Shooting God

It was a warm, sunny day the day my mother shot God. Aunty Lil had just left. ‘Your mother is resting,’ she had said, ‘let her rest.’ I was sitting on the couch watching TV eating vegemite on toast when she came down the hallway and I saw a flash of her as she went out the backdoor. She was in a rush. My brother looked over at me and then he got up and followed her outside. I put my plate with my half-eaten toast on the coffee table and went out.
Jamie was standing on the back porch next to the gumboots that used to be mine but were too small now and full of spider webs. I let the screen door shut behind me and he turned and looked at me.

‘Aunty Lil said she was resting.’

He was looking at the shed. ‘She’s not resting.’

We stood there and then she came out of the shed and went through the wire fence that separated the backyard from the paddock. I could feel that Jamie was going to run and he did. ‘Marm!’ She was walking fast.

She stopped in the middle of the paddock her feet apart. The shot was loud in my ears and the sun was bright. ‘You bastard! You fucking bastard!’

Jamie was through the wire, running.

She aimed high into the sky again and the wood shone. Then she sunk to her knees like a person melting. Jamie was standing next to her now and she looked up at him and then she was sitting in the grass holding onto him as he stood there, holding him around his waist like she was drowning and he was her only way out of the water.

I walked slowly up to the wire fence. It was slack and rusting. I picked up the wire. The rust was rough and I could smell it on my fingers.

‘I don’t know what to do, Jamie. What am I going to do? I don’t know what to do.’ Her words were moist and lumpy and her face was wet.

Jamie looked over at me.

Mr Raynor from next door, who didn’t like us, stuck his head over the paling fence that separated our yard from his. ‘What in all hell’s name is going on?’

He was staring at them.

‘Dad died.’

He didn’t say anything, looked straight at me. He looked confused. ‘I’m sorry. Well,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

He went away again and Mum looked over at me. She held out her arm. I went across the paddock toward them. The grass was dry and yellow, there were cracks and dips in the ground. ‘Come here,’ she said, ‘come here.’ She wrapped her arm around the back of my knees, reached up and moved a piece of hair from my face. ‘My boys. My beautiful boys.’

Rachel