doing the best we can with Jacob without no help from Daddy. We’s feeding him every day and washing him every time he ‘voids himself’ as Momma has taking to saying, but I guess it’s not enough as he’s skinnier than ever, and his legs is getting thin as my arm. Momma thinks it’s because he ain’t move around enough. I ain’t understand and I think we just feed him enough and he’ll go on ok for a good long while, but Momma says no, that’s not enough, he needs to climb trees and run around in the grass and maybe run into a tree or two and get all skinned up from time to time, like a boy oughta.
I ask what we’s going to do to get him to do that since he ain't move on his own. She sits and thinks, and pretty soon she looks up and says “wait here. I'm fixin’ on findin’ your hidin’ Daddy and get him some work to do on this boy since he ain’t want to save him by bringing him to others nor lift a finger to help with his dailies.” Momma goes out and I sit and wait, like she asked.
I’m thinking in deep thought while she’s gone since maybe I can help. I ain’t know nothing about the body other than I thought it was solid all the way through like a potato, until I seen a drawing in a book with a man opened up with arrows pointing to the things inside him. I ain’t like to think about that picture too much since I don’t like to think about those things being in me too. I’m thinking hard but nothing is coming and then there’s Momma at the door and she’s got Daddy with her and she points at Jacob, lyin’ on the couch with his mouth open and his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
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“That there is your boy. He is. You ain’t see it no more, but Gabe sees it, and I see it, and he ain’t no living doll. I done give birth to him and you wasn’t there, but when I brought him home and you seen him for the first time, you said you was always going to take care of him no matter what, for he was the first one you ever had, and wasn’t that something special? You remember that?” Daddy looks hard a Jacob and he says “I know he’s my boy. I ain’t stupid. I see him right there and he ain’t movin’. What you want me to do about it? I been takin’ care of him like you said and this is what I get for it? What about you, Scamp?”
Daddy regards me “this here your brother? He still talk to you late in the night so we have to tell you all to shut up since we’s trying to get our sleep? Do he?” I shake my head no. “Do he run in the woods and you all hit each other with sticks and come to us, tellin’ who done what, and who hit who first, and wantin’ me to make a judgement?” “No Daddy” I say “we ain’t run in the woods.”
Daddy goes on “that boy over there I swore I would always take care of, but the boy I swore to take care of and that boy on the couch ain’t the same person no more. The water done washed away what my boy was and this is all that’s left. He ain’t in there no more and you ain’t understand. you all both don’t understand. That boy was washed away and he’s lost in the waters, and now maybe the boy I promised to always take care of is in the body of a whale or a shrimp, or any number of things in the wild, but he ain’t here now and that’s a fact.”
Momma says his name in a surprised way and is taken aback at Daddy and she ain’t know his mind was made up this way, and I ain’t know it either. I say “he’s still there, Daddy, I can see it in his eyes. He’s deep in there but I done been with him enough, and read to him enough, and dragged him up that hill enough to see his eyes, and he’s in there. You ain’t wrong about him being in the water still, only It's not a deep water.
The water is in him still and it’s covered him, but he’s looking up at us and sees us floating over him and he ain’t understand what we’s saying, but I know he can see enough and hear enough to still be in there. He is.” Daddy shakes his head, “No. That ain’t so. You all is wrong about that boy.” He’s shaking his head and rubbing his mouth and I say again “you ain't see him like I do. Momma ain't even seen him like I do. You is wrong Daddy.”