Parallel scrapes and punctures that had warped the vinyl panels and nearly pulled them out in sections. More scratches on the overhanging eave where something had attempted to gain enough leverage to pull itself up onto the roof. I found a section of the trim from around my grandfather’s window broken on the ground and deep furrows in the wood where it looked like something had tried to dig into the seal around the pane to pry it out.Suddenly, I feared for more than our animals.There were large scraps of plywood in the rafters above the horse stables, leftovers from the construction of the chicken coop. I climbed up there and found the one I thought would fit best and returned to the trailer with a hammer and nails, which I used to board up my grandfather’s window. I was halfway around the house again when I turned around and went back to pound another dozen nails around the seal. By the time I was through, it would take nothing short of an act of God to get through that window.I went back inside and braced myself for a verbal lashing from my mother, but found her still asleep on the couch.
