No way...no way. Can't let Mama holler again before I reach my oatmeal. I slink into my seat, praying my buttons are straight, my ponytail's neat enough to keep rage from rising. Daddy's place isn't set so I know it's me eating alone, Mama at the stove huffing. I wrap my hands around the bowl and pray for heat to crawl into my fingers. I think about last winter and Granma dying"how the funeral home was so hot it near put my bones to sleep. I'm not wishing for anyone to die, but I wouldn't mind feeling that warmth seep through me now.

I think the dead might know what I'm thinking and lift my eyes to the window"softly, so Mama won't know I'm dreaming. A tiny white picket fence draws a line between the dead and us living, its wilting stakes marking the ground where Grandma's grandparents were put to earth. Rules are different now; Grandma got buried up in town at the graveyard heaving with marble markers and polished granite. The town cemetery has a fence made of black iron stretching taller than Daddy. I take a bite of oats, too milky for my liking but my mouth has long forgotten how to complain. My tongue sits as silent as the dead sleeping inside our white picket fence.

The only thing colder than my toes must be those pickets asked to stand up against the beating wind each day winter breathes. I wrinkle my toes in my boots and they cuss with cold. They'll warm some at school where Mama's thundering behind isn't hogging the stove's heat. She rattles an iron skillet onto a burner and I near jump out of my seat. But the banging's not for me this time.

Oatmeal's cooling too fast; school bus ain't coming fast enough. Mama's huffing is growing louder, fixing to aim at me. I stare at the fence like it's a jewelry box holding gems of peace and necklaces of forever sleep. The corner posts of the fence are stripped bare by the weather. Moss paints the wood a sickly green. Only on the north side; the side I see from my bedroom window. Snow's hiding the bottom edges now, softening the dagger tops of each arrow picket.

At school we have a chain link fence, made of wire and smart squares. It holds its shape no matter how hard the wind pushes. Teacher says it keeps us safe during recess. For two weeks ice has been clinging to the fence. When the sun hits, that ice shines like a rainbow of crystals. Never stops amazing me how white on white can start all the colors of the universe dancing.

I scrape the last soaked oats from the bottom of my bowl as quiet as I can with a metal spoon. Don't want to wake what's resting for now in Mama. A hunk of maple sweetens my mouth and I wonder for the millionth time about the people our white picket fence keeps safe. Inside its sorry square are six jagged markers, two so tiny they'd announce to any stranger that children are buried beneath. Daddy's ancestors, though no one says more than that. I used to think the white picket fence kept me safe from the dead, made it so they couldn't walk into my world.

The door hinges creak and my eyes dart to the noise. The front door opens, letting a slice of white draw into the kitchen, as straight as a fence picket. It's the same stream of light I see when Daddy comes to my room, sloppy from whiskey, parceling out hurt. The bus horn sets my heart beating again and I reach for my bag, not worrying one ounce about the cold or my jacket. Right now I've got my dreams pinned on the safety of that chain link fence.