Summer will be here soon.  The first grade playground is humming with apprehension of swimming and summer camps and visits to grandmas and theme parks and bicycles and sleeping late.  For Holly, summer is better than school, even though she will get hit a lot more, and she won’t have a good meal every day.  But at least in summer she can watch over the baby.  At least she can change his diapers and he won’t get those horrible sores.  She will hold him, and rock back and forth and hum to him so he won’t scream so much and maybe he won’t make Daddy mad and end up in the hospital again.  But maybe summer won’t even come.  Maybe Daddy really will kill Mama like he said.  Maybe he will kill her, too.  Maybe if she keeps going into the back room with Daddy’s friends he will be happy with her, then he won’t hurt her.

The tiny six-year-old wonders what life is like in other people’s houses.  Do other children’s parents stick needles in their arms, then act very strange?  Do other parents disappear for days or even weeks at a time?  She wonders what will happen to her if she tells her teacher the truth about the bruises next time she is asked.  Holly is afraid the teacher won’t ask again.  She is afraid she will ask.  If the State takes her away, who will be there when Mama cries or is too drunk to take care of herself?

It was a neighbor, tired of hearing screams night after night, who made the call.