He knocked her into the wall, and she put up her hands, ineffectually, to defend herself. That seemed to infuriate him even further and he pulled her to her feet, then balled up both his fists, punching her in the face and stomach alternately, while she wept and retched, and finally dropped into merciful unconsciousness.

She woke up again, lying where she had fallen, in the dark and silent house, and crawled as far as the bathroom, using the sink to haul herself to her feet. Somehow, she got herself cleaned up, studiously avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. But she could not bear to go to the bedroom. Not to lie beside the man who had done this to her, and blamed her for her own son’s death.

Instead, clutching her sore stomach, she got as far as the little bed in Ryan’s room before she collapsed again, face and body throbbing with pain, onto the neatly made cotton comforter.

Eventually, she slept.

When she woke the next morning, an aching mass of misery inside and out, Rod was already gone.

The doorbell rang just as she was putting the finishing touches on a makeup job that she hoped, vaguely, would disguise the bruises, the black eye, and the swollen lip and jaw. It rang again, and she moved carefully to answer it, assuming that it must be the neighbor, Mrs. Nebles, who had taken Ryan and Jill—poor things, they must be hysterical; Rod hadn’t come to get them and only God knew what they’d been told last night—

But when she opened the door, it wasn’t the neighbor, it was Jennie Talldeer, her expression one of sympathy and haunted guilt, a guilt that Toni recognized, but could not imagine the meaning of. There was a handsome, long-haired young man standing politely behind her, and Toni gulped down a surge of nausea and revulsion. Right now, she did not want to see any men—he would think she was to blame; he would say that Rod had been right to beat her—

“Toni, we heard on the news this morning and—my god!” Jennie exclaimed, her expression transforming from sympathy to shock and outrage. “What the hell did Rod do to you?”

Not “what happened,” but “what did Rod do to you.”

Jennie knew. It was out in the open between them. And Toni was too tired to try to hide it anymore.

“He said—” she began, then burst into tears, momentarily forgetting the presence of the young man. “He said it was my fault!” she sobbed, as Jennie took her arms and gently led her inside to the kitchen. “He said it was all my fault, and he hit me and—”