“Who is that child?”

Valentine turned to see, and she gasped. “Collin!” She abandoned her post and ran toward the children. “Collin, come here!”

The boy and Jody both looked up with surprise on their faces as Valentine grabbed her son’s arm, and pulled him off his chair and away from Jody. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Annabelle as she came back to her counter with her son in tow. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Linder. He doesn’t know who she-”

Byron George shook a finger in Collin’s face.

“Stay away from that girl,” he said. “You just stay away from her.”

Annabelle was horrified by their good intentions. The boy-a handsome, dark-haired child who reminded her sickeningly of his father-appeared stunned by the grown-ups’ actions and words. He looked back to where Jody was still standing. She wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. She looked scared, and ready to cry, too. Annabelle saw the two of them look briefly at each other. Then the boy turned back around quickly and stared at the floor without saying anything.

“Please,” Annabelle said, patting the air. “It’s all right.”

She smiled-or tried to-at the child.

He looked at her with wide, somber eyes.

“Byron,” she said, “maybe Livia would like to give Valentine’s son that piece of candy that my granddaughter didn’t want.” Then, as quickly as she could manage it, she completed her transaction with Valentine Crosby, refused Byron George’s offer to carry the bag to her car for her, and gathered up Jody to go.

Grabbing Jody’s hand, she fled from the grocery store.

OUTSIDE ON THE SIDEWALK, they ran into a friend of hers.

“Why does she stay here?” Phyllis Boren said in her blunt way as she pointed into the grocery store. “Doesn’t she know that none of us want her here?”

“This is her home now, Phyllis.”

Her friend looked at her with surprise at her tone.

“I don’t think she has anyplace else to go,” Annabelle added, hoping Phyllis either wouldn’t notice her tearstained face or was so used to seeing her that way that she wouldn’t remark on it. “From what I understand, her family in Scott City won’t have her back. And I doubt she has the money to move even if she wants to.”

“We could solve that problem, Annabelle. You and Hugh Senior just say the word, and I guarantee you I’ll personally come up with her bus fare. It would be better for her,” she added in a virtuous, vigorous tone, “and certainly better for the boy if they started over somewhere.”

“How far away would she need to move, do you think?”

Phyllis didn’t catch the sharp tone in her friend’s voice.

“Far enough that you can’t run into her at the grocery store, Annabelle. Far enough that Hugh will never be tempted to take on Billy’s demon offspring as one of his rehabilitation projects-”

“Demon offspring? Phyllis, he’s just a little boy.”

“He’s Billy Crosby’s little boy, and you know what they say about apples and how far they fall from trees. If none of that convinces you, then let me say this. Val Crosby needs to move far enough away so that her kid and Jody will never cross paths in the same schools.”

Annabelle felt startled, having not thought of that probability before.

“That could happen-”

“Sure. He’s only four years ahead of her. When she enters kindergarten, he’ll be in fourth grade.”

Annabelle glanced down at Jody and saw that she was staring in the window at Collin Crosby, who was back at his corner table, his face determinedly pointed at his book.

“They’re just children,” she said softly.

“Well, you think about what I said, Annabelle.”

“I appreciate your good wishes for us, Phyllis.” She straightened her spine, which it seemed she’d had to do a great deal lately. “But I hope you will spare some kind wishes for that poor young woman and her son as well.”

Grandmother and granddaughter turned without saying goodbye.

They walked back to the Caddy to stow the groceries that nobody in their family would feel like eating.

COLLIN PEEKED UP from his books and saw the little girl was staring in at him from the fancy black car as it pulled away from the curb. He wanted to raise his hand and wave at her, but he didn’t dare cause another fuss. This was where his mom worked. Everything depended on if she kept her job here, because probably nobody else would hire her because of his dad.

Collin felt horrible because of what had just happened in the store.

He hadn’t recognized the little girl, hadn’t known, didn’t mean to-

His sensitive antennae picked up a new conversation going on between the man and woman who were his mother’s bosses, Mr. and Mrs. George. They were talking softer than they usually did when they discussed his father around him, but Collin listened hard and heard most of it anyway.

“That poor child,” the woman said, and for a moment Collin thought she meant him. But of course she didn’t-she was talking about the little girl who’d just been in, the Linder granddaughter, as people called her now. “She used to be so friendly and happy, and now she acts like a chocolate bar would scare her to death.”

“She’ll feel safer with him in prison,” Mr. George said with an air of authority.

“Like we all do,” his wife said, and Collin heard a shudder in her voice.

“They should have killed him.”

“But then he’d never tell where Laurie is.”

“I’d like to get hold of him. He’d tell then.”

“He dumped her body somewhere, and we’ll never know where,” Mrs. George said in the same tone of voice that Collin had heard people talking about scary movies. “Not unless he talks, and why would he? If he admits he killed her, he’s in trouble all over again. Lord! Imagine being her child and having to grow up with that question hanging over you all of your life.”

“He’s a real son of a bitch, that one. Cold. Heartless.”

“Well, he’ll never do any more harm around here, that’s one good thing.”

“The only one.”

Their voices stopped. Collin heard their footsteps going in different directions, one of them to Produce, the other to Dairy.

He looked over at his mom at work at the checkout counter-where a few more people than usual were lined up now.

It was his dad they were talking about.

It was his dad who was the reason that little girl was so scared and sad.

Collin felt as if he was going to throw up right there in the store.

WHEN HE AND HIS MOM walked home that night after her shift, Collin was the first to notice something different about their home.

“Mom, look!”

Valentine turned her head quickly, expecting the worst.

Instead, she saw, as Collin already had, that somebody had mowed their grass. The yard had been springing up in weeds because their hand mower was broken and they didn’t have enough money to get it fixed, much less buy a new one. Collin had felt embarrassed that their overgrown lawn called even more attention to their house and made them look like even worse people than folks already thought they were, and he knew it made his mom feel terrible, too.

“Who would do that?” she said, sounding stunned.

Collin looked around and spotted a neighbor down the street just putting his mower away. The neighbor looked up at the same time and, after a moment of hesitation, waved.

Collin waved back, a big wave, a thank-you wave.

“Mom, I think it was that guy.”

When she looked, the neighbor gave her a wave, too, and then hurried on into his garage, pushing his mower in front of him.

“Why’d he mow our grass?” Collin asked his mom.

“Because of Mrs. Linder,” she told him, sounding on the verge of tears again, but this time for nicer reasons.

THINGS BEGAN TO CHANGE at Collin’s school, too.

At recess the following Monday two boys approached Collin to ask if he wanted to kick a ball around. He’d never really noticed them all that much before, but now they looked like the best people he’d ever seen in his whole life.