As he lifted his head, he looked straight into the kitchen—right at Dennis—and saw him plain as anything.

“What are doing in there?” his father snapped, struggling awkwardly to get to his hands and knees. He never took his laser gaze off Dennis. Dennis seemed frozen to the spot.

“What the fuck are you doing in there?”

“N-n-n-nothing.”

“Are you spying on us?”

“N-n-n-no!”

Dennis was shaking his head so fast he felt like the bobblehead doll he got the time he went to the Dodgers game with his cousins. He was scared now. He knew that look in his father’s eyes when they got dark and flat and cold, like a shark’s eyes.

His father got to his feet and came toward him.

“Don’t lie to me, you rotten little shit. You’re standing in here listening. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” Dennis stammered, tears running down his face. He wanted to turn and run, but he was afraid to. Maybe if he stood very still, his father would calm down. Maybe if he ran, his father would chase him down and beat him to within an inch of his life.

“You good-for-nothing little smartass brat. I try to set you straight, and you take the finger off a dead woman. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Dennis didn’t answer him fast enough. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. His father was past calming down. The rage was in him now. There was no stopping him.

“I asked you a question!” he shouted. “Answer me!”

But he didn’t let Dennis even try to answer. He slapped him across the face so hard it knocked Dennis off his feet, then kicked him once, twice, the toe of his boot like a sledgehammer against Dennis’s back and buttocks.

“Frank! Stop it!” Dennis’s mother yelled. “He’s just a little boy!”

His father spun around, redirecting his fury.

Dennis scrambled to his feet and ran out the back door. He was trying to run faster than his legs could go, and he tripped himself and went sprawling down the concrete back steps. BAM! BAM! His chin bounced off one step and then another, skin scraping off. He bit his tongue hard and tasted blood as he landed at the bottom.

From inside the house he heard his mother cry out and the sound of plates crashing off the dining room table to the floor.

Dennis didn’t move for a minute. He lay there in the damp grass, thinking he would start to cry. But it was like something had broken inside of him, and he couldn’t feel anything. He got to his feet and limped around the side of the house to the oak tree.