In the old wrecked car, in the smelly old Buick at the back of the lot, Marya knew how to go into stone; how to shut her mind off, to see nothing without closing her eyes. She was afraid only that her neck might snap: she knew how chickens’ necks were wrung, how a garter snake might be whipped against the side of a barn and its secret bones broken. Lee was strong—it was a joke around the house how strong he was—shoulder and arm muscles, fingers that could twist off jar tops for his mother when her fingers (which Marya judged strong enough) were inadequate. “Lee’s going to be big as his daddy,” people said; and Marya’s aunt Wilma pretended not to be pleased, shaking her head, frowning, remarking that one of them around the house was enough for her. But all the Knauer men were big. Big and handsome. It ran in the family, Wilma would say, along with other traits that weren’t always so nice. (And here, if Marya or Davy or Joey was present, she shifted her gaze meaningfully and said nothing more.)

These were the years of secret glances exchanged over Marya’s head. Of mysterious allusions and hints. “The trouble,” it was sometimes called, “the bad luck.” Embarrassed words trailing off into silence. What were they saying, Marya wondered, pretending never to listen, pretending to be intensely absorbed in one of her schoolbooks, or in drying the dishes, or in minding her baby brother. Something about her mother, was it: her mother who was known simply as “Vera”: or from time to time (but this Marya only overheard) as “the bitch” or “the Sanjek bitch”—Sanjek being her maiden name. Had anyone heard from her, or of her?—and the answer was invariably the same.

Though sometimes Marya’s uncle Everard would add, “She’d be better off dead, I get my hands on her.”

Marya was eight years old for a very long time. And nine years old. And ten. A very long time: the years stretched and buckled, the days were always the same day, only the weather differed. The inside of the old Buick was stifling hot and so dry you couldn’t get your breath, or the windshield was splattered with rain that soon began to leak inside, or it was cold, too cold, and Marya couldn’t stop shivering and whimpering. “Be quiet,” Lee would say, grunting. “Or I’ll wring your skinny little neck.”

HE DIDN'T MEAN to hurt because, really, he liked her; she knew that. She could tell. “Lee’s just teasing, Marya,” her aunt Wilma would say, half chiding Marya for being upset. “Stay out of his way and you’ll be better off.”