Monthly Archives: August 2016

Coralina Kelly sat on the padded bench beside the thick brown woollen curtain that closed off the sleeping area in the wagon, and she listened to her mother’s feeble cries. She was sitting on her hands, because she knew that if she didn’t keep them under her legs, she would have bitten her nails down until they bled. She rocked backwards and forward in her space; she was scared. She was the only child to have survived birthing, all the others had come away before their time, and she could remember when two boys had been born, but they were blue when they came out. She hadn’t seen them but she had heard the aunties talking. They would have been her brothers, and she was sad that they hadn’t lived. She was sad for her Mam too, because she cried whenever anyone in the camp birthed a new baby. Continue reading →