“This here is a meal fit for a fierce hawk. They do everything they can to survive and they is heartless and with only one thing on their minds. Eatin’, and hawkin’, which includes pecking at things which look terrible, like a dead cat on the road, or another bird’s babies. It ain’t good nor bad. It's just the way it is.”

I take pinches of the glob of chewed up beans from my hand and feed Jacob like that until they’s all gone. He can't make no fuss and I ain’t sure he knows what he’s eating, but when he comes out of this, I’ll tell him to gross him out since we like to do that. “You done ate my chewed-up beans naked on the lawn.” Jacob'll go, “eww! no I ain’t!’ And I’ll say, “yes sir you did, and it was probably the best food you ever ate!” Jacob will chase me around, but he’ll think it’s funny. All the funny things he done since he went into the water.

This goes on for a good long while and I get better at taking care of Jacob on my own and it ain’t so hard only I have to be sneaky to Daddy and Momma, for they think I’m feeding him trash. When me and Daddy and Momma eat, I pretend I’m extra hungry and get seconds, or thirds, even though I’m hiding most of it away for Jacob when they’s not looking. Daddy is proud of me for eating even more than him, and says that I’m going to be a real stout trout.

Pretty soon he’ll have me moving entire logs around the property. He says he’s glad Momma finally give him a son and he winks at her and says, “maybe we ought to try for another. Get us a real work force up here! Can build about ten houses with two of these strappers.” He claps me on the back real hard and guffaws. Momma says quietly “one is more than enough. I don’t even know what we would do with two.” Daddy looks at her hard and says “we’ll see. We’ll just see.” I feed Jacob this way, and sometimes they’s not even enough for me to eat, but I still hold a little back for him.

I'm dragging Jacob through the living room to head outside to hose off his foul yellow shit pants. Daddy is sitting at the table and looking at pieces of paper what came out of envelopes. I know they’s probably important since he’s got Momma’s reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He is frowning and grumbling about having to pay for something that should be free, and how they get our address anyway? Momma is doin’ Momma things in the kitchen, and right when I get to the door with Jacob, Daddy says without looking up,

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“that there is disrupting to no end. You dragging your pet all every which way with it smelling like the very devil himself, wasting good water to hose it which we‘re paying for” and he waves a piece of paper at me like it means something. I get mad then. I ain’t never been this mad at Momma nor Daddy before and it scares me as I ain’t know what they’ll do, but I’m tired of this here game and I done the best I can with feedin’ him, and watering him, and cleaning him, but it ain’t enough. I seen his hips poking through like a skeleton yesterday and his eyes ain’t white no more. They is yellow. I know my eyes ain’t yellow. I know Daddy’s eyes ain’t yellow. I know Momma’s eyes ain't yellow. I know eyes ain’t supposed to be yellow.

I drop the ends of the blanket and I shout “he ain’t no dog! This is Jacob, your boy, and my brother! He done fell into the river and can't move no more and he used to run, and now all he can do is lay with his eyes open! You all stop now! He ain’t no pet! He ain’t!” I stomp my feet “he’s turnin’ into a dead thing before my very eyes and I ain’t know what ails him, but I know it ain’t good! His legs is white sticks now, and his shoulder blades stick out like triangles, and he ain’t lastin’!”

I’m crying hard now and wiping my tears as they run down. “We done pretended we was chickens in the woods and we done gathered up wood for our first fire in the house, and he” I sob “and he saved me when them rowdy boys next door shot me in the neck with a bb gun, and done helped find things in the piles for you Daddy! You done taught him how to make a fire with two sticks!” I turn to Momma and they’s both frowning dirty now, but I go on anyway, for I can't stop.

“Momma, you told him he done real good when he brought up that food from under the house even though we ain’t know what it was. Here he still is! Laying on this blanket and turning into a skeleton! He ain’t my pet, and I ain’t asked for no pet, and he’s your son, and he was first before me! He saved me from ghosts when I was little. He showed me how to make a little boat."