Chapter 4: Fences Don't Have Thumbs

I fished the toothpaste out of the sink and set it back on the counter.

My hands were steady.

I don't know how.

"Posy," I said. "Nobody's in trouble. Not you."

She kept her face turned to the window.

"Can Daddy see your arms? Just Daddy. Just for a second."

She shook her head so hard her braid whipped her cheek.

I heard the screen door downstairs, and Roscoe's boots in the kitchen.

"Roscoe," I called. "Come up here, please."

He came up the stairs two at a time.

He stopped in the bathroom doorway, filling it.

Posy climbed down off her stool and tried to slip past his legs to her room.

He crouched to catch her, the way he must have a thousand times.

"Hey, Bug. Where's the fire?"

His big hand closed gently around her upper arm.

Posy flinched so hard she banged her head on the door frame.

She didn't cry out.

Roscoe let go.

Her sleeve had ridden up.

He saw it.

I watched it land on his face.

He reached out slowly and eased the sleeve up another inch with one finger.

Four little purple ovals.

One big one on the other side.

"Posy," he said, very quietly. "Bug. Did Aunt Bonnie do that?"

Posy stared at his chin.

Then she pulled free and ran to her room, and the door shut without a sound.

She even closed doors silently.

Roscoe stayed crouched in the hallway.

"She falls," he said. "Off the fence by the calf pen. Off the hay bales. She's always got bruises."

"Fences don't have thumbs, Roscoe."

He looked up at me.

For a second he looked like a man who'd been kicked by a horse and hadn't fallen down yet.

Then he stood up and went downstairs and out the back door without his coat.

I sat on the floor outside Posy's room for an hour.

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