“Let me ask you something.”

“What.”

“Was this the same fucker roughed you up? When we ran?”

“I already told you who that was.” Impatient. “No. He never messed with me after one time I was home alone and he undid his buttons and tried to stick it in my mouth and I bit it.”

“You bit his click?” Felt himself shrink against the mattress beneath him.

“Oh yeah.”

“Bit it off?”

She rolled against him and spread her mouth and razed his shoulder with her upper teeth. “Of course not. But I left marks. He yelped and slapped my head.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened.”

“After you done that.”

“What do you think? He left me be.”

“Yuht, I bet so.”

Picking up where she’d left off she said, “She talked about going home. Quebec, I mean. Not Saint-Camille. Talked about going to Sherbrooke, even Montreal. Saving her money, thinking she’d buy a little bakery somewhere. Every second Tuesday she went out to meet McCarson and those gold pieces went into that sack. I never saw but the first one. She of course thought they were a secret to me. I didn’t care about going anywhere. I’d listen to her when she talked about it but I never had any enthusiasm. Canada! You know how people hate the Canucks around here. It was the last place I wanted to go.”

“I always try and take a person for just how they are.”

“Huh. That’s what you think. What you like to think.”

“Why do you say that?” He’d rolled onto his side, reaching over her to the sill for the cigarettes. He propped on one elbow, trying to read her features in the streetlamp light.

“You’ve got fevers of hate in you.” She paused, not moving, her stillness a perfect thing—the slope and craft of her nose. And added, “Like any man.”

With his thumb and first finger he popped the cigarette in a high arc out the window and did not wait to watch the glow trail down out of sight but rolled onto his back. His voice soft he said, “I expect you’re right about that.” Still mild he said, “What happened to your mother?”

She hadn’t moved when he did. Still on her side looking out the window. He couldn’t see her now. His eyes lost on the ceiling, nothing there but the dark of a water stain. She said, “You’re bound up tighter than a secret. Just so you know, we’re not going to get anywhere like that.” Then she went right on. “I hated school. It was a fight to make me stay there long’s I did. The only part I liked was the recitals and commencement pageants and the plays. I was always the one to find a reason for some little spectacle. For parents or just for classmates, it didn’t matter to me. George Washington’s birthday. Lexington and Concord Bridge. Ethan Allen. I’d figure something out for it. Plus the dramatic society. I’d stayed I’d of done good with that. She found me a voice teacher. I wanted to take lessons on a piano but I’d as quick gotten an elephant as a piano. So I ended up with just my voice. Which the way it worked out was good luck from bad.”