Ruth I didn't know what to think exactly, only that Aunt Mandy had probably been with Arthur's father sometime since I'd last used the boat, which was weeks and weeks ago. Although that was less surprising than it might have been, now that I knew they'd been acquainted with each other. Still, I didn't think anyone else, not even Imogene, should find that out, at least until Mr. Owens turned up with a reasonable explanation for where he'd been. Thinking about it gave me the funny idea Aunt Mandy might be hiding him somewhere on the farm, and I started to look over my shoulder once in a while, when I was in the barn or the root cellar. I was afraid she had secrets she'd not yet told me, and I didn't want to stumble onto them unaware.

Even less did I want to join her in one, so I a.s.sured her that Arthur and Imogene were in no danger of marrying as long as Mr. Owens was missing. We could postpone her plan.

"I thought you told me Imogene was staying at the house day and night. Day and night," she repeated, and I had to admit this was true.

Once Aunt Mandy had decided what she wanted to do, she wouldn't leave it alone. That night she came into my bedroom waving the folded pages I'd brought home from the Owenses' in my pocketbook. She must have fished them out of the garbage.

"Where did you get these?" she demanded.

"From Mrs. Owens. I made mistakes."

"They're perfect. She'll know the paper, don't you think?" She held a page to the light, squinting at the watermark.

I pulled at the sheet, trying to take it from her. "I know I shouldn't have ruined so much, but she has a lot. I really don't think she'll miss it."

"No, I mean Imogene. Imogene'll know it, won't she?" She ran her fingers lightly, caressingly over the page. "This is what she uses there every day. My Imogene would remember such high-quality paper."

After I'd gone to bed, she drew a light pencil line to be sure she'd cut perfectly straight and sliced the spoiled ends off with the kitchen shears. The next morning she'd arranged the five sheets in a row beside my plate. "Which one looks best to you, Ruth? Which one is straightest?"

I didn't want to look at them. "I don't know," I said, as sullenly as I dared.

She looked hurt. "I thought you understood, Ruth, that this is for the best. For Imogene. You want to help Imogene, don't you? These little love affairs, they don't mean very much. Believe me." She tried to put her hand on my head, but I ducked. She wasn't thinking about Imogene. She was only thinking of herself. "How about this one?" she asked, pointing to a sheet.

Though I gave her no answer, she pretended I'd agreed. "We'll try this one first then."

"He probably has his own stationery," I said.

She seemed to consider this, then shook her head. "I don't see how you could get any of that without actually stealing it. Even if you could get into his room, you don't know where he keeps it."

"I'm not sneaking into his room!"

"Of course not. I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that." She patted my shoulder. It had been the same, I remembered, when she was keeping me home from school. She was always touching me, rea.s.suring herself that I was with her, that we were in this together. I'd liked it then.

When I got home that afternoon, she pushed a piece of brown paper and a pen at me. "Ruth, you have to help me with this." She led me to the kitchen table and tried to maneuver me into a chair. "I can't get it to sound right, like he'd say it. You know him, Ruth. You know what he'd say."

"I'm going to hang up my coat."

"Ruth, please," she said, following me, holding out her pitiful sheet of paper in both hands. "Please, Ruth. I can't do this by myself."

She wouldn't leave me alone. She would never leave me alone. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper and threw myself into the chair. I made the chair legs sc.r.a.pe hard against the floor, scratching the wood. But, as I sat with the blank page in front of me, Aunt Mandy hovering near my shoulder, nervously rubbing the scar on her thumb, I knew something had shifted between us. Not that she wanted my helpa"she was always wanting my help, my advice, my opinion. But before this she'd ask me what I thought only to confirm what she'd already decided. When she asked if I liked the striped yellow curtains or the ones with the tiny red wheelbarrows printed on them, she knew which she liked, or which, as she would say, were best. I usually guessed right, and she was pleased. But this was different. This time she really needed my help; this time she really thought I did know best. She really couldn't do this thing without me.

"Sit down," I said, picking up the pen. "I can't think with you hanging over me like that." And then I began to write.

After all, we had to do it.

No, those are her words. We didn't have to do thata"there were other courses. But secretly, so secretly I hardly admitted it to myself, I wanted to do this as much as Aunt Mandy did. I even wished our story were true.

Aunt Mandy was pleased with the sixth draft. "This is perfect, Ruth. Perfect. I never would have thought to say it like this."

Dear Ruth, I come to you in my darkest hour to ask your advice, since I know you love Imogene and would, above all others, know how best to make her happy. Something has happened to me that I can't explain or even understand myself, something I would've given all my future happiness to have avoided. There is no pretty way to put it, so I'll say it out in all its hideousnessa"I've fallen in love with another. Yes, there it is. Imogene will always be dear to me, but dear as a sister, not as a wife. That is my terrible secret.

I'll keep it secret, Ruth, if you so advise. I know Imogene and I could have a fine life together. I know I could make her comfortable and happy. But wouldn't I be wrong to marry her now, knowing how I feel about someone else? Were I to let her go, wouldn't she soon find someone better who would love her as she deserves? I believe it's true, and yet I can't bear to hurt her. I want to do as she would wish, and I write to you as one who knows her wishes better than anyone. What shall I do?

I thought it was a little formal. Words like "darkest hour" and "hideousness" and "future happiness" sounded unnatural, as if I'd copied them from a book, but Aunt Mandy claimed the letter was exactly the way a man would write, if he were trying to show he was taking a matter seriously.

We had a model for his signature from a book he'd lent me, but we couldn't copy his hand well enough to write the whole thing out. Anyway, Aunt Mandy reasoned, Imogene probably wouldn't think it odd that Arthur would type such a letter. Who knew what form a message like that should take?

I was supposed to type it during the noon break, but when I pulled it out of my satchel the next day, I could hardly stand to look at it. I would have thrown it in the trash, if I hadn't worried that someone like Myrtle or Lillian would pull it out.

"There were too many people around," I lied when I got home. "I don't see how I'm going to be able to do it."

Aunt Mandy went upstairs and closed her door.

In the morning, though, she was cheerful again. "I just know you'll get a chance to type it today, Ruth," she said. "We have to do this as soon as possible. You never know what might happen."

That day at noon, when Lillian, who'd gone out to the corridor to get her sandwich, came running back in, squealing, "A lady's got kittens out there," I knew who the lady was. One of our barn cats was just weaning her late litter.

I would never have thought that a box of kittens would distract a roomful of business students, but it did. Or at least it kept the girls I usually ate with from wondering why I was pecking away at my machine. Even Myrtle, who came back in when I was in the middle of the second paragraph, had a gray tabby clinging to her shoulder.

"You never said your aunt was so nice, Ruth. She thinks this little sweetie is just perfect for me." She kissed its head, and the kitten, scared to be so high off the ground, cried plaintively. "Baby, what's the trouble?" she cooed, cradling it at her breast. "I'll finish that for you, if you want to go out and say h.e.l.lo. Brown'll never know the difference."

"I'm almost done," I said, as lightly as I could, and waved her away.

I'd typed slowly and made only three mistakes. These I corrected by covering the words with x's. The errors didn't bother me. A letter like that shouldn't be perfect.

That evening I remembered my grandfather's pen with its thick stock, made for a masculine hand, and without prodding I dipped it in black ink and practiced writing Arthur's name over and over until the signature looked identical to the one in my book, until I could sign "Arthur Owens" to that letter as if writing my own name. Aunt Mandy's eyes, across the table, shone in the lamplight. We had done it.

That night we couldn't bear to part, even for sleep. She followed me into my room and watched me undress, and when she'd pulled the covers over my shoulder, she lay on top of them beside me, as she had when I was a child, so that I fell asleep, pinned tight under the quilt, her head behind mine on the pillow.

When I awoke, I could hear her already in the kitchen, grinding the coffee. In the fresh dawn, the letter on my nightstand looked blatantly false. But I would try it, I told myself, for Aunt Mandy's sake. If it didn't work, there was always the truth.

"Yes?" Ellen said, answering the door. "Oh, it's you." She frowned. "I don't think Mrs. Owens is doing any work today. Anyway, Miss Lindgren is here."

"It's Genie, Miss Lindgren, I want to see."

"Miss Lindgren shouldn't be inviting her friends here, time like this."

"She didn't invite me. I mean, I won't stay long. I just need to talk to her about something. It's very important."

"Something about Mr. Owens? You know something?"

Ruth shook her head, surprised. "No, nothing like that."

Ellen shut the door without another word, and Ruth waited uncertainly. She was about to knock again when Imogene opened the door.

"Ruth!" Imogene threw her arms around her friend. "How'd you know I wanted you to come? Let's go for a walk," she said, pulling the door closed behind her. "I have to get out of this house.

"I'm worried," she said as they wandered down the slope to the edge of the lake. "I don't know if they'd rather he ran away or was dead."

Drawn by the scudding waves, winking with white-gold sunbursts, they kept walking to the end of the pier. A keen edge to the wind, a hint of the meanness to come, routed the vestiges of summer. If not for the disappearance of Clement Owens, the pier on which they stood would have been dismantled days before, the house in which all of the Owenses now gathered would have emptied.

Ruth was giddy with nervousness. "I've got to show you something," she said finally, drawing the letter from her pocket with shaking fingers. Her heart beat so hard as she pa.s.sed the paper into Imogene's hand that she thought it might suddenly cause her to leap into the water like a frog.

The wind tugged at the page, but Imogene held it firmly, reading it once and then again. "I don't understand. He sent this to you?"

Ruth nodded.

"When?"

"A day or two ago maybe. I'm not sure. It came in the mail yesterday."

Imogene read the letter again. "I don't understand," she repeated. "How can he love someone else? Who else is there?" She looked at Ruth with eyes so stricken that Ruth's fingers quivered to s.n.a.t.c.h back the page and expose her lie. She didn't want it to be true anymore. No, she wanted to cry, he loves you, only you.

"It's impossible. He hasn't even seen anyone else. I don't believe it." She held the letter up to read it again.

The paper shivering in Imogene's hand started an answering tremble in Ruth's limbs and jaw. She clenched her teeth and trained her eyes on the white triangle of a sail skimming the waves far out on the water. Under her feet, the boards rose and fell sickeningly. Imogene's hand gripped her arm, and she turned, following her friend's gaze toward the sh.o.r.e. Arthur was coming down the pier toward them.

At first Ruth panicked at the idea of being caught in her lie. Their lie. Aunt Mandy's and hers. She had to hold herself still to keep from yanking her arm from Imogene's grasp and bolting off the pier. Shh, she told herself, shh. She closed her eyes. If they found out, all right. All right. Wasn't that what she'd wanted from the beginning? She'd tried, for Aunt Mandy's sake, but it hadn't worked. Arthur would swear he hadn't written the letter, and Imo-gene would believe him. They would look at her, mystified. What did she know?

She'd tell them the truth. It would be hard, especially now with Clement Owens missing, to say such things about his father, their father, and Aunt Mandy would be angry. Aunt Mandy, betrayed, would be a Ruth couldn't even imagine a crazy? Murderous?

Already, Imogene was holding the letter out to him. "Arthur, is this true?"

"Is what true? Is it something about my father? What does it say?"

"Don't pretend with me. You know what it says. Just tell me if it's true."

He tried to take the letter, but she jerked it from his fingers. "Just tell me," she demanded, snapping the words and thrusting her face at him, defiantly. "Do you love someone else?" Her final words dissolved into a sob, and as she p.r.o.nounced them, she lost her grip on the page, and the wind, seizing its chance, whipped the letter away.

No, Genie, Ruth thought desperately, of course he doesn't. She could almost hear him saying those words, could almost see him pulling Imogene close against his warm body to rea.s.sure her.

But he stepped back. "Why are you asking me this now?" His face twisted in anger. "My father may be dead. I can't talk about this now!"

"I don't want to talk about it." Imogene's voice was calm, but she reached behind her, trying to find Ruth's hand. "I only want a simple answer. Yes or no."

Arthur looked down. He looked, Ruth thought, like a shamed little boy. The water, rolling pebbles along the sh.o.r.e, was deafening. Answer, she thought, say no. But the lifeline she was trying silently to throw him fell short.

"I don't know," he whispered.

Imogene gasped and swayed, and Ruth lifted her arms to catch her, but the weakness lasted only an instant. Surging forward, she shoved at Arthur's chest with both hands. She wasn't very stronga"if he'd stood firm, he probably could have kept his balance, but, perhaps from surprise or out of politeness or because he saw a means of escape, he staggered back and fell off the pier with a splash. Imogene ran then, limping on her sore ankle, across the steep lawn and up the drive behind the house, her sleeves and skirt billowing like sails.

Chapter Nineteen.

Ruth Imogene was waiting for me halfway along the dirt lane that snaked up the hill to the main road. She'd gone just far enough to be out of sight of the house, before she veered into the woods and collapsed on the ground, sobbing. I sank down beside her, but I couldn't touch her. Guilt hugged me all around, pinning my arms at my sides. Her misery was my doing, mine and Aunt Mandy's. Like witches, we'd made Arthur love someone else.

"I feel like such a fool," Imogene said finally, lifting her head and wiping her nose.

"You're not a fool." Edging closer toward telling her the truth, I reached to touch her hair. "He loves you," I said. I would have said anything to please her, but I believed this to be true. "He told me so himself that day I was here."

"You saw him that day?" Imogene sniffed, raising herself until she was sitting up, leaning against a tree.

"Yes, we a" but I changed my mind and didn't go on. Remembering that afternoon made me squirm. I folded my hands in my lap, trying not to think of how I'd felt when his finger had brushed my forehead. "He said you were something," I said loudly. "He said any man would be lucky to marry you."

"Any man but him, I guess." Imogene was yanking at the feathery stalks of gra.s.s around her knees now, tearing them out one by one and flinging them away. "I hate him," she said, tugging at a whole handful of gra.s.s. "I hate everything about him." When the gra.s.s refused to let go of the earth, she fell forward, burying her face in her knees. "I love him so much! How could he do this to me?" With one fist, she pounded at the ground. "Oh, Ruth," she suddenly gasped, sitting up and pressing her hands against her chest. "You can't imagine how it hurts here. It actually hurts, like something cracked inside."

Why did she suppose I couldn't imagine? I knew what that deep bruise was like. I'd felt it when she so easily rearranged the plans she'd made for us, when I knew she'd never be with me again, never the same way with me.

"Maybe it's because of his father. Do you think? I shouldn't have been so pushy. After all, this must be a horrible time for him, just horrible. He's not really himself."

I looked away from her. The woods were so thick, my gaze could penetrate no farther than a few yards all around, although I knew that in a month or so, when the leaves had fallen, the lake would be visible clear to the other side.

"I know what." I grabbed Imogene's arm. I wanted her to feel I meant it. "Let's go to Chicago."

She drew back, but I didn't let her go.

"You know, how we used to talk about. You can take the job Mrs. Owens said she'd get for you. Maybe she knows one for me too. Anyway, I can find something." I released her then and sat back. I waited.

Imogene put her fingers to her mouth and tugged at a cuticle with her teeth. "Go to Chicago?"

"Yes. Go to Chicago. Like we said."

"But we don't know anyone in Chicago. Where would we stay?"

"I do. I know someone." Unable to sit still any longer, I got up and began to pace. "Aunt Mandy's friend, Miss Fox. We can stay with her until we find our apartment. She's always saying don't I want to come down for a visit, but Aunt Mandy'll never let me."

"What makes you think she'll let you now?"

"Oh, she won't let me, but I'm going to go anyhow. She's not my boss. She's not even my mother." I felt as though my insides, which had been twisted tight, like the elastic attached to the propeller of a balsa glider, had suddenly been released and were spinning free. Yes, I could go away. There would be places, whole cities, in which Aunt Mandy had no influence, where I wouldn't feel her hands, continually pulling and prodding, combing and smoothing, where I wouldn't need to think about whether Clement Owens would ever resurface or why my mother had drowned. I would be free of her.

"All right," Imogene said slowly. "All right. We'll go."

It had to be quick, I thought, quick. "Let's go right away. Tonight." I thought of Aunt Mandy sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, like a spider in her web, waiting to wrap her sticky threads around me.

"Tonight? Ruth, I'm going to have to convince my parents. I'm going to have to pack. And talk to Mrs. Owens. I don't know how soon she'll be able to talk to her friends. She has other problems right now, you know. And you have to talk to Miss Fox."

"We'll say we're only going for a short visit. You'll tell your parents you have to get away"a"I gestured down the hilla""you know, to forget all this. And maybe it'll just be a few days. Maybe we won't like it. But let's try. Why not try?"

She looked at me, tempted but a little scared, the same way she'd looked when I insisted on giving Bert Weiss my tooth. "All right," she said, "if you find out it's all right with Miss Fox, I'll meet you at the train tonight." She'd risen now, too, and smoothed her hair and her dress. Her face looked fresh, as if her tears had washed it. Her eyes were barely swollen. No one would ever guess that a minute before she'd been lying heartbroken on the ground.

At one point, as we continued up the winding lane, she stopped and looked back. "I had a feeling he was coming up behind us. That he was going to tell me it was all a mistake. A test or something." She looked at me. "Do you think he might realize he loves me after all?"