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Prologue

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My sister Beni and I were jolted simultaneously

out of sleep by the explosive sound of a dish smashing against the kitchen wall. We heard the shattered pieces of china rain down on the pale yellow linoleum floor. I lay there, staring up into the darkness and holding my breath. Beni sat up to listen, her braids falling over her eyes so that she had to part them like a beaded curtain.

"What was that?" she gasped. I was afraid to move, much less speak. The silence was like that moment after you see a streak of lightning and know there will be a boom rattling windows and your own bones. Sure enough, we heard Mama's tear-filled voice wail at Ken.

For as long as I could remember, Beni, Roy and I had called him Ken instead of Daddy or Papa. Calling him by his name instead always fit our lips better. Something in the way he looked at us, especially when we were younger, told all three of us that he didn't want to be known as anyone's father, much less ours.

"Go on, then," we heard Mama cry, "leave. You aren't much good to us here anyway. You never were." "If that's the way you feel, woman, then I might just go," he roared back at her.

"Go, go, go," she chanted like a high-school cheerleader. The strain in her voice made the strings in my own heart strain to the point of snapping.

"I will," he threatened. "I won't stay where I'm not appreciated. That's for sure; that's for damn sure."

"Appreciated?" She laughed a shrill, thin laugh. "What's there to appreciate? Your spending all your wages on drink and other women? Your coming home and falling on your face? You haven't ever been here for me and the children anyway, Ken Arnold. We aren't even going to know you're gone," Mama assured him.

"Ungrateful bitch! I oughta..."

"Lay a hand on me. Go on. I dare you. I'll call the law, I will. Go on," she challenged.

I sat up. It felt like tiny drums of fear were tapping beneath my breast. Quickly, I embraced myself. We had all seen him strike her before. It was ugly and tied knots of fear in our stomachs. Beni moaned in anticipation. She started to edge herself off her bed reluctantly, like someone being urged to run into a burning building.

"Don't go out there," I warned in a loud whisper. "You'll only make it harder for Mama."

She paused. Even in the dark, I could see the abject terror in my younger sister's eyes.

Our older brother Roy came to our door, rubbing his right palm back and forth over his forehead as if he were sanding a block of wood. It took a lot more to wake him than it did us. Mama always said, "That boy proves someone really could be dead to the world when he sleeps."

Roy stopped outside our open doorway. "What the hell's going on now?" he muttered, grimacing as if he had just swallowed some sour milk.

"Don't get between them, Roy," I cried. Once before, he had, and Ken had hit him so hard, he had knocked Roy down and made his lip bleed and swell. Mama kept him from getting up and getting the worst beating of his life for sure.

"Ahh, you deserve me leaving you," Ken muttered.

Apparently, Mama had held up her challenge. She had fixed those hot ebony eyes on him and made him back down. The next thing we heard was the front door opening and slamming shut. It rattled the walls in the small apartment and then all was still for a moment before we heard Mama sobbing.

I got out of bed and Beni and I joined Roy. All three of us entered the kitchen and found Mama seated at the chipped Formica table, her head down on her folded arms, her shoulders shaking.

We had seen her this way many times before.

"What happened this time, Mama?" Roy asked, his eyes blazing with anger.

Mama raised her head slowly and with great effort as if it were made of stone. Her eyes were red and glassy with tears. She took a deep breath, her small shoulders rising and then falling quickly, resembling some puppet whose strings had been cut. She seemed to sink into the chair. When I saw her so despondent, my heart felt like a squeezed orange. My chest was so tight that I couldn't take a deep breath. The tears that had streaked down Mama's cheeks left jagged lines right to the tip of her chin.