It was the first time Josie had ever heard him say her mother's name out loud. He always called her *you* or nothing at all, or once in a while, when he thought nobody was listening, *Tess*. He said it now as if he were trying to find out whether it was still hers.
Her mother stood up.
She did it slowly, holding the back of her chair. She didn't look at him. She didn't look at Benji, who was still saying *Mama* and holding his arms up, or at Josie, who had stopped saying *don't* and was just standing there with her hands open. She looked at the platter of chicken in the middle of the table, the pieces piled up crisp and golden under the light, steam still coming off them, and she looked at it for a long second as if it were something she had found in the road.
Then she walked out. Through the kitchen, past the stove, past the refrigerator with the magnets and the calendar, and down the short hall, and Josie heard the bathroom door close. Not slam. Close. The lock made a small sound.
The radio kept playing. The song had changed again.
***
For a while nobody moved.
Benji was still crying, but quieter now, gulping, the sobs coming in little hiccups. Water dripped from the tablecloth onto the linoleum, tick, tick, tick, a sound Josie would remember for years without wanting to. Grandpa Walt stood beside her mother's empty chair. He had put his hand down. He had put it in the pocket of his cardigan, as if to hide it, and then taken it out again and held it at his side, and then held on to the chair back with it, as if he needed it for that and nothing else.
Josie went around the table to Benji.
She didn't think about it. It was what she did. When he had a nightmare about the man in the closet she checked the closet with a flashlight and made the closet say *there's nobody here* in a deep voice. She went to him now and put her arms around him from the side, awkward because of the chair, and he turned his wet face into her sweater and grabbed fistfuls of it, the mustard-yellow knit one that used to be too big and now was almost right.
"It's okay," she said into his hair. "It's okay. Shh. It's okay."
It wasn't okay. She knew it wasn't. But that was what you said.
"Grandpa hit Mama," Benji said into the sweater.
"I know."
"Why did Grandpa hit Mama?"