"I'm truly sorry to bother you so much," Erika said patiently, like a mother trying to explain pain to a child too small to understand. "How often do you get like this?"

"Different times."

"Of course. And it lasts how long?"

"Oh geezus, how do I know? Three or four days."

"Then it's good I came."

Kate sat upright. It was time to end this foolishness. Get the girl out of here. "Why don't you mind your own business?"

"But it is my business."

This was so unreasonable she couldn't find an answer. She lay back against the pillow, feeling defeated. How I must look, she thought, picturing her face as it had looked out of the mirror so many times: eyes swollen, half-shut, cheeks pitted with tears, muscles sagging. Well, what did it matter? Nobody cared how she looked.

She was relieved that she could put off the next step. That meant going out again as soon as she knew she could walk without falling, to cross the street with owlish care and make her way to the liquor store for another bottle. Once, when she first came to this place, she had started downstairs in pajamas; had turned back, weeping with frustration, after she caught sight of herself in the landing mirror. Now she was smart. Now she went to bed with her clothes on, because of course it was important not to attract attention.

She looked with distaste at her blouse front, stained with vomit and spilled liquor.

"I don't want to get up."

"You don't have to. Lie still."

"Bottle's empty."

"You don't want any more."

Oh god, Kate thought tiredly, of course I don't. But what else is there? She shut her eyes, half afraid Erika might go away, half wanting to strike out in hate at her. She said again, automatically, "Go away."

"Do you want me to? Really?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. "The nightmares," she said in an apologetic whisper.

"Then I stay until they go away.”

“No.”

"I promise you, nothing bad is going to happen to you."

She took Kate's hand in both of hers, the long gentle fingers making almost no pressure. "See, nothing will happen."

Oh, Paul. "Lie still. The lightning won't get you, I won't let it." Two years younger than he was, and yet she had been his mother too. Tears welled into her eyes. She turned her face to the pillow. "Kid stuff," she said thickly.

"Do you trust me?"

"Why should I?"

"No, do you trust me?"

"Yes."

Erika's fingers closed around her wrist. "Then go to sleep."

She shut her eyes again, sinking back into the blurry darkness of half-sleep that had waited for her all night, suspended between dreams and wakefulness. Now she was lying face-down in the hay, smarting and burning where the strap had bitten into her skin, and the footsteps were coming across the barn floor. But Erika's hand clasped her wrist, and the steps faded away. She slept.