My drowning

Ever since Ellen Tote can remember, she has dreamed of her mother slowly slipping beneath the surface of a river, almost as if she were drowning. Why, asks Ellen, has Mama come to this river swollen with rain? Now, with her own children all grown and her two husbands and her siblings long gone, Ellen looks back on her childhood for answers. What she finds is a young girl's struggle to withstand a world rife with abuse and poverty. Her daddy mostly drinks when there's no logging work or no work he feels like doing. Her mama spends most of her time having babies, working in the tobacco beds and…