I turned around slowly, unable to believe what I'd just heard.
"Daniel, your daughter was the one getting hit!"
"I have nothing left to say to your family. Daniel, I want a divorce!"
The second those words left my mouth, Lois's fury shifted into something else entirely.
She dropped to the ground, slapping her thighs, and started wailing.
"Old man! Old man, you get over here and look at this! Your son and his wife want me dead! They're trying to put me in the ground!"
"I broke my back raising two boys on my own, and now this woman's poisoned my son against his own mother!"
"Why didn't you take me with you, huh? I should just go join you—be done with it!"
Her wailing drew the neighbors out.
Slack season, everyone home, dinner just finished—one by one they drifted to their doorways and peered into the little courtyard.
"Hold on, isn't that the older Cox boy? What happened? Why's he back tonight? That his wife and daughter with him?"
"Word is the daughter-in-law's demanding a divorce. I'm right next door—heard every word of it."
"Lord have mercy, isn't he supposed to be the one who made it? Good job out in Riverton and everything? What's she divorcing him for?"
The whispers spread. Daniel's face went tight with humiliation.
He couldn't take it anymore. His hand shot up, aimed straight at me—the neighbors watching, his pride in shreds, and hitting me the only answer he had left.
Then a familiar voice reached everyone's ears.
"Stop!"
"What do you think you're doing!"
