Halloween // We Buried Her Under the Wildflowers

Tom had an axe. He got it out of the old woodshed.

He swung it around and little Annie wailed.

“I’ll tell mom” I shouted at him as I bounced Annie.

“Do it” he said. “I don’t care”

I ran home with Annie.

We didn’t tell mom.

Mom was exhausted and she didn’t need this.

We went outside the next day.

Tom had the axe again.

I placed Annie down in the tall grass; she twirled the flowers around in her hands.

“Tom, what will you do with it anyway?” I said

“I’ll kill papa with it” he shouted “He’s a drunk an he don’ care about you, me, mama, or Annie”

I sighed and brushed through Annie’s hair with my hands as Tom practiced swinging the axe.

“Tom, papa’s strong” I said “member how he fought mama and knocked her down and beat her up?”

“Not stronger than this” he said, as he smashed the axe into the pile of old logs

I sighed. Annie giggled.

“Im’a get ‘em this time, im’a do it”

“Surrrre, Tom” I mouthed as I fingered the flowers Annie had thrown on the ground.

Tom brought the axe in that night.

But he made a mistake.

Papa’d gone out the backdoor to the outhouse.

It was Annie in the bed.

Tom swung the axe at Annie. He hit. Again, and again, again.

Papa came in. He was too drunk to notice, too drunk to care.

Mama cried for days. Papa beat her black and blue.

Tom buried Annie by the wildflowers out back.