“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you lately,” I said. I was sorry, too, that I had tried nothing to wake him since he’d rolled his eyes. But I would do something now, though it frightened me.

I tucked Quiet alongside my father’s neck.

It was amazing how different the little dog looked now that his eyes were open.

Larkin moved around me so he could see the place where the tree had hit my father’s head. “That’s quite a scar.”

I glanced up and found him looking not at my father but at me, as if I were the one who’d been hurt.

“Yes.”

He didn’t take his eyes off my face. “Trees don’t usually fall on the person cutting them down.”

I blinked too many times. “Not usually,” I said.

I pulled the blanket up over Quiet and my father. To Quiet, I whispered, “Teach Daddy how to open his eyes while we’re gone.”

Which sounded too much like a lullaby, such gentle talk.

I put my hand on my father’s scar. “Everyone thinks I’m the one who caused this,” I said, without looking at Larkin. “They think I was in the way when the tree fell. They think my father ran to save me. That he got hurt instead of me.” I swallowed, but my throat stayed just as tight. “I’m pretty sure my sister would have preferred that I was the one hit by the tree.”

“Oh, that’s not likely,” Larkin said.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. He’s hurt, all the same.”

Larkin frowned at me. “You said people think you were in the way of that tree.”

“They do.”

“You didn’t say that you really were in the way.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes before they could fall. “But I wasn’t. Samuel was. And my sister was supposed to be watching him.” I looked up at Larkin. “Imagine Esther knowing she’s the reason Samuel was in harm’s way.”

Larkin didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He looked at me steadily, his face serious.

I said, “Imagine Samuel knowing he’s the reason his daddy got hurt.”

But Larkin shook his head. “Imagine a girl deciding to take a blame that isn’t hers.”

I turned back to my father. I hated the way his skin pulled hard across the bones of his face, as if someone were making him into a drum. As if he were hollow. As if someone was supposed to hit him to make any music at all.

I thought of things like skunk stink and horseradish.

I went to the pack I’d left by the door.

The bees inside the honey jar were pulsing quietly on the comb, their feelers sweeping the air as I looked at them through the glass.

“What are you doing?” Larkin asked.