The light from the window barely touched inside, so I opened the wardrobe door wider. I expected to find sweaters, or blankets, maybe old pants. I found none of those.

What I found in the wardrobe was a doll, nearly bald, dressed in pale blue overalls. Circles of elastic gathered the material around the ankles, tiny pink flowers dotted the shirt. The doll sat on the low wardrobe shelf.

My old doll.

I picked it up, brushed back the few honey-brown strands of its hair.

“Your grandmother plays with dolls?”

This was too private. I didn’t want to talk about it at all. But it was time. It was time to talk to Muncie.

“It was my doll. When I was little. My mother gave it to me before she died.”

“And you didn’t know your grandmother had it all these years?” Muncie asked.

I shook my head. “I’d thrown it away.”

Setting the doll back where I’d found her, I started to close the wardrobe door when Muncie stopped me. Reaching in, she pulled out an old photograph.

“Who’s this?” she asked.

She handed me the snapshot.

A slim, unvarnished woman stood beside a man with dark eyes, a square jaw, muddy boots. He stared uncomfortably at the camera. The woman, her face turned sideways, smiled at a baby riding her hip. The sun slanted through a window behind them. The baby must have moved as the shutter clicked because her smile blurred in a line between the man and the woman, almost connecting them. The wall behind them had green-and-gold striped wallpaper.

I remembered this. I remembered not only the picture, I remembered the moment.

“That’s my mother,” I said, pointing to the thin woman. “And my father.” I touched his white shirt, unbuttoned at the cuffs and the neck.

“And that’s me.” I touched the baby. “That’s my crib. I used to sleep sometimes in the back bedroom.”

I placed the photograph beside the doll, closed the wardrobe softly, and opened a dresser drawer.

“Here,” I said, holding out a work shirt and a pair of pants. “She won’t mind if you borrow these.”

I went back across the kitchen, down the hall, and listened at Ezra’s door. I heard Gran’s voice talking calmly, slowly. She had things under control. Gran always had things under control.

Voices still rose and fell softly behind us as Muncie and I climbed to my room. We peeled off our muddy, blood-stained clothes. I didn’t look away while Muncie undressed. I wanted to see her. I tried not to flinch when she watched me too.

At one point I thought I heard a truck idling, but Muncie’s high-pitched voice chatted on. A numb exhaustion made everything slow, unreal.

I examined the pricker bush scratches down my arms and legs. They swelled in red striped welts. Some of the scratches still bled.