She didn’t answer that, but instead asked if she had to continue sleeping upstairs at the farm. I replied that it might be difficult to make other arrangements right now, since her father was crippled and Stephanie was with us, but that I would see what could be done.

“Why don’t you want to sleep upstairs anymore? Is it because it’s a strange house?”

“No.”

“Maybe you’ve been having bad dreams like Duff had the other night.”

“No, I haven’t had any dreams.”

“What is it then?”

She paused and sighed. “I don’t like Duff anymore.”

“You don’t like your own brother?”

“No. Also sometimes I’m afraid of him.”

“But why?”

She paused again for a long while as I tried to watch her and the road at the same time. Then she said, “He’s mean.”

“Mean?” I suppose I smiled. I assumed they’d had a dis­agreement over some trivial matter and Duff had put her down. “What did he say to you?”

“It wasn’t what he said. He doesn’t say much at all to me lately. It was what he did.”

“Well?”

“He hit me.”

“Oh, Franny.” I couldn’t believe a blow from Duff would ever be anything more than playful.

“Also, he tried to take my clothes off.”

I almost went onto the shoulder of the road, but then I recovered control quickly. A sign said a service area was a mile away.

“Don’t say any more,” I told her. “We’ll stop and have something to eat.”

I pulled into the service area and we went into the Howard Johnson’s. Franny had her usual away-­from-­home lunch—hamburger, french fries and ice cream. Then she ate my hamburger and fries and, on the way out, selected a candy bar.

Back in the car again, I said, “Okay, tell me.”

She unwrapped her candy bar. “Well maybe he was only joking. That’s what he told me afterwards anyway.”

“What did he do exactly?” I was trying, not too successfully, to keep my voice down.

“Well it was that night after we all went to the hospital with Dad. On the way home Duff stopped the car suddenly, which scared me right off because the road was so dark and deserted looking. Then he put his arm around me and kissed me—which was all right, I suppose, but it did seem sort of ridiculous for my own brother to be doing it. After that he pulled my sweater off and pulled down my underwear. Then I cried, mainly because I was cold, I think. Then he slapped me.”

“Then what?”

“Don’t scream, Mama.”

“What!”