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"Why?" said the child.
 "Why what?" said the aunt.
"Why there were three little pigs?" said the child.
"For heaven's sake," the aunt said.
The child looked peeved, it seemed to her. His face was
thinned, reduced, she thought, as if the fat of his cheeks had
been consumed in the night.
"Why?" he said.
"When did this start--why? why? Who taught you that? Who
talks to you?" the aunt said. "Other than me."
"Me?"
"Who? Father?" the aunt said.
The child sat silent.
"Impossible," the aunt said.
"Stop it," the aunt said.
"Why there were three little pigs?" the child said.
*
"Auntie," the child said.
"I'm hungry," the child said.
The aunt said, "I don't doubt it."
*
"Why, why, why?" said the child.
"God," said the aunt. "If you are going to insist."
The child let a breath out. "Why?" he said.
"Suppose," she said. "God in his wisdom--his infinite
wisdom--decided it fit to make three little pigs. Who knows?"
she said. "Who is to say? Ours, as a certain person--who, for
now, shall not be named--ought well to have taught you, ours
is not to question."
The aunt took a sip--or rather, perhaps, to be blunt, a
slug, from the tumbler at hand.
"I am tired," she said.
"Tired," he said.
"Sleepless," the aunt said. "Up all night. Not as if
anyone else in this house would so much as notice."
"Eat," she said.
There was rice on the floor, and something else smeary.
"Eat, I said."
"I can't," he said. "Please."
"Swallow," the aunt said.
"How can I?" the aunt said.
"Say it," the child said. "Auntie, please. Once
upon a time--"
"Once upon a time. The things I concede to," the aunt
said. "See? But you already know it almost by heart."
"Pig," said the child.
"Yes," said the aunt. "The first little pig, to get
to the crux, and the second little, you know, and likely as
well---" she took another slug--"the peddler of sticks and the
peddler of straw, hay, grass, old lily of the valley, whatever
it was--dead."
"Dead?"
"Don't ask why, I haven't the patience."
"Why?" said the child.
The aunt's hand shook.
"Who talks to you?" the aunt said. "You know who you
remind me of?"
The child scratched. The rash had scabbed, the aunt saw.
The margins were ragged.
"Do you?" she said.
Dark liquid fell.
He ate, spilled.
"The waste," she said.
"Just don't," she said. "Don't tell me, then. Or is it
you don't even know what I'm asking?"
"Big," said the child. "Big, bad."
The breath of the aunt seemed acrid to her, almost putrid,
in fact, and hot to the tongue. She felt the urge to spit
("Resist" is what Mother would surely have told her, ever the
afterthought after her death--the voice the aunt minded.) She
forced down saliva. "I'll get to that," the aunt said. "Give me
a minute."
"Huff," said the child. "Big, bad."
"Wolf," she said.
"Huff," he said.
"Not yet," the aunt said. "Suppose for a moment the big,
bad wolf was saving his breath."
"Why?" said the child.
"What do you think?" the aunt said. He was not in a
hurry. That is what I think. Yes, I do. Suppose, for the
sake of discussion, the big, bad wolf had a perfectly adequate
dwelling of his own. It's possible," the aunt said. "Entirely
conceivable, isn't it, now? So here is the wolf at ease in his
house, secure in his house, and, let us say, preening. The
wolf, you see, is vain. His is, perhaps, installed in, as
Mother would call it, the little girls'--the powder room. Oh!
Can you hear him--whistling a tune? He is licking his chops.
Perhaps he is shaving."
"Ssshh," said the child.
"Shaving," the aunt said. "Haven't you known a person to
shave? Like so," she said. She touched her jaw--so dry this
flesh! Injured. "The big, bad wolf was ever so slowly removing
the stubble, deliberately. He was splitting the hairs of his
chinny chin chin--nice and smooth and bloody clean."
"Clean?" said the child.
"Clean," said the aunt. "As if you would know. Except, I
am sorry to say, this razor of his was somewhat corroded and,
shall we say, dull."
"Dull?" he said.
"Dull," she said. "The wolf paid no heed to this."
The child appeared blank to her.
"The wolf had a fervent desire, you see, to be received
as, let us say, civilized. Dapper, in fact. Not coarse," she
said. "And so, despite an instrument of cutting that, now that
I think of it, was dripping with blood---"
"Blood?" said the child.
"Blood," said the aunt. "A bloody blade, for God"s sake."
A cough was heard from down the hall, a sharp hack.
"You see?" the aunt said. She swallowed a mouthful.
"Evil," the child said. "Burn, burn."
"Gracious," she said. She looked at the child. "Look at
you. Just look at you. Who talks to you?"
"Huff," said the child. "Burn, burn."
The aunt, in order to stay her hands, steepled her
fingers. Red, she saw--the knuckles--they were bruised, even
purpled from washing.
"Wolf," he said.
"Lord," she said. "Forgive me."
"Why?" said the child.
She set her sights lower. "I fail to remember," the aunt
said.
*
"Why?" said the child.
His face appeared thinner than ever to her, and sallower.
He sucked his cheeks, the aunt saw.
"Why blood?" he said.
"Not this again. Ask me something else," she said. She
fingered ice. She drank. "Listen," she said. "Why not ask,
for instance, where she--that mother of yours--has up and
gone?"
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