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"Oh damn. Everything's happening at once. He'll kill me. Ken will kill me if he finds out."

"No one's going to kill you, Beni. You'll take a bath and go to sleep."

"What will I tell Mama when she asks why I came home?"

"I don't know. Let me think, Beni. I hate all these lies," I moaned.

"I don't even know exactly what they did to me," she chanted. She embraced herself and rocked. "Someone's got my panties."

"Maybe you just couldn't find them, Beni." I mumbled and hurried to the bathroom, blaming myself now because I had gone along with her and helped her to get Mama to let her go. I should have known better. I should have done more to stop her. Roy will be so furious at both of us, I thought. And poor Mama, with all she has to bear, now to have this added to the burden. She'll just crumble like some piece of thin clay, old and tired and dried out from shedding all those tears. I had to think, think hard, find a way to keep this terrible secret from her. Even more important than protecting Beni at the moment was the need to protect Mama. And Beni was right. Who knew what Ken would do?

This was one time I was glad Roy slept like the dead. Between Beni's sobs and the noise we made getting her from our bedroom and into the bath, I was sure someone would wake to see what we were doing. Thankfully, no one did. Ken was still snoring on the sofa and Mama must have been so exhausted, she slept right through all the noise.

Once I got Beni undressed, I felt even more terrible for her. Just as she said, boys had done things on her stomach and her breasts. She complained about the aches in her thighs. I got her into the water and helped her wash. She even had to wash her hair. It smelled like someone had poured whiskey on it. Afterward, I wrapped her in a big towel and helped dry her because she suddenly got a violent case of the chills. Her teeth rattled and her whole body

shuddered. We returned to the bedroom and I helped her put on a nightgown and get under her blankets.

"My head feels like it's full of pinballs knocking into each other," she moaned.

I found some aspirin for her and had her take two. She held onto my hand as if she thought if I left her side, she would disappear. I sat beside her and waited while she mumbled about what they had done to her until she fell asleep. Then I pried her fingers from mine, straightened her blankets, and went to bed.

But I didn't fall back to sleep. I lay there, thinking, trying to come up with some reason, some way to explain Beni's being home without alarming Mama and causing another family crisis.

However, there was so much commotion in the morning when Mama woke up and found Ken in the living room, I didn't have much chance to prepare her for the sight of Beni.

"So you finally decided to come back, Ken Arnold," I heard her say. "After you ran out of money, no doubt. Just like always."

"Quiet, woman," Ken pleaded. "You'll bust my head open with that mouth of yours."

"I hope I do," she told him.

I looked over at Beni, who was still asleep, her back to me, her face to the wall. I put on my robe and went out to keep Mama from getting into another down and out shouting match with Ken. Roy met me in the hall. We looked at each other and then joined Mama in the kitchen.

"He's back," she told us and waved her hand toward the living room. "Looking like a homeless fool. Go take yourself a bath or a shower, Ken Arnold," she cried toward the living room doorway. "You're fouling up my living room with the stench."

"Leave me be. Make some coffee," he added.

"Make some coffee," Mama muttered. "I hope he didn't go and lose that good job," she continued as she started to make the coffee.

Ken had a job as a janitor in a government building and it would give him benefits if he lasted six months.

Roy scratched his head and turned to go back to his room. He stopped dead in the hallway after gazing through my and Beni's bedroom door.

"I thought she was sleeping over at her friend's house. Why is she home?" he asked.

Mama spun around.

"Who?" She looked at me. "Beni came home last night?"

"Yes, Mama," I said.

She nodded, pressing her lower lip over her upper and sagged her shoulders. Her forehead rippled into folds of worry, her eyes darkening.

"Go on, tell me what."

"Nothing, Mama," I said quickly. "Only, she did what you told her to do. When they were going to leave to go to a hip-hop joint, she left them and came home."

Mama tilted her head with skepticism. I shifted my eyes quickly, only they focused on Roy and that was worse. He was frowning.