It took only two rehearsals for Baby Celeste to learn how to walk to the arch and hand Mama the wedding ring for Mr. Fletcher. She had such a serious expression on her face the whole time, too. It brought laughter to everyone's lips but Betsy's.

"What a beautiful and wonderful little girl!"

Tani Austin cried.

Anyone could see how proud of herself Baby Celeste was, especially in the way she stepped back beside me, took my hand. and waited patiently for the rest of the wedding ceremony to continue. Betsy, on the other hand, let us know how bored she was by wearing earphones and listening to her music the whole time. I thought it wouldn't surprise me to see her do the same thing during the actual ceremony.

Mr. Fletcher ignored her and concentrated on Baby Celeste.

"She'll steal the show," he said. "But I'd enjoy being robbed by that sweet face any day."

Somehow. Betsy heard that over her music and paused to grimace smugly at him. She pretends not to care about her father's affections. I thought, but she doesn't hide her envy and jealousy when he shows how much he loves Baby Celeste, What good can come of all this? I continued to wonder. Why wasn't Mama afraid of it all? It wasn't beginning with any promise of hope and goodness.

In fact the first night Betsy slept in our home was a disturbing disappointment for Mr. Fletcher because she stayed away with her new boyfriend.

Dirk, all day and called to say she wouldn't be at dinner that night. She was going with friends to New York City and would be home late. Before Mr.

Fletcher could oppose her, she hung up. He came into the living room, shaking his head, and described the short conversation to Mama and me. I had the sense this was the first of many sessions like this to come.

She speaks so quickly, I can barely manage to get a word in," he groaned. And if I start to complain or ask a question, she speaks over me. Her mother used to do that. I'm Sorry, Sarah."

I wondered if it was possible to estimate how many times over the next few months he would be apologizing to Mama for his daughter's behavior.

"Well, she knows her way home. Well leave the door unlocked and the lights on," Mama told him without the slightest note of annoyance in her voice.

He nodded and dropped his defeated body into Grandpa Jordan's chair. He smiled with delight, commenting on how comfortable it was and how at home it made him feel. It made me wonder if marrying Mama would give him the ability to experience the spiritual powers in our home. Would he draw strength from them as she did? Mama glanced at me, her eyes twinkling. To my amazement she still looked happy about it all, even the impending problems Betsy would bring into the house.

I didn't wait up for Betsy. I was sure that Mr.

Fletcher did. however. He didn't go up to bed until late, sitting by the windows in the living room so he could watch for car headlights. Finally. Mama coaxed him up the stairs and into their bedroom. It was nearly morning when I woke up to the sounds of Betsy returning.

She did little to mask her entrance. She shut the front door hard enough to shake the walls, then stomped up the stairs, deliberately rattling the balustrade.

Mr. Fletcher had probably not slept at all. The moment she reached the landing. I heard him step out and whisper loudly. "Do you realize what time it is and how much noise you're making? You'll wake the baby."

"Why should I care what time it is? I'm not going to work tomorrow. I can't help it if that old, rickety stairway creaks. This place is just a big shack."

"Betsy," he said sharply.

"Well, it is. Tell everyone I would like to sleep all day and no one should bother me." She went into her room and slammed her door closed.

I heard Mama call to Mr. Fletcher. "Come on back. Dave. Get some rest. You're going to work in a few hours."

He muttered under his breath and went back into their bedroom.

No one tried to be any quieter than usual in the morning to please the princess. If anything. Mama deliberately banged doors and slammed dresser drawers. She spoke loudly to Baby Celeste and plodded down the stairs making more noise than Betsy had coming up a few hours earlier, Mr. Fletcher smiled at breakfast and shook his head, "It won't matter if we set off a bomb dawn here.

When that girl sleeps, it would take a crane to get her out of the bed."

Today was his last day to work before the wedding. He was taking the next day off and then they were to be married. He would take the following day off and then return to work, saying his vacation time for when Mama decided they should take the trip.

They thought it might be fun someday to drive up to Niagara Falls, just because it was the old-fashioned idea for a honeymoon. He had gotten some pamphlets and had them on the table in the living room, hopefully to get Betsy interested. When he had mentioned it before to her, she had complained about driving so far.

"I get nauseous in a car, and besides, what would I do?"

She smiled at him and me and Mama and added, "Why don't you two go and leave us at home.

We can care for the baby, can't we. Noble?"

The very idea of it, of being alone with her in this house, made me shake inside.

"You have trouble taking care of yourself, much less an infant," Mr. Fletcher told her.

She didn't get insulted. She just laughed that taunting laugh of hers and flipped one of the brochures.

You can count me out of this," she declared firmly. "I'll stay here and watch over the plants. You'd trust me with that, wouldn't you. Mrs. Atwell?"

She loved to taunt Mama by calling her Mrs.

Atwell instead of Sarah. I had no doubt that even after her father and Mama were married, she would still call her that.

"I think it would be nice if you started to call Sarah Morn," her father told her, and she shot him a look so furious, he was lucky her eyes couldn't launch darts.

"She's not my mom so why should I call her that?"

"She'll be the best mom you ever had." he replied. "I don't need a mother," she said, wagging her head.

"What do you need, Betsy'?" Mama asked her softly, her face full of interest.

"Money," Betsy cried, unable to deal with Mama's calmness. "so I can get the hell out of here."

"So get a job," her father said. "I"ll even help you find one."

She sat back with her arms so tightly crossed, she made the veins in her neck press against the skin until they looked embossed. She was soon in her sulk, and nothing anyone said or did would bring her out of it. It was better to just ignore her and go on to some other topic. What a happy home we're going to soon have. I thought.

As her father had predicted, the day after her New York trip Betsy didn't rise until it was already afternoon. We were having lunch, and when she came down, she unleashed a flow of complaints that seemed to nest in her mouth as comfortably as termites in damp, rotted wood.

"I can't sleep in that room! The bed is too soft and the windows sound like they're about to shatter when the wind hits them. I can't get the smell out of the room either, If I open the windows in there, mosquitos come through the holes in the screen. I need a fan or something."

"You seem to have slept well," Mama said, pretending surprise. "I didn't sleep well. I slept. Why do the closets have that odor?" "Mothballs," Mama told her.

"Mothballs? What are mothballs?"

"They keep moths away from the clothes so they don't eat holes through them." "Ugh. Bugs live in the house? We didn't have many bugs in our old house."

"We don't have them either. That's why I have the mothballs," Mama said dryly.

I don't know if it was just my imagination, but sometimes when Mama spoke to her, she had a small smile on her lips.

"The whole house needs to be sprayed with something that will kill the odors, if you ask me,"

Betsy whined.

She started to search the kitchen cabinets and the pantry for something to eat and grumbled her grievances about the food Mama had.

"There isn't even a doughnut here."

"That's not a nutritional breakfast," Mama told her. "I"ll fix you some toast and jam. The jam's homemade,"

"Oh. brother. Can you drive me to town or let me use your car?"

"No. I can't let you use the car. Your father didn't give me permission for that. and I have things to do before I can go into town. Amuse yourself for a while."

"Doing what?"

"Why don't you help Noble," Mama suggested.

I looked up at her quickly. Why was she putting Betsy on me?

"Doing what?"

"Noble, what are you up to today?"

"I wanted to start on gathering firewood, Mama."

"Firewood? It's still summer!" Betsy cried at me.

"The wood has to season and it needs to be split," I told her. I had deliberately chose work that she wouldn't be able to do.

"I'm not going to chop wood. You want me to have hands like yours, break my nails?"

I looked away. No. I don't want you to have hands like mine. I don't want to have hands like mine.

I thought.

"You can watch. Maybe. you can read. I'll give you a book to read to Baby Celeste, if you like. You should act her to know you better," Mama said.

Betsy stared at Mama, then glanced at Baby Celeste, who had just finished her lunch. "I still don't understand why you call her Baby Celeste and not just Celeste."

Mama had a way about her when someone other than me made her angry. She didn't like to show her rage, but because I knew her so well, knew every strand of her hair, every line in her face. I could see the subtle changes. Her mouth tightened slightly in the corners, her eyes narrowed just a bit and darkened, and the muscles in her neck stiffened before she formed a cold smile.

"If you must understand, explain it. I once had a child named Celeste,"

"I know all about her. My father talked about it enough."

"And so you know how I toxically lost her. My cousin graciously named her new baby after my lost daughter. Celeste, but we like to make a distinction for now. It's less painful. Memories can be like thorns in your heart," Mama said, moving closer to Betsy.

"I'm sure you have painful memories of your brother, after the tragic loss you and your father suffered. It's not something to be ashamed of, but it's something you don't want to experience constantly, now do you?" Mama was inches away from Betsy now, hovering as if she could make that happen. make Betsy suffer constantly.

Betsy's anger and hardness softened under Mama's gaze. For the first time, I saw a glint of fear in her. She retreated a step.

"I'm not that hungry," she declared, seized a piece of bread, and charged out of the room. We heard her go outside soon afterward.

"Old habits die hard," Mama told me, looking in her direction. "She'll come around or be in even more pain than she is now."

I said nothing, afraid that whatever I said.

Mama would take it wrong. Instead. I did what I had proposed I would. I went into the woods and began to cut firewood. Betsy watched me from the porch and then went into the house. Soon after she managed to get her new boyfriend to come out and pick her up.

She didn't tell Mama he was coming or that she was leaving either. Later, she returned with her father, went directly to her room, and then emerged to go out on another date with her boyfriend. She came home earlier, but made just as much noise. This time, her father ignored it. I imagined Mama told him to do The following day, because he was not working, Mr. Fletcher took Betsy shopping. He asked me if I wanted to go along. For a moment I was tempted to do so, but I glanced at Mama and then quickly shook my head and thanked him.

"What. Noble leave his precious plants and farm chores?" Betsy taunted. "He wouldn't know what to say to people unless they had leaves for ears and roots for leas."

I didn't defend myself. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. She smirked and said she wasn't that keen about going shopping either. She didn't really want to buy anything nice to wear to the wedding ceremony and dinner, but Mr. Fletcher bribed her, promising her the use of his car the day after the wedding. Once we had all seen what she bought to wear, we realized he would have been better off if he hadn't.

"Make an effort. Betsy, please, for all our sakes," he cajoled.

I hated to hear a grown man beg his own daughter like that. Maybe if he had been firmer with her, things would have turned out better. Among the antiques in the turret room was a wooden plaque.

Mama told me her great-grandfather once had it hanging on the wall in the hallway. It read. Spare the rod and spoil the child. She said her grandfather had bad memories of his father's harsh punishments, and once his father had died, he took the plaque off the wall and dumped it in the turret room. Mama wondered now if she shouldn't have nailed it to one of the walls in Betsy's room.

We didn't find out until the day of the wedding what Betsy had bought to wear. She wouldn't let her father see it either. He just gave her his credit card to use and she had it all in a box when she met him in the mall parking lot. The moment I set eyes on her. I knew she had chosen it for its shock value.

Twenty minutes before the wedding ceremony was to begin, she came downstairs wearing a navel-baring, stretch-jersey black dress with a skirt that was a good two inches above her knees. The material was so tight to her bosom that little was left to the imagination. She might as well have come out bare-breasted.

She had her hair pinned up and had enough makeup on her face to supply the entire cast of a Broadway musical, At least, that was what Mr.

Fletcher told her. Her eyeliner was too thick, for sure.

and with the heavy layers of bright red lipstick on her lips, she looked like a vampire who had just had a feeding.

Mama would not let her get the satisfaction of seeing her outrage. She flashed her a smile, then gave all her attention to our wedding guests, the most important ones for Mama being Mr. Bogart and his wife, as well as our attorney, Mr. Derward Lee Nokleby-Cook, and his wife, who was looking everywhere and at everything with a devouring hunger and interest. She had surely given herself the assignment of bringing back as much detail as possible to her friends about this wedding. Everyone was full of curiosity.

We knew that because Mr. Fletcher had come home with stories he was told in the drugstore. "They think were getting married in some sort of weird ritual. Some people have pretty wild imaginations."

"What sort of things are they saying?" Mama asked.

"Oh, just ignorant, stupid things," he replied, obviously not wanting to describe them.

"Some of the people I met think you're going to sacrifice a goat first and then smear the blood on your facts," Betsy eagerly told Mama.

Her father gave her a chastising look, but Betsy shrugged. "I can't help it if that's what they think," she whined. "Don't blame me."

"I'm amazed they found out," Mama said with a straight face.

"Excuse me?"

"The goat is being delivered in the morning."