“It’s your fault. With refusing to build a decent house, even though you knew how. With your bullshit about perfection, about training, about practicing and preparing. With him sleeping alone in that camper, with not getting rid of the snakes, with the shit bucket, with no groceries, the wild foods. Survival Dice. Fucking Survival Dice.”

I stood back, not saying, For the record a lot of those ideas were mine. I didn’t know where to begin. The beating continued. She said:

“It’s your fault. With the way it’s always us versus them, we haven’t had people over since that fucking housewarming party when we first built this shithole, no friends. It’s your fucking fault. It’s your fault. With throwing him out the door, swearing at him, almost dislocating his fucking arm. He’s our child, for fuck’s sake. He’s seven.”

And Karen just took it. She put her hands up to protect her face. She crouched to protect her gut. But other than that, she offered herself so that Lily could beat her.

I certainly did not intervene. In fact, if anyone asked me what I thought, I might have said that Karen had it coming. I saw my own fists in Lily’s fists. My taste buds chimed with the sound of impact.

When Lily had exhausted herself, she stood heaving over Karen. Her hair hung in her face. Karen was a mess, nose bloody, shirt torn open.

“Do you feel better?” Karen asked. Her voice was full of love, unguarded, the way I had never heard it. Lily just stared at her.

“Baby?” asked Karen. I had never heard her call Lily such a thing ever before. I had never heard her call Perley that, even when he was an actual baby. But Lily was unmoved. She appeared to not be in the same room with the two of us. Her anger had subsided, giving way to the next problem, the vast one. Perley being taken was the world, and standing on the world, you can’t see the beginning or end of it. You can’t tell if it’s round or if it’s flat. So Lily was mystified. You could see it in her face. She never answered Karen. She just said, “I have to get him back. I have to figure out what to do. I have to think.” And she walked out the door, leaving the two of us standing there.

I brought Karen some plantain to stanch the bleeding. I brought her a glass of water. I opened my mouth, but she put her hand up.

“The best thing that you did in the last ten minutes was to not open your mouth. You’re on a winning streak, so just don’t,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.