And finally, Henry Byron, lying with her on the grass, the sound of bees all about them. Lying without her on his bed, the sores rising on his face, his hands, his neck, everywhere, everywhere, even inside his eyes.

She asks the fiddler what the tune is called. No one notices this uncommon behavior, Rosalie speaking to a strange man, because no one ever notices Rosalie. “It’s called ‘Poor Rosey,’ ” he says—and the surprise of this will stop her cold. Had Nelson known that? Had he pitied her? Was he making fun of her? “Do you like it?” the fiddler will ask, and she’ll hear him, but only after she’s already walked on.

She’d liked Nelson and she’d thought he’d liked her. On rare occasions, when June and Henry Byron were busy with something else and Rosalie wasn’t, Nelson had never minded playing with just Rosalie. It hadn’t happened often, but it had happened. Had they never really been friends at all? Rosalie hasn’t had so many friends in her life that she can readily give one up, even one she will surely never see again. She needs to believe that Nelson liked her as much as she’d liked him.

Nelson’s head was periodically shaved to prevent or eradicate lice, so when he had hair, it was short. His two front teeth hadn’t come in yet, which helped his whistling and showed as a gap when he smiled. He smiled all the time.

He never wore shoes. “Course I have ’em,” he said, “just don’t like ’em,” which made Henry Byron realize he didn’t like ’em either. Rosalie’s feet weren’t tough enough to run around the forest unshod, and June chose not to, but Henry and Nelson did just that until one of the dogs made off with one of Henry’s shoes and returned it half gnawed, and Mother made him wear it anyway, because he never should have taken it off in the first place. Did he want to end up with ringworm? she asked. And then said that June and Rosalie should have known better than to permit it. Because any misbehavior in a younger child was always the fault of the older. That was how a family worked.

There was one day with June off somewhere, when Henry Byron, Rosalie, and Nelson went down to where the Hickory Road crossed the creek. The sun was seeping through the trees, landing on the water in stars and sparkles. Squirrels were chasing each other through the high branches, rabbits eating in the grass. Henry got the idea to put a dam in, make a fishing hole. If they did it right, they wouldn’t even need poles. They could just reach in and scoop the trapped fish out with their hands. “Then we build a fire,” Nelson said, a bubble of spit rising through the gap in his teeth in excitement, “and roast ’em on sticks. Steal some ’tatoes from the bins, bury them in the coals. Eat like kings!”