Neighbor Girls
The mother before there were her babies was a child. Before she brought the world her daughter and son, she could remember being born. The first memory after being born was seeing a woman with a person in her belly. She remembered that belly person born too. They grew up together, neighbor girls. They crawled on each other to see how other people felt. Little hands pressed on faces pressed on floors.
One of them walked first, the other walked second. When the other talked first, the other talked second. When their fathers left them in the sun too long, they would lick each other where each other were red.
There was the sheep’s wool stuck to the flower garden, not enough to collect. And the house looked snowed on sideways after a shearing. A bell on every neck. The ring of it rang different during days that her and the neighbor girl had the bells around their throats, ringing lighter in their fathers’ ears the further they crawled away. At night when nothing moved, the absence of ringing made the wind blow harder.
From on top the biggest hill, the girls would watch the dogs gather the sheep that strayed. They missed the dogs when their fathers would take them herding. Without them there, they’d be alone with their mothers. Days with no sheep meant sugary drinks on blankets while learning how fabrics sewn a certain way could fit on a body. The wool would be turned into sweaters for selling in the winter. The neighbor girls would have to refold the sweaters after they used them for pillows.
The two of them would hide in the valley for days to prove to each other that they could. Their fathers didn’t have a dog that could herd them home with. They’d toast mushrooms found growing in mossy places under trees. They’d be cleaner than at home by bathing in where water would pool on its way through the forest.
The punishment couldn’t be talked down and their mothers weren’t allowed to beg for better. They were tied to horses by rope, hand to hoof, to teach them how knots are tied. They spent full days hugging at horse necks, waiting for them to rest at creeks, where they could hop down and try to undo the knots, hoping for nothing from the forest to startle the horses to run.
A sharp enough rock could untie any knot and the neighbor girls set one of their horses free. They rode home with one set of arms around the other girl’s stomach, hoping to help their mothers be better by their presence.
When they got home the horse was tall through the sea of sheep. They were in need of new dresses. Their mothers cried when they saw them. Three men came out from the door of the room where they all ate on Sundays. The third man was there to choose between the girls. He took their hands and closed his eyes and the hand that felt less warmth he let go and took the other one with him down a road she didn’t know.
Mini-interview with Niles Baldwin
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
NB: Yes. I was working day bar shift this one good summer and my friend James was reading this book that looked cool called A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. He lent it to me and I read it and it was the first time I related to writing the way I’ve related to it since. I’d been inspired to write before then, but this was in a stronger way, where I wanted to be involved.
HFR: What are you reading?
NB: I just read Robert Lopez’s Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere and Gene Kwak’s Go Home, Ricky! Just pulled off the shelf one to revisit, Jensen Beach’s Swallowed by the Cold. Oh, and I usually have a book of poetry on a nearby table. These days it’s Alexandria Hall’s Field Music.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Neighbor Girls”?
NB: It’s an excerpt of a larger story told mostly in flash pieces. It came from whatever momentum I built from writing all the other words.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
NB: I’m still working on that bigger story and hoping to finish this summer. I’m also writing a fair amount of separate flash pieces. Wrote one a bit ago about loving your brother. Wrote one a couple days ago about cleaning up a leak. I love writing flash pieces. They’re so short!
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
NB: When it comes to the floor, I always think how my Gramma Norma once told my friend Brett that he looked like he woke up on a barroom floor. She was actually the nicest, she was just funny, and Brett didn’t look that bad.
In politics I’m currently really bummed out by the boot-strap mentality, among so much other nonsense.
In fanatical news, I like sports and I don’t care who knows.
If I could be anything I’d be myself, except different and better.
I wouldn’t mind sharing that my front tooth is chipped in the exact place that my dad has a gold tooth. Mine has been porcelain since after I broke it on Cottage Street in Bar Harbor in the late mid-aughts. It’s time I go gold, too.
Niles Baldwin lives and writes in Maine. His work can be found in Green Mountains Review, FANZINE, FEED, and MAYDAY.
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