After The Flood by Tamara Letkeman
When the sewer upchucked during the flood, out came a large rubber fly. We didn’t think it was all that weird. It belonged to Bobby. He probably lost it down the sewer years ago. He was already twelve and obviously not playing with toys anymore, but he’d seized the fly, lifelike and grotesque, dried if off on his pant leg and put it on his dresser.
When the flood abated so did the rains, but the day after the fly appeared, the sewer regurgitated again. We didn’t see it happen, but we heard an odd burping sound and went downstairs to investigate. This time it produced a toy horse, a white one with a yoke around its neck. I loved horses but I didn’t like this one. I remembered it from my own childhood. Its neck was bent, as if it were straining against a heavy load, and I felt sorry for it. Why couldn’t the sewer have served up a pinto with a wild, flowing mane? Meantime, the cover was still on the sewer. It was small, though heavy, and it had holes you had to put your fingers through to lift it.
“It’s Mom,” Bobby murmured, turning the horse over in his hands. “She’s sending this stuff back to us.”
I wound up to sock him, but his eyes were glowing and he was looking at me in all earnestness. In his dark jeans and plaid shirt he looked like a child of the nineteen fifties. My fist wilted.
“Mom is not down in the sewer, Bonehead. It’s the flood,” I said.
“The flood is over.”
“After-effects.”………
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