Theme 9

“Will you pass me the cement?” Aunty asked, pointing at the small tin can. I grabbed the can and held it out to her so she could grab the brush. Brush in hand, she turned back to the complicated pipe mosaic that would provide water to her entire trailer. She rubbed the brush on the inside of the pipe joint and connected the pipes together. “There. How about that, huh?”

I smiled a tired smile and placed the cement brush cap back on the tin can. Aunty started handing me left over pipe pieces so I grabbed them and headed back towards the kitchen. We had been working on the plumbing inside the trailer since five in the morning. I looked at the kitchen clock and discovered it was ten thirty. We had been working for seventeen and a half hours with out a proper break. My belly grumbled its complaint for the lack of food. I placed the piping on the kitchen table and looked up at the mirror hanging behind it. My face was covered in pipe dust, with black circles under each eye. My lips had cracked in two places, and my face was a cherry red from the cold.

“I think we did good today,” Aunty called as she stomped into the kitchen. “We did that faster than I thought. Tomorrow we will be able to get up and wrap the pipes under the trailer so they don’t freeze this winter. I’ll turn the heat on so these pipes don’t freeze. That would blow if they froze after all that.”

I smiled a big smile at what my Aunt had to say, but as soon as she turned her back my face feel. Another whole day of hard work. The rumbling sound of the furnace starting up broke into my head, and I hurried over to a register to stand on. The first blast was ice cold, but warm air quickly followed, defrosting me from the toes up.

“If you are hungry there are t.v. dinners in the freezer you can eat.”

I graciously turned to the floor freezer, opened it, and dug through the food choices. I choose a chicken finger dinner to nourish my body for preparation for tomorrow. I inhaled the food once it was hot, and dragged my body to bed with silent tears congealing on my frozen cheeks.