芒果街上的小屋作者：「美」桑德拉·希斯内罗丝(27)

But I knew her sick from the disease that would not go, her legs bunched under the yellow sheets, the bones gone Limp as worms. The yellow pillow, the yello
w smell, the bottles and spoons. Her head thrown back like a thirsty lady. My aunt, the swimmer.
Hard to imagine her legs once strong, the bones hard and parting water, clean sharp strokes, not bent and wrinkled like a baby, not drowning under the sticky yellow light. Second-floor rear apartment. The naked light bulb. The high ceilings. The light bulb always burning.
I don"t know who decides who deserves to go bad. There was no evil in her birth. No wicked curse. One day I believe she was swimming, and the next day she was sick. It might have been the day that gray photograph was taken. It might have been the day she was holding cousin Totchy and baby Frank. It might have been the moment she pointed to the camera for the kids to look and they
wouldn"t.
Maybe the sky didn"t look the day she fell down. Maybe God was busy. It could be true she didn"t dive right one day and hurt her spine. Or maybe the story that she fell very hard from a high step stool, like Totchy said, is true.