She pulled herself away from Alex’s embrace. Her face was on fire. Never before had I seen her look so fierce.

“Your father’s gone after him.”

“Gone after who? Tommy?” I asked.

“No, Ruth. Not Tommy.” Next to her, Alex was gripping Mom’s sleeve. She looked just like a little girl. Her expression was strangely blank, despite the tears that ran down her cheeks. When she spoke, it was without inflection.

“I left them a note,” she said. “Before we left for the clinic. I told Mom and Dad what really happened.”

She began to walk to the porch steps. Mom helped her up them.

“What are you talking about? I don’t even know what you’re saying.” It took me a beat to catch up. “Wait, what? You’re not suggesting … No. No!” Every cell of my skin started to prickle. He would never, ever lay a finger on her. “Alex!” I yelled. “You’re not suggesting Hal got you pregnant?”

Alex turned slowly, Mom’s arm still around her shoulder. “Ever since the day Dad ran him off the farm, he’s been following me,” she said. “One day, he put his hands on me. I couldn’t get away.” She started to cry then, great heaving sobs that racked her, each one folding her with pain. Mom pressed her again into an embrace. She began to cry, too.

“Alex, no. It’s not true! Hal wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”

She moved a half step behind Mom.

Mom spoke for her. “You’re oblivious, Ruth. You don’t see the truth. You’ve created all the trouble this family has ever known.”

Suddenly Dad wheeled into the driveway in his truck, but he didn’t stop by us, he drove straight to the barn. We all watched him, wide-eyed. He got out, his legs and arms angled and tense.

“I’ve been looking all over!” he yelled to Mom. “Now I’ve found out where he is.” When he got back in the truck again, he was holding a baseball bat. His eyes were stone-hard on me as he peeled back out onto the grid road.

“Stop!” I shouted at him. The earth beneath me began to shift and slip. I was gulping for air, drowning. “Stop him!” I pleaded at Alex. “Tommy did this to you, not Hal!”

“Mom,” she sobbed. “It’s not true. Ruth is a liar.”

It wasn’t Hal. Not my Hal. If anything, he’d been kind to Alex, always. She probably let Tommy do it. Then when this happened, she had to find a way to make it not her fault. I stumbled up to the house and pushed past them, letting the screen door swing shut.