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of this would have happened if you’d stayed out of the river,” my father said.
    â€œNigger’s probably dead too,” I said, and then there was a silence and my father looked at the floor, at the headlines on the newspaper lying there. My mother was looking too. Those words seemed like they were bigger than even my father in the room right then; bigger than all of us: WOMAN DEAD . It was quiet for a while longer and then my father told my mother to leave us alone.
    â€œWhat you going to do?” my mother asked my father. My father looked at her strange and he leaned back a little, like I’d seen him lean back when his own mother, Grandma Ruth, talked to him, and he got a hurt look on his face that my mother could ask such a question. My mother was standing up and we were both sitting down, my father and I, looking at my mother.
    â€œThis boy’s too old to give a licking to, but I’m going to,” my father said.
    â€œThe boy didn’t do nothing,” my mother said.
    â€œHe jumped in the river!” my father said, and stood up fast, kicking the chair back, “and I told him to stay clear of that river and those people. Now, just look at this mess!” my father said, moving his face right up against hers.
    They stood there like that, the two of them, my mother and my father, squared off, my father’s hands becoming fists.
    â€œYou’re going to lose that boy,” my mother said. “You can’t beat that boy for this.”
    â€œMary,” my father said. I had never heard my father call my mother that. “Leave us alone now. This is not a woman’s concern.”
    The way my father said “Mary” like that and “woman” like that, did it. My mother turned and walked over to where she kept the silverware and got the paring knife out of the drawer. Then she walked outside through the kitchen door, and the way she looked walking out, the way the kitchen door opened, reminded me again of the night of the chinook.
    My father took his belt off and told me to drop my pants; told me to bend over and hold on to the edge of the supper table and drop my pants, just like he had told me to do other times.
    I wanted to say something big then. I wanted to use those words he used when my mother wasn’t around—use them to say something big.
    But I held my breath, like I had all those other times in the past, and dropped my pants and my shorts, my back to him, and leaned over and grabbed on to the edge of the supper table.
    Other times, my father would have hit me three or four times right off and I would have had my pants back up in nothing flat and neither of us would have said anything for a bit. Then he’d say something like don’t ever do that again , or shape up or ship out , but that was when I was younger.
    This time, as I stood there like that, waiting, nothing happened. I turned to see what was up, and saw in my father’s facesomething I had never seen there before. I don’t know what it was, but his face was red and he was blinking, and when he saw me turn, he hit me twice—harder than other times, harder than ever before—and I felt awful enough to puke.
    â€œI’m ashamed of you,” my father said. “Pull your pants up!” he said.
    I didn’t want to move because it hurt, but I did what he told me to do. I turned around, faced him, and pulled up my shorts, and then my pants. His face got redder and he was still blinking and he did something else then too. Something new. His upper lip quivered a little, though you could tell he was trying to act like his lip wasn’t doing that.
    It was then that I realized my awful feeling was a feeling for him, not for me, and that I’m ashamed of you , is what I should have been saying then to him. So I looked him straight in the eye, and I did say it: I’m ashamed of you , not out loud, but in my head, and even though I didn’t say it