“It won’t be long now,” Polly assured her. The banging inside the trailer was growing sluggish. Nodding, Ma Danko walked on.

Polly pulled up the backside of her full skirt and pinched it around her shoulders to keep warm. Ten minutes passed, fifteen. Finally the noise stopped. She stood and smoothed her skirt back into place. Turning the knob slowly so it wouldn’t make noise, she opened the door a couple of inches and peeked in.

Her mom was on the couch crying. Tom, the most recent stepfather, wasn’t anywhere in the kitchen-cum-living-room. American Bandstand was on the TV. Girls in fringed dresses were twisting in spotlights.

Polly slipped in and closed the door. The kitchen was a mess of dirty dishes. A Miller’s can lay on its side weeping beer onto the linoleum, but the lamps were still upright and none of the dishes looked broken.

All’s well that ends well, Polly thought. It was the title of a play they were reading in sophomore English. She set the geometry book on the kitchen counter and went to the couch to see if her mother was bleeding.

“What’re you lookin’ at,” Hilda Farmer snapped.

“Nothing,” Polly said. No blood, no swelling: Tom hadn’t hit her. Tom wasn’t so bad. He yelled a lot but he kept his hands to himself and never hit unless Hilda stayed in his face too long. Two of Hilda’s front teeth were missing, but that wasn’t Tom’s fault. It was nobody’s fault. They’d just rotted and the dentist had to pull them. The bridge with the false teeth was on the counter near the toaster. When Hilda started into fighting mode, she always took them out so they wouldn’t get broken.

“What’re you doin’ home?” Hilda demanded, slurring her words.