The Model Village (Immersed, Extracted)

A story about a group home.

After finishing another six-pack Paine imagines his childhood if he had grown up in an all-boys group home. He sees himself at dinner one night, sitting at a long table in a stucco and carpet room that smells like macaroni and cheese. Across from him is a big slow boy. To his left is a boy with a black eye and a split lip. To his right is a boy with scars on his arms. They are all thirteen years old, like him, except the big slow boy, who’s twelve. The other children are absent; they’ve been sent to bed without dinner as a punishment. At the head of the table a woman with hair like polished cherry maple wearing a powder blue dress leads them in prayer with a sewing needle held, pricking point up, between her clasped hands. She prays silently, lips moving but no words coming out. Paine has never been told her name. Like everyone else, he’s expected to call her Madam.