Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

woman from Herkimer County Family Services asked Did your father ever hurt you, Annislee?—and
I said No! He did not. Daddy did not. You would think that when you answered such a question that would be the end of it, but repeatedly the question would be asked, as if to trick you. Asking did
your daddy hurt you or your brother or your mother, try to remember, Annislee, and I was angry, saying in a sharp voice like a fingernail scraped on a blackboard, No, Daddy did not.
    “Hey, Ann’slee—din’t fall in, did you?”
    One of the guys rapping on the door, making the latchkey rattle.
    At the table the guys are devouring ham sandwiches in two, three bites. Big fistfuls of chips. Cans of Black Horse Ale opened, and the ale smell is sharp and acrid. Heins is shuffling cards,
pushes them across the table for me to cut. Am I still in this game? With no dollar bill to toss into the pot? They’re asking where am I staying at the lake and I tell them. Where do I live
and I tell them: Strykersville, which is about twelve miles to the south. Is your family with you at Wolf’s Head, Deek asks me, and I tell him yes, except for my father, who isn’t
there. Deek asks where is my father, and I hesitate, not wanting to tell him that I am not sure. Last I knew, Daddy was living in Sparta, but he’s one to move around some. Not liking to be
tied down, Momma says.
    Croke asks do I have any brothers, his greeny gray eyes on me in a way that’s kindly, I think. I say Yes, Jacky, who’s nine years old and a damn pain in the neck.
    Why’d I say this? To make the guys laugh? You’d think that I don’t love my little brother, but truly I do.
    Seems like the guys want me back in their game. Deek is allowing me to put up my Cougars T-shirt “for collateral.” Since washing my face, I’m feeling more clearheaded—I
think!—wanting to win back the dollar bills I’ve lost. Maybe this is how gamblers get started—you are desperate to win back what you’ve lost, for there is a kind of shame in
losing.
    But the cards don’t come now. Or anyway, I can’t make sense of them. Like adding up a column of numbers in math class, you lose your way and have to begin again. Like multiplying
numbers—you can do it without thinking, but if you stop to think, you can’t. Staring at these new cards, nine of hearts, nine of clubs, king of spades, queen of spades, four of
diamonds. I get rid of the four of diamonds and I’m excited, my replacement card is a jack of spades, but my eyes are playing tricks on me, what looks like spades is actually clubs, after
raising my bet I see that it’s clubs and I’ve made a mistake, staring and blinking at the cards in my hands that are kind of shaky like I have never seen a poker hand before. Around the
table the guys are playing like before, loud, funny-rude, maybe there’s some tension among them, I can’t figure because I am too distracted by the cards and how I am losing now, nothing
I do is right now, but why? When Croke wins the hand, Deek mutters, “Shi-it, you goddamn fuckin’ asshole,” but smiling like this is a joke, a kindly intended remark like between
brothers. I’m trying to make sense of the hand: Why’d Croke win? Why’s this a winning hand? What’s a full house? Wondering if the guys are cheating on me, how’d I
know? The guys are laughing at me, saying, “Hey, babe, be a good sport—this is poker.”
    Croke says, “My T-shirt now!” Pulls the Cougars T-shirt off over my head, impatient with how slow I am trying to pull it off. There’s a panicked moment when I feel the
guys’ eyes swerve onto me, my halter top, my small breasts the size of plums, anxious now like undressing in front of strangers, but I am trying to laugh, it’s okay—isn’t
it?—just a game. “This is poker,” Deek says. This is Wolf’s Head Lake in August, the kinds of wild things you hear about back at school, wish you’d been part of. And
now I am.
    In just my swimsuit now, and