Outside was cold, so cold only snow would get you out in it, and there wasn't any snow. We were all in the living room, all of us kids, except Carolyn Follis, who was 13, practically a grownup.

Mrs. Follis came into the room and tossed a cushion from the couch onto the wood floor. She breathed loud and lowered herself onto the cushion, arranging the wide bottom of her big housedress around her and over the cushion so you could barely see the cushion. Mama wore housedresses too, but Mama's were brighter colored, and not so big. Sometimes Mama wore slacks, but Mrs. Follis never did.

Mrs. Follis looked around the room slow, at Andy on the floor next to her wiggling the loose button eye of his teddy bear. She looked for a moment at Bobby Follis on the couch, looked longer at Bobby, my brother, sitting next to Bobby Follis, both of them leaning over the coffee table doing their homework. Over at Lindsay and me kneeling on the wood floor playing jacks, me teaching Lindsay, "cherries in a basket," a new game I'd learned at school. Mrs. Follis's eyes stayed the longest on Lindsay, Lindsay laughing when the jack she tossed went over her hand instead of in it and the ball bounced away. Lindsay's dimples showing when she laughed, her curly hair bouncing up and down with her.

Mrs. Follis breathed in and out more loudly, so Bobby Follis and my brother, Bobby, and Lindsay all looked at her. Mrs. Follis said, "Such nice children. Not a day goes by that I don't pray to God for your parents to get back together."

Mrs. Follis wrapped her arm around Andy and pulled him up next to her. Andy nuzzled his head up against Mrs. Follis, then climbed up in her lap.

"Andy was so cute today," Mrs. Follis said, which was the second thing that Mrs. Follis always said.

"We were watching TV while I ironed, and a commercial came on with a blue car driving by and he just kept saying, 'Mama's car. Mama's car.' And he'd look up at me and say, 'See, Mama's car.'" He said it the whole time the commercial was on. "

"He says the cutest things," Mrs. Follis said, "I should write them all down for your mother." She put her hand on Andy's head and pressed his head up against her.

*

The Follis farm didn't have enough beds for all of us. Lindsay and Andy and I slept on the floor of the living room in our sleeping bags.

One morning I woke in the middle of a dream about being cold and going to the bathroom. Right in the middle of going to the bathroom I woke up cold, my jeans wet. I always slept in my clothes at the Follis farm.

The jeans weren't too wet and when I got out of my sleeping bag and checked there was only a small damp spot on my sleeping bag, so I rolled it up to hide the wet spot, tied the cord around it so it wouldn't unroll. I got my shoes and socks and jean jacket on as quick as I could and headed outside for the outhouse because I still had to go and I didn't want to be caught with wet pants. Mr. Follis spanked me with a belt once when I had wet pants.

After the outhouse, I walked around the chicken coop a couple of times, then went farther down the path to the pig pen, walked around the pig pen. The dirt had a crunching sound of wet dirt that froze in the night. My pants still felt damp so I couldn't go back in, but I was cold from the wind and it was warmer near the house. Even though no one was outside I stood with my back to a wall to wait for my pants to dry.

The screen door bounced on the wood frame when Sonny came out the kitchen door. Sonny was the tallest of the Follis's three grown sons. He had a long, lanky cowboy sort of look, good looking and friendly. But I didn't know if he was really nice, like his brother, Fred, was really nice, Fred who wanted to be a priest. Sonny never really talked to me seriously like Fred did. Sonny just joked.

I pressed back against the house to make sure the back of my jeans didn't show.

Sonny said, in his friendly voice, "Hey, if those pants are wet, they'd probably dry a lot faster inside by the wood stove."

Sonny's grin filled his whole face, but since I didn't know if he was really nice like Fred I didn't tell him he was right about my pants and I didn't go back inside, not until my pants were dry.

When I did go in Mrs. Follis was laying Andy's sleeping bag over the backs of two chairs next to the wood stove. She laid his wet pajamas over the back of another chair.

"What a mess," Mrs. Follis said. "What a stinking mess."

*

And then, besides "Every day I pray to God your parents will get back together." and "Andy was so cute today," Mrs. Follis started saying "Wetting the bed is a filthy habit", and "Your poor mother shouldn't have to be changing sheets and doing laundry every morning after she gets out of the hospital."

But it wasn't until summer that Mrs. Follis started saying how three, almost four, was old enough to stop wetting the bed. Mrs. Follis said she'd have to have Mr. Follis use the strap on Andy when he wet the bed so she could break him of the dirty habit.

One morning when I was awake, but keeping warm in my sleeping bag, Mrs. Follis came out of her bedroom into the living room. Mr. Follis waited by the bedroom door. Mrs. Follis knelt beside Andy's sleeping bag where Andy was still sleeping and reached inside. When she took her hand out, she bent her head down and closed her eyes. She shook her head back and forth slow a couple of times while she opened up her eyes to look up at Mr. Follis.

Back up on her feet. She said, "He's wet again."

Mr. Follis wasn't as big as Daddy, wasn't even as big as Mrs. Follis. He was more the size of Uncle Walter with a wiry kind of body like Uncle Walter had, but he walked right over to Andy's sleeping bag, reached in, took hold of Andy under Andy's arm and yanked him up off the ground with one hand, while he used the other hand to pull the sleeping bag off Andy. He still held Andy up in the air while he pulled Andy's pajama bottoms down, pulled them off Andy's feet and tossed them down onto the floor.

Andy's eyes were open now, but he looked confused like he didn't know what was going on or where he was. Andy saw me, reached out his hand towards me.

I got out of my sleeping bag, but my legs weren't walking towards Andy. My arms weren't reaching out to Andy. I wanted to grab Andy away from Mr. Follis, but I knew I couldn't. If it was another kid hurting my brother it would have been my job to protect him, and I would have protected him, but Mr. Follis was a grownup.

Mr. Follis still held Andy under his arm, carried Andy that way, one handed, holding Andy out away from him, he walked over to the other side of the living room where the fireplace was. He set Andy down on the floor.

There wasn't a fire in the fireplace. There never had been while we were there, but there were knickknacks on the mantle, and on a hook on the side of the fireplace was a strap which was really three leather straps twisted together at the top to form a handle. Mr. Follis turned Andy so Mr. Follis had a grip on Andy's shoulder with one hand, and with his other hand he reached over for the strap. He lifted it off its hook and without stopping pulled his arm way back, then swung the strap hard against Andy's butt. Andy squealed and jumped up off the floor. Maybe he wasn't all the way awake until then. Andy pulled away from Mr. Follis, but Mr. Follis didn't let go of Andy's shoulder and he swung that strap back again and hit Andy's butt again while Andy cried and tried to get away. Where the strap hit, where each of the straps hit, a bright red raised line showed on Andy's skin.

Lindsay crawled out of her sleeping bag and she came over and stood by me. She looked at Andy and she looked at me, but she didn't ask me what was going on. Mr. Follis hit Andy with that strap again and Andy squealed and twisted and stretched as far as he could away from Mr. Follis and reached out his arm again, reached and pulled away from Mr. Follis toward me. The muscles in my legs tightened to walk to Andy, but I couldn't move. My arm was reaching out to Andy, but my hand only made it to Lindsay's hand beside me. I held it tight, held her hand too tight so I made myself loosen my fingers. Then that strap hit Andy again and Lindsay hand clenched mine too, way too tight.

Now Mrs. Follis was beside us and her voice came out like nothing special was going on, just the way she always talked.

"He looks so cute and sweet," she said, like Mrs. Follis always said. "It breaks my heart to have to spank him like this."

Mrs. Follis put her hand on Lindsay's shoulder. Lindsay's fingers got tight on mine again and I could feel her arm get stiff. She moved closer to me. That wasn't far to move but Mrs. Follis took her hand off Lindsay's shoulder.

Even though Lindsay didn't look at Mrs. Follis and I didn't look, Mrs. Follis went right on talking, talked faster even.

Wetting the bed is a filthy habit," she said. "We have to break him of it before your mother gets out of the hospital and has to clean up after him every morning."

But Mama wouldn't want this.

I wasn't looking at Mrs. Follis and Lindsay wasn't looking at Mrs. Follis, but our mouths weren't opening. Our voices weren't making the words to say that Mama wouldn't want this.

Andy's hand wasn't reaching out now. He was just pulling away and Mr. Follis kept pulling him back with his hand on Andy's shoulder and hitting him again with the strap.

Mrs. Follis kept talking like she wasn't seeing what Lindsay and I saw.

"Yes, you just have to spank them, no matter how cute they are. Why when I used to go see the convicts in the penitentiary, man after man would tell me, 'I wouldn't be here now if only my mother had spanked me more.' "

"You won't catch me making that mistake," Mrs. Follis said.

Mr. Follis hit Andy with that strap again and again and Andy squealed each time.

Mr. Follis let his arm with the strap drop to his side and let go of Andy's shoulder, then hung the strap back up on the hook on the side of the fireplace. Andy started toward me and Lindsay. My legs were walking towards Andy and my arm was reaching out to Andy, Lindsay right beside me. But Mrs. Follis hurried past. She got up to Andy and wrapped both her arms around him and hugged him up against her so I couldn't even see Andy anymore.

"My poor boy," Mrs. Follis said.

Our legs, Lindsay's and mine, stopped walking. My arms dropped to my side with nothing to do.

Mr. Follis finished hanging the strap on the hook and walked away from the fireplace. First his head was bent down, then he looked up and saw Lindsay and me standing there.

He stopped walking.

He dropped his head back down and put his hands in his overall pockets. Mr. Follis never talked on and on like Mrs. Follis. He hardly talked at all. When he lifted his head back up he said just one thing before he walked away again slower.

"It doesn't hurt as much as it looks like," Mr. Follis said.