“When I asked Cassie about him, she looked frightened. Much too frightened for a simple question about her father.”

“I already told you, she’s shy.”

“I talked to Glenn yesterday,” Tully says. “You didn’t lay a hand on him at the bridge yesterday when you were running. And he told me how you saved Igor.”

“Yeah, well ...”

All the light from the two little windows seems to have aimed straight for her hair. She runs her fingers over the grain in the table and takes another deep breath. “My biological father—his name was Buddy—he used to beat my mom.”

The river whispers through the trees. A squirrel scrabbles across the roof. I’d better put mesh over the chimney to keep them out. Bats, too.

Say something, Brick.

“I remember her screaming. I remember bruises and black eyes and her making excuses because she loved him.” Tully’s eyes are bright with tears. “Then he turned on me and that was it. She found the courage to leave him even though she had no money and no job ... I was a only couple of months older than Cassie.”

I walk around the table, banging my hip on one corner, hesitate, then rest a hand on her shoulder. Ready to snatch it back if she objects, I say, “I’m sorry.”

How lame is that.

She leans on my chest, closing her eyes. I feel dampness. Tears. Tully Langille’s tears, soaking through my filthy T-shirt. Clumsily I put my arms around her.

I’ve come across the word intimacy, of course I have. Figured it bypassed me and likely always would—although sometimes I’ve wondered if my first kiss would give me a handle on it. But right now, Tully leaning on me—trusting me with her secret— puts a whole new slant on it.

All of a sudden, AQ hits the roof of the shack.

We stand like this for a long time. Then she says, so quietly I have to strain to hear her, “Buddy used to swing me way up to the ceiling and pretend he was going to drop me—I’ve been scared of heights ever since. He was a bully. Mean all the way through.”

Nothing I can say that’ll fix it. Nothing at all.

“That’s why I couldn’t figure you out,” Tully says. “You were a bully, but you were decent, too ... Rolf knows about Buddy. That’s why he reacted so strongly when he found out about you.”

“Floyd,” I say. “Floyd was angry at Cassie, so he hit her. Then he picked her up and started shaking her. When he dropped her, she hit her back on the coffee table and banged her knees on the floor.”

Tully lifts her head so she can look at me. “He beats you, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah ... he beats me.”

She shivers. “Can’t your mom stop him?”

“She did once. A month or so ago.”