Page 337 of Property of Whiskey

“Battle damage.”

Her eyes get huge. “You fought somebody?”

“Yep.”

“Did you win?”

Twila glances at me. “Mostly.”

I snort. “She won.”

Wren looks up at me. “Did Daddy help?”

Twila’s expression changes.

So does mine.

She lets go of my hand and kneels until she’s eye level with Wren.

“When I asked him to.”

Wren nods like that is obviously the correct answer. “That’s good.”

Then she looks at me. “Daddy helps too much sometimes.”

From across the room, Mama says, “Been telling him that forty years.”

I turn.

Wren grabs Twila’s hand. “Come see Prickle.”

I close my eyes. “No.”

She looks at me. “What?”

“No more Prickle.”

“You can’t ban him.”

“I can ban anything in my house.”

“He don’t live in the house.”

“That somehow makes this harder.”

Twila smiles. “I’ll look.”

“Of course you will.”

Wren pulls her toward the coloring table.

I watch them go.

Twila sits in the chair beside Wren while Mama drifts toward the coffee pot, leaving the two of them together with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast.

The new drawing shows Prickle again with long skinny legs, crooked antlers, and those jagged spines down his back. This time there’s a small black figure near the edge of the trees.

Twila points toward it. “Who’s that?”