Chapter 3 #2
Ben shrugged. “Somebody did.”
“It wasn’t William.” My voice came out sharper than I intended.
My son was careful. He was considerate. He didn’t break things, didn’t damage property, didn’t do the kinds of thoughtless, careless things that six-year-old boys supposedly did.
Although I wished he did. I’d gladly pay to help fix a fence if it meant William was being silly and rambunctious. “He wouldn’t do that.”
Ben didn’t argue. Didn’t push. He just stood there with that maddeningly calm expression and said, “I didn’t break it. You didn’t either.”
The logic sat between us, plain and annoying.
“Process of elimination,” he added.
I wanted to argue. I had nothing to argue with.
He wasn’t wrong about the math—somebody had broken the slat, and the list of candidates was short.
But the certainty in his voice, the quiet assumption that William was responsible, landed on something raw in me that had nothing to do with this man or this fence.
William frozen in Craig’s kitchen. The way he’d tried to make himself invisible while Craig screamed at him over fucking dirt on the floor.
This wasn’t that. I knew this wasn’t that. Ben wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t even being unkind. But the feeling was the same—someone looking at my child and seeing a fault.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said, my voice tight and controlled.
“Appreciate it.”
I was about to step down off the crate—conversation over, neighborly goodwill officially exhausted—when the back door opened and William stepped out.
He was still in his pajamas, the flannel ones with the rockets on them, his hair sticking up on one side from sleep. He took in the scene—me standing on a crate at the fence, a stranger on the other side—and stopped in the middle of the yard.
He didn’t come closer. One hand found the hem of his pajama shirt and held it, his weight shifting to his back foot, creating distance without actually moving. His eyes went to Ben first, then to me, then back to Ben, checking and rechecking.
“Hey, buddy.” I kept my voice easy. Warm. “Come here.”
He walked over slowly. When he reached me, I helped him up onto the crate.
“William, this is Mr. Ben. He lives next door.”
“Hi,” William said, in the small, polite voice he used with adults he hadn’t decided about yet.
Ben gave him a nod. “Hey.”
“William.” I crouched down on the crate, bringing myself closer to his level. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. Okay?”
He nodded.
“Did you break one of the fence slats? The ones between our yard and Ben’s?”
“No.” The answer came quick and immediate.
But his hands were moving. Fingers pulling at the hem of his pajama shirt again, twisting the fabric, as they always did when the truth was more complicated than the words coming out of his mouth.
Shit. Maybe he had broken it.
“William?”
“I didn’t break it.” He looked at me then, and his eyes were wide and earnest and not quite meeting mine.
He was telling the truth—or his version of it.
I was sure of that. William didn’t lie outright.
He just…left things out sometimes. Held pieces back when the full picture felt too risky to share.
If he was lying, I’d deal with it later. Right now, I just wanted him to know he was safe.
“Okay.” I smoothed his hair, the piece sticking up on the side. “I believe you.”
I did believe him. I just didn’t believe that was the whole story.
When I straightened and looked back over the fence, Ben was watching. Not staring—watching. Like someone watched a situation unfold when they were used to reading the dynamics of a room. His eyes moved from William to me and then away, back to the fence, back to his work.
Whatever he’d seen in that exchange, he kept it to himself.
“Mr. Ben has a dog,” I said, watching William’s face. “We need to make sure the fence doesn’t get broken so the dog doesn’t get out. His name is Jolly.”
Something happened in William’s expression. A flicker—his eyes cutting sideways toward Ben’s house, a stillness that settled over him for just a second before he looked down at his feet.
“Jolly,” he whispered. “Like Santa.”
“Yes.” I squeezed his shoulder. “So let’s make sure nothing happens to the fence, okay?”
He nodded, still looking down at his feet. “Because Jolly.”
“Right.” I turned to Ben. “We’ll be sure not to break anything.”
“Thank you.”
Two words. We were back to two words.
“Nice to meet you, Ben.”
He gave a single nod. Then picked up the hammer.
I stepped down from the crate, took William’s hand, and walked back toward the house. Behind us, the hammering resumed—steady, precise, already done with us.
“Mom?” William tugged my hand as we reached the back door. “Is Jolly nice?”
The question came out careful, almost hopeful, and something about it snagged in my chest.
“I don’t know, buddy. He’s actually a police K9 dog, so I’m not sure. We’d have to ask Mr. Ben.”
“Oh.” He turned the word over like he was examining it for more information. Then he went inside to find his cereal, and I stood on the deck for a moment longer, listening to the sound of a hammer driving nails into wood that was already perfectly set.
I went back to the kitchen table. Back to my coffee, which had gone cold. Back to the Barley sketches.
I was annoyed. That was the dominant feeling—at having my Saturday hijacked, at standing on a crate in my pajamas making conversation with someone who clearly had no interest in being conversed with, at being told my son had broken something he hadn’t broken. Maybe.
I picked up my pencil. Set it down again.
The image that kept surfacing wasn’t the argument about the fence.
It was the moment when Ben opened his back door—his hand dropping to the dog’s head, the low voice I couldn’t hear, the way his entire face had changed for that one unguarded second.
The tenderness in it. How quickly it had disappeared when he’d turned back to me, locked down again, all that warmth sealed behind a face that gave nothing away.
I didn’t want to be thinking about that. I wanted to be thinking about the fence or the accusation or the fact that my quiet Saturday was ruined.
Anything that kept me in the category of annoyed rather than whatever this was—this low, unwelcome hum of awareness that I hadn’t felt in a long time and wasn’t sure I wanted to feel again.
I picked up the pencil and resumed working on Barley’s eyes. The softening around the lids, the angle of the gaze. That quality of steady, unguarded attention I’d been chasing for days.
It still wasn’t right. Close—closer than before, maybe—but whatever I was reaching for kept slipping just out of range, like a word on the tip of my tongue that wouldn’t come.
I set down the pencil and went to reheat my coffee.
William was at the kitchen table now, eating cereal, his feet swinging under the chair. He watched me put my mug in the microwave and press the button.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“I’ll be really careful with the fence. I won’t break it.”
Something about the way he said it—earnest, unprompted, like he’d been rehearsing it while he poured his cereal—made me turn around and look at him.
“I know you won’t.” I leaned against the counter. “But William, if something did happen to the fence, even by accident, you can tell me. You wouldn’t be in trouble.”
He nodded quickly, eyes on his cereal bowl. “I know.”
“I mean it. Even if it’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated.” He took a careful bite. “I just want to make sure nothing happens to the fence.”
For a kid who said he hadn’t broken it, he seemed awfully invested in making sure it stayed intact.