Later, she’d come to see that these feelings arose from her own sin of vanity. She didn’t exactly forgive God, but she did shoulder her share of the blame.

This time is worse. This time she’d prayed for Henry to recover and God had responded by sending the swarm of red sores that covered and swelled his eyelids, ringed the inside of his mouth and nose, made his death an agony. Rosalie wanted no further dealings with Him. She didn’t even care that Henry was in heaven now. There was no excusing such a death.

So her carefulness is a secular matter, intended more for her mother than herself. One more lost child, Rosalie thinks, will do Mother in. Rosalie will not be that one more child.

And yet, she can’t help but wonder just exactly how much grief her death would cause; she sometimes spends those moments before sleep trying to imagine it. Would Father dig her up? Would Mother wake the stars with her weeping? There is an odd pleasure in these fantasies. Rosalie returns to her coffin again and again in dreams.

Ironically, it irritates Mother considerably, her silly whispering, her refusal to go out and about in the world.

—

Rosalie is kneeling on the dirt floor in front of the kitchen fireplace, trying to unbutton her little sister’s dress so Asia can nap in her underclothes. The room is too warm and smells of burnt eggs because Asia threw her custard into the fire when Mother said she had to eat it all. The biscuit dough is resting in its bowl on the scarred kitchen table until Rosalie has time to roll it out and there is wet laundry waiting to be hung.

Rosalie hears the frantic barking of the dogs and feels the lash of anxiety this causes her. The mail has arrived too early. Half an hour later and June could have gotten it on his way in to supper.

Asia picks up her shoe and hits Rosalie with it, once in the arm and once in the face. It surprises Rosalie more than it hurts her. Mother comes to stand over them. She’s too pregnant to kneel down herself; she would never get up again. “Go get the mail,” she tells Rosalie, “and leave the naughty girl behind,” which makes the naughty girl scream.

Asia sobs and kicks her feet. “No nap!” she tells Rosalie. “No nap! No nap!”

Rosalie pretends she hasn’t heard either one of them. She continues to wrestle with Asia. “Rosalie,” Mother says firmly. “You will go and get the mail.” She pauses so that the next sentence will sound like a concession. Father is not the only one in the family with a sense of dramatic timing. “You can take the dogs.”

The dogs are howling now—Howl, howl, howl, Rosalie thinks, because any child in this family can summon up a Shakespeare quote when needed. Screw your courage to the sticking place.