Salvage the Bones

Esch wakes up to hear Skeetah hammering; he is building kennels for China’s pups. Skeetah shows Esch the puppies and tells her, while musing over the miracle of life, something that he was never impressed by before, that “them puppies is real” (21).

Esch goes off looking for eggs hidden by their hens, in the way that she learned from her mother, “by touch, not by sight” (22). She likes to search for eggs because she “can wander off by [herself]…feel like the quiet and the wind” (22). While alone, she reflects on the first time she had sex, when she was 12. She said it was “Easy for [her] to do…it was easier to let [the boys] keep on touching [her] than [asking them] to stop…It was easier to keep quiet and take it than to give [them] an answer” (23).

She cooks the eggs she finds and takes a plate out to Sketch and he feeds them to China. He shows Esch how the puppies are nursing from China and Esch leaves to vomit. She feels like Skeet is watching her, and he “touches [her] back…how he touches China” (26).