One Monday We Killed Them All by John D. MacDonald Page B

now! Steady!”
    “I hate him! If he was shot dead right now I’d laugh and laugh.”
    “You’re working yourself right into a paddling, fellow.”
    “Go ahead. I don’t care what you do. It won’t change anything.”
    “Now just what in the world has he done to you?”
    I saw his face change, smooth out, become secretive. “He hasn’t done anything to me.” I’ve done too much interrogation work to have failed to notice the subtle emphasis on “me.”
    “To Lulu then?”
    “No.”
    “Judy?”
    “No.”
    “Your mother?”
    “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
    It didn’t take long to get all of it, because it was a promise he didn’t want to keep. It was too much for him. She shouldn’t have asked it of him. He had come home from school. Meg and Dwight had been arguing in the kitchen, talking so loudly they didn’t hear him come in. He had seen Dwight strike Meg in the stomach with his fist and knock her down, then walk to his room and slam the door. Bobbyhad begun to cry. She had gotten up slowly and painfully and vomited into the sink and then taken him with her to our bedroom. She had lain on the bed and held him in her arms until they were both cried out, then made him promise he would say nothing. In the telling he cried again, but tried to conceal it. I would have held him, but he was eight years old, and there were friends of his on the playground.
    He looked at me with wet eyes and said, “I guess she knew if she told you, you’d put him in jail right away. I think you better put him in jail. He hurt her. He hurt her terrible, Daddy. It—it’s so different from a kid getting knocked down. It’s scary. Will you go take him to jail right now?”
    “Your mother wouldn’t want him to go back to jail, Bobby. That would just be hurting her again, in a different way.”
    “But he—he’s spoiling our house !”
    I knew what he meant. Some of his friends had started to call him. He ignored them. “Everything is going to be fixed in a little while. Be patient, boy. Try to act like yourself so your mother won’t worry about you. Now you go play with your friends.”
    “Are you going to tell her I told you?”
    “That’s up to you.”
    He frowned for long thoughtful seconds. “I think she better know you know it, Daddy. Will you hit him like he hit her, will you?”
    I had to get out of that one in a way that would salvage some pride. “If she’ll let me,” I said. “He’s her brother.”
    I sat and watched him racing around with his friends for a little while. I walked home. Meg was marketing. Dwight was in his room. When Meg came back I helped her carry in the groceries. I could hear the radio in Dwight’s room. I sat on the counter top and watched her putting things away. I like to watch the way she moves. She has a balance, a deftness, a certainty about things.
    “Stomach still sore?” I asked.
    She stood motionless, her hand on the refrigerator door, then turned slowly to face me. “Bobby promised.”
    “You knew why he was acting so funny.”
    “I—I guess I did.”
    “So did you want me to pry it out of him? It wasn’t easy, if that’s any help.”
    “I don’t know , darling! I don’t know !”
    “You’ve got an emotional stake in your brother. We’ve both got an emotional stake in these kids. So this is where I come in, with both feet. I don’t want our kids over-protected, guarded from every unpleasantness in life. But Bobby saw something that didn’t fit anything he’s ever learned. He’ll carry it a long time. It’s a—dirty kind of thing, Meg.”
    “Dwight didn’t know he was anywhere near—”
    “What difference does that make? It’s the whole setup that’s wrong. For you, for the kids. You can’t housebreak him. We can’t live like this.”
    She moved close, and looked at me in a wary way. I had kept my voice calm and reasonable, with an effort she could only suspect. She forced a smile. “I guess a lot of husbands have trouble with their