The little girl knew what to do.

As soon as the yelling began she would jump, lightning quick, out of her bed, corral her groggy younger brothers, and run out to the old shed at the edge of the property that faced the canal. Experience had instilled in her the urgent necessity of this routine that far belied her years.

The next day, mama would never meet her eyes, sitting at the old broken down Formica kitchen table, chain smoking Lucky Strikes and sometimes applying a dishrag full of ice to her various bruises and injuries. On those days she would keep her brothers quiet, away from mama.

Even at six years old, she understood that no one could ever know about this. The regular horror of her home. She mustn’t be weak. That’s what her daddy called it: weakness of character. Everyone was weak except him. His wife and children especially.

The last time it ever happened; when the loud fleshy battering noises and muted screams had finally stopped, she had heard the back screen door slam. Daddy carried out an odd shaped bundle, trailing its wrappings along behind his heavy work-booted feet. He sidled down the canal bank , rolled the unwieldy shape into the filthy, fetid water.

It clung to the surface for endless minutes before sinking.

When the water’s surface once again became still, she left her brothers sleeping on the ground, and crept back to the house, numb and determined.

She would never be weak, she thought, as she approached daddy’s bedroom door with the heavy pistol steadily held in both hands.