The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor

older child already,” Mack said.
    â€œYou like baseball?” Ledford asked the boy.
    Harold said, “Yessir,” without looking up from the book.
    â€œGood.” Ledford smiled. “That’s your book then. But if that baby in Mrs. Ledford’s belly comes out a boy, I may borrow it back from you down the line.”
    â€œYessir,” Harold said, and then he went back to sounding out the words. “The Red…Head…ed…Out…field,” he whispered.
    Ledford fished the front- and backdoor keys from his pants pocket. His finger through the keyring, he whirled them a few times, Old West style, catching them mid-rotation with the snap of his hand. He held them out for Mack Wells to take.
    The women came in the back door, Mary in the lead. She dropped to all fours on the cracked ribbon tile and picked at a loose piece of grout. Before she could get it in her mouth, Rachel reached down and snatched it.
    â€œHarold used to put everything in his mouth,” Lizzie said. “I caught him eating mud more than once.”
    In the backyard, Rachel had asked her about having more children, and Lizzie had explained she was no longer able. I’m sorry , Rachel had said, and it seemed to Lizzie that unlike some white folks, she meant it.
    â€œMary hasn’t yet sampled mud, but I figured early I sure can’t set out mouse traps.” They laughed together. They watched Mary pull herself up by a loose drawer handle.
    â€œStrong,” Lizzie said.
    Rachel pointed out the range’s unsteady leg. She showed Lizzie how to bang on the refrigerator’s monitor top if it quit running. “Loyal put some work in the kitchen over the years,” Rachel said. “Nothing’s new, but everything’s fixed.” She ran her finger over a long, glued crack in the table’s porcelain top. It pinched at her insides to think of him alone in that house back then, still a boy, doing a man’s job and a woman’s too. She rubbed at her round belly through the silk.
    Lizzie was used to some age on her things. The hand-crank wringer-washer next to the sink was the same one she’d grown up with, same one she still used. It was possible that Mack had not been crazy when he’d agreed to rent this place.
    When Lizzie knew it wasn’t obvious, she stole hard looks at Rachel’s face. It seemed the woman was kind and genuine. She suspected the only black folks Rachel knew growing up were those who cleaned her house, those who followed the orders of her parents, but it was possible that such ways had not rooted in her.
    â€œLoyal raised himself alone from age thirteen in this house,” Rachel said. She’d knelt to Mary, who was at the windowsill, pulling at an edge of unstuck wallpaper. She blurted something over and over that vaguely resembled “flower,” the paper’s pattern. Rachel looked through the windowpane, her eyes glazing over. “I know he hopes your family will find the house suitable.”
    Lizzie did not answer. She listened to the baby girl talking in her own language. Down the hallway, Mack and Ledford laughed at a joke. From the scrapyard there came an extended squeal and crunch. Lizzie’s knees nearly buckled and her forehead popped with sweat. She was thinking how dangerous all this was. Her new job had come by way of Mr. Ledford. Her family’s new home, the same. White folks. Those whom her father had raised her to be wary of. And here she was, talking kitchens and children, vegetable gardens and barren wombs, all as if the expectant woman across from her had been born into the same world as she.
    Â 
    C HARLIE B ALL WAS eager to hand out the cigars he’d bought. He walked the factory floor, sidling up to every man in sight with his box of White Owls, lifting the lid like it was a treasure trunk. “It’s a boy,” he said. “Little William Amos Ledford. Saturday morning. Mother and baby are