But still, he talked about getting me out of that home. He talked about places outside of Omaha he wanted to see. The mountains, the beach. He talked about saving money. He talked about other ways he could get money: stealing women’s purses or robbing a bank. I didn’t think Matthew had it in him, but if it got me out of that home with Joseph and Miriam then, I thought, okay. Just so long as no one got hurt.

Maybe, he said, and one day.

There were times when Matthew wanted to kiss me there, in that Omaha home, in my bedroom. There were times he wanted to lie beside me on the bed for reasons other than to read.

I didn’t know what Matthew did and didn’t know about Joseph, about what he did when he came into my room. I was too afraid to tell Matthew for fear he wouldn’t believe me. It’s my word against yours, Joseph said. No one will believe you.

And besides, Joseph reminded me. I was a child that no one wanted. No one but him and Miriam.

Matthew and my library trips continued throughout the fall and into winter. There were weeks, maybe more, when Joseph stayed home and didn’t go to work. Winter break, he said, and there he was in that house with me all day long and I didn’t see Matthew at all. But I thought about him. I thought about his hands on me, his lips on mine, the way he said my name. Claire. The snow fell from the sky, thick and heavy, coating the lawn with a layer of white. I stared out the window at that never-ending snow and thought of snowmen and sledding and snowball fights with Momma and Daddy back in Ogallala. But here, the snow was just another reason to stay inside. The temperatures were cold, in and out of that Omaha home, the windows drafty, the heat set to no more than sixty-eight degrees. I was cold all the time.

Joseph went back to work, and Matthew returned. Winter continued on and on for nearly forever, and though the calendar had turned to March, the weather outside resembled anything but spring. Cold and gray, icicles clinging to the rooftops of the homes on our block.

And then, one early March day, Matthew came to fetch me to the library, excited to show me some new program he’d discovered on the computer. He was excited that day when he arrived, more animated than I’d seen him in a long, long time. The sky was the color of charcoal, the breath from our mouth that kind that flowed into the air like smoke.

But what Matthew and I didn’t know was that Joseph wasn’t feeling well that day. We didn’t know as we hopped on that blue bus and headed past the Woodman building, that Joseph was lecturing over at the community college, and starting to feel a headache coming on, and that, as we pulled our chairs up to the computer, he was thinking about cancelling his afternoon classes so he could go home and rest. There was no way we could’ve known as we put change into the vending machine for a bag of chips, that he was packing up his stuff in his black backpack to go, or that, as we later settled down in the engineering aisle to peer through the books and to kiss, Joseph was in his car, driving home.

The house was quiet when we came in, the cold wind all but pushing us through the front door. Matthew was talking about his mother, about Miriam, about how, if he was ever a vegetable like her, he’d just want someone to shoot him, to take him out of his misery.

I was stunned, staring at him with my mouth gaping wide, so that I didn’t see Joseph parked on the edge of the corduroy recliner, gazing at us with his hawkish, hostile eyes. He was unmoving, still like a statue. Matthew froze in the doorway, and that’s what made me freeze, too, made me turn to see Joseph, with a lamp base in his hands, the flocked lamp shade tossed to the ground beside his big, heavy boots.

What happened next, I could hardly explain. Joseph’s words were eerily calm as he asked us where we’d been.

“A walk,” Matthew said, and Joseph said nothing, twirling that lamp cord around and around in his hand, giving it a slight tug to check the tension.

And then Joseph wanted to know where I’d gotten the clothes, the clothes Matthew hung onto between visits so that Joseph wouldn’t see.

It had been a long time since Joseph and Matthew had laid eyes on one another. Joseph had no way of knowing that while he worked, Matthew was in and out of that very home.

Joseph wanted me to say it, to tell him that we’d gone for a walk because lying lips, just like the thoughts of the wicked, were an abomination to God. He wanted me to say it aloud. He wanted the words to come from my mouth.

And they did.

And then he looked toward his son and said, “What did I always teach you, Matthew? Bad company ruins good morals. Isn’t that what I always said?”

And then it happened, just like that. Joseph was moving across the room, striking Matthew with that lamp base again and again on the side of the head. There were words my Momma only ever muttered under her breath hurled at the top of their lungs.

I tried to stop Joseph, to get him to stop beating Matthew, but he knocked me down to the cold, hard floor. It took a minute to get my bearings, to get back up on my feet, but before I knew it, Joseph had me on the floor again, and this time, there was blood oozing from my nose, thick and red and sticky.

It happened so fast.

The sound of the lamp base against solid bone.

A streak of crimson blood soared through the air, splattering on the oatmeal-colored wall.

Epithets muttered between gasping breaths: son of a bitch and bastard and prick.

Random objects used as weapons: the telephone, a vase. The TV’s remote control. Breaking glass. A cry. More blood.

Me, on the floor, in the tornado position, feeling the ground shake as though an earthquake was passing through.

And then Isaac was there, too, home from school or work I assumed, and Isaac and Joseph were beating Matthew so badly I don’t know how he managed to stay on his own two feet. I was crying out loud, Stop! And Leave him alone! But no one was listening to me. Matthew groped for a candlestick and managed to connect with the side of Isaac’s head, immobilizing him for a split second.

Isaac lost his balance and staggered, thrust a hand to his own head.

And when Matthew raised that candlestick, Joseph managed to knock it right on out of his hand.

I don’t know how long it went on. Thirty seconds? Thirty minutes? It seemed like forever, that I knew for sure.

And there was nothing I could do.

“So this was in self-defense, then?” asks Louise Flores. “Is that what you’re implying?” She thrusts up the sleeves of the scratchy cardigan and fans a spare sheet of paper against her head. She’s sweating. The day outside must be warm, spring morphing into summer. Beads of perspiration form on the bridge of her nose, in the wrinkles of her raisin-like skin. I see the sun through the lone window, pouring across the dismal room and filling the darkness with light.

“Yes, Ms. Flores,” I say, “of course.”

I still see Matthew when I close my eyes: the sight of him with blood streaked throughout his dark brown hair, running crossways down his face. He looked like he was ten years old that day, there in the living room, with Joseph and Isaac ganging up on him. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to stop it, but even worse, I hated what I knew Matthew was feeling: powerless and weak. His eyes gazed past mine and I knew that more than anything, he felt ashamed.

“After some time,” I admit to Ms. Flores, “Matthew left. He didn’t want to, you know. He didn’t want to leave me there in that home with them. But there was nothing he could do.”

I tell her how Matthew managed to drag himself out the front door and leave that ugly March afternoon.

I see it, still, Matthew all but crawling out the front door. I hear Joseph and Isaac laughing.