She’s too sick with the cancer that came and left and returned, steady as the rising and sinking of the marsh water in the bayou with the moon. Pop would make the meal, but I should have known that Mam couldn’t. It’s not until I’m standing in the door of the kitchen and see Leonie pulling a small white box out of one of the bags that I realize this is the first year Mam won’t be making me a cake for my birthday, and then I feel guilty for realizing it so late in the day. She look like a Kayla, Mam said, but Leonie never called her that. She has a name, Leonie said, and it’s her daddy’s. Leonie hated when Mam and Pop began calling her Kayla like me. Mam says she does it for comfort because she never breastfed. The little pinch and roll of her fingers almost hurts, but it’s her habit, so I swing her up in my arms and let her knead. Kayla scoots toward me when the door bangs shut she snatches up her juice cup and sucks before kneading my ear. She’s at the front door, paper grocery bags obscuring her, hitching the screen and kicking it open, and then edging through the door. Sometimes I think I understand everything else more than I’ll ever understand Leonie.

In Sing, Unburied, Sing Ward grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Jesmyn Ward is the author of the National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones and is also the author of the memoir, Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The following is from Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing.

Sing unburied sing book