Everyone stood outside on the porch. Oma said good-bye, giving each of them a hug and kisses on both cheeks, all except Mommy, who wouldn’t let her. “Have it your way, Hildemara Rose.” Oma shook her head as she went down the front steps. Carolyn tried to follow. Mommy clamped hold of her shoulders and pulled her back.
“No!” Carolyn struggled, but Mommy’s hands tightened, her fingers digging in painfully. Carolyn screamed. “Oma! Oma!”
Oma turned her head away, backed out of the driveway, and started down the street. Thrashing, sobbing, Carolyn tried to break free. “Stop it,” Mommy said in a broken voice.
Daddy caught Carolyn by the arm and slung her around. He shoved her inside the front door. When she tried to run out, he lifted her under his arm and carried her kicking and screaming down the hall. “Stop it! You upset your mother!” Cursing, he flipped Carolyn over his knees and whacked her twice, hard. The pain shocked and frightened her into silence. Daddy flung her onto the bed. Face red, eyes black, he bent over her, a finger pointing at the middle of her face. “You move and I’ll give you the spanking of your life!”
Daddy’s hand trembled. “I don’t want to hear you cry again. Do you understand me? No more tears! You think you have it tough? I saw kids half your age in bombed-out buildings, scrambling for something to eat. They didn’t have mothers who loved them or took care of them. Their mothers had been blown to bits! Oma’s gone home. Life goes on. You make your mother cry and I swear I’ll…” He made a fist.
Daddy’s face changed. He ran a hand over his face and left the room.
The door opened, awakening Carolyn. She stuck her thumb in her mouth, her heart beating wildly. She hadn’t budged from where Daddy had put her. Not even when she needed to go to the bathroom.
Mommy stood in the doorway. She grimaced. “You had an accident, didn’t you?”
Carolyn scooted back on the fouled bed, shaking violently.
“It’s all right.” Mommy pushed the door wider. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Her mother didn’t come into the room. “No one’s mad at you.” She spoke at a distance. “Trip!” Her mother’s voice broke.
When she heard her father’s footsteps, Carolyn scrambled back farther, all the way to the wall. Tears ran down her cheeks. Mommy was upset again, and Daddy would be mad. Carolyn remembered Daddy’s face, his fist, and his promise. When Daddy appeared in the doorway, she took little gulping breaths.
“She needs a bath.” Mommy wiped tears from her cheeks. “A warm bath, Trip, and talk quietly. She looks like she’s in shock.” Mommy spoke in a choked voice. “I’ll strip the bed and wash everything.”
Carolyn didn’t remember how she got from the bed to the bath. Daddy showered her first and then put a capful of bubble bath in the tub and filled it with warm water. He talked in a happy voice, but he didn’t look happy. His hands shook as he washed her. Despite the warm water, Carolyn shivered all over. When he lifted her out, she stood still while he toweled her dry and dressed her in pajamas.
“You’re going to use a sleeping bag tonight. Won’t that be fun? You’ll be snug as a bug in a rug.”
She wanted Oma, but she didn’t dare say so. She wanted Bullet, but she didn’t think Daddy would let her sleep in the dog’s cozy little house. She wanted Charlie.
The radio played in the living room. Daddy tried to untangle her hair. “Mommy is making a nice dinner for us. You tell her how good it is. You say thank you.” He gave up on her hair and tossed the brush into the sink. The sound made Carolyn jump. Turning her, he lifted her to his knee and pressed her head against his shoulder. “I know you’re going to miss Oma, Carolyn, but you’re our little girl.” She sat limp, hands like dead spiders in her lap. If she moved, would Daddy hit her again? He set her on her feet. “Go on in the living room.” He spoke gruffly. She went quickly. Before going through the doorway, she looked back.
Daddy sat on the closed toilet lid, his head in his hands.
Carolyn did everything Mommy and Daddy told her. She didn’t question; she didn’t argue. Sometimes, after everyone had gone to bed, she would open her bedroom door and creep down the hallway to Charlie’s room and sleep curled up in a blanket by his bed. On cold nights, he let her snuggle with him. Sometimes she awakened early enough to go back to her own bed so Mommy wouldn’t know she slept in Charlie’s room.
The family went to church every Sunday. Carolyn liked Sunday school. The nice teachers read the same stories Oma had. She liked to hear the singing coming through the wall from the sanctuary and wished she could sit in there with its long red carpet and high ceiling and steps leading up to the cross with gold candlesticks and white candles flickering on the table.
One day after church, Daddy turned the car in the opposite direction from home. “I think I’ve found the place.” Daddy smiled at Mommy. Charlie sat tall, peering out the window. Carolyn couldn’t see anything.
Daddy turned off the road. The car bounced and jostled. “This is it.”
“Look at that tree!” Charlie rolled his window down. “Can I climb it?”
Daddy stopped the car. “Go ahead.”
Mommy protested. “It’s too tall.”
“He’ll be fine, Hildie.”
“Be careful!” Mommy called after Charlie.
Daddy laughed. “Relax. He’s a monkey.”
Mommy looked back as Daddy drove on. “An English walnut tree. We could probably get enough nuts off that one tree to pay part of the property taxes.”
Daddy grinned. “Just like you to be so practical.” He stopped and got out of the car. “Come on. Let’s walk the property. See what you think of it.”
Carolyn got out after they walked away. She looked for a big tree and spotted her brother high among the branches. Walking back, she stood near the trunk and looked up. Charlie straddled a high branch. She wandered back and heard Mommy and Daddy talking.
“Can we do this, Trip? I mean, neither of us knows anything about building a house.”
“We can learn. I’ve already ordered books from the library. The bank will loan us enough to buy the property. We haven’t the money to hire an architect or contractor. We’ll have to do it ourselves, Hildie.”
“You really want this, don’t you, Trip?”
“Don’t you? You’re the one who says she misses having space around. You talk about the farm all the time.”
“Do I?”
Daddy took her hand and kissed it. Drawing it through his arm, they walked together. Carolyn followed far enough behind not to be noticed, close enough to hear. “Just think about it, Hildie. We could stake out the house wherever we want it, hire someone to dig a well. We’d build a shed first to hold whatever tools I’d need to get started. Having a shed would save time in hauling everything back and forth. We could come out a couple times a week after I get off work, get started on the foundations, work weekends. Nothing fancy, just a simple house; one big room to start, add the kitchen next and a bathroom. As soon as we move in, we can add on two more bedrooms.”
“You’re talking about an awful lot of work, Trip.”
“I know, but we’d be building something for ourselves. How else are we going to have our dream home in the country unless we do it?”
“It’s a long way from town and schools.”
“Only two miles, and there’s a school bus. I already checked about that. All Charlie has to do is walk to the end of the driveway. He’ll be picked up and dropped off every day.”
Mommy looked around again, frowning this time. “I don’t know, Trip.”
Daddy turned her to face him. “Breathe the air, Hildemara.” He slid his hands up and down her arms. “Aren’t you tired of living in a house closed in on all sides by other houses? and gossiping neighbors who avoid you like the plague? Wouldn’t you like our children to grow up the way you did? in the country with space around them? They’d be safe and free to roam out here. No more living in the shadow of a federal prison.”