The room brightens. Ronny and I creep very quietly out of bed. I dress. Ronny is already dressed. We go through the kitchen, out the back door into the bare yard. Our father and stepmother sleep on a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. There are no toys here but we can make a little noise. We are very careful not to get the least amount of dirt on our clothes.

It is later. Ronny and I walk to church. I am three. Crossing the streets on the way is a little scary but Ronny holds my hand. He is five and won’t let any cars run over me. We decide to stay after Sunday school to go to church services. We walk up the aisle to get the little round cracker and grape juice from the preacher. Grownups look at us, around us. They whisper to each other but don’t speak to us. The juice is bitter. We don’t like it much.

We walk back to enter an empty house. The silence scares us a little.

We dare not make even a tiny mess in the house. We go to the backyard.

There is no place to hide here and Ring-around-the-Rosie would dirty our clothes on the grassless ground. There is a trellis which reaches the roof. Nothing grows on the trellis. We play monkey and climb to the roof.

We feel very big walking across the roof. I am three. I am a little scared, but Ronny takes my hand. He is five and won’t let me fall. We sit on the roof and watch the people on the block. There are parents playing with their children. Some people are sitting on porches, some under trees. A lot of cars are passing and some kids on bicycles. Other kids skate up and down the sidewalks. It is fun looking down on the people from our perch on the roof.

We see our father staggering towards the house. We run across the roof, scramble down the trellis, rush through the house into the bathroom. Pulling the curtain across behind us, we climb into the bathtub to hide. I am three. I am terrified. Ronny holds my hand. He is only five and cannot protect me.