"What are you doing still in bed, young man?" He cowered away from me. "What's a matter with you?"
"Kari got a whipping, with dad's belt. It must have hurt her something awful!"
"That's a private thing between your sister and Dad and me. It doesn't concern you. Karen did something very naughty," and I added very hesitantly, "and she was punished for what she did."
He began to cry. "Did you have to put salve-stuff on her bottom so it would stop hurting? Is she going stay in bed for two days?"
"No. Of course not. Karen's fine now. It's all over." I said. "She's already gone to school. You don't have to cry." I put my arms around him.
"Am I going to get whipped with daddy's belt too? I don't want red marks!"
"Of course not. No one is going to be hit from here on. Your daddy and I talked about it. Besides, you haven't done anything bad."
"What happens if I do something bad?"
"I think we should discuss that as a family. We have to set up some guide lines, so you know what our rules are and what the punishment will be if you break them."
"I broke the rules," he blubbered, "I went with Kari. Don't let Dad beat me!"
I sank to my knees by the bed. I was speechless. I managed to console Timmy enough to get him off to school. I answered his questioning eyes by saying we would talk about it later but he would not be whipped, as he called it. That seemed to appease him, as if no other punishment was a cause for concern.
Once more, I was devastated. That Karen would take her little brother to as dangerous a place as the quarry compounded her misdeed ten-fold. What would I do with this knowledge? If I told Paul, I couldn't imagine his reaction after seeing him strike Karen. I was afraid our tenuous agreement about my establishing rules and consequences would go up in smoke. It was the most inadequate I'd felt as a parent since these two children appeared in my life.
I plodded through the day, most of it spent in the toy store, my mind not on what I was doing but on how to address the situation at home. Mrs. Peek sensed I was not myself but didn't interfere. Timmy spent the afternoon in the store with Mrs. Peck showing him a new game while I moped around, pretending to sort newly arrived merchandise. It was Thursday, one of Karen's soccer game days. Her team played away so I didn't attend. Timmy and I ate alone as Karen and the other team members would eat supper on the road.